OUR FUTURE SKYSCRAPERS....ANY IDEAS????

[KennyLovesJAX]

I feel that city officials should seriously consider filling in the gaps in Downtown. Instead of grass Parking lots, corner stores and gas stations............how about a 600-700 foot skyscraper. I feel  downtown Jacksonville has tooooo much potential!!!! we have a beautiful waterfront downtown, a prime location in the center of the city.....WHY CANT JACKSONVILLE REALIZE THIS? but anyways, what type of skyscrapers do you all feel would suit downtown well???

[Timkin]

I personally would rather replicate some of the buildings we mindlessly demolished , than erect vertical buildings we cannot fill, when we have "sky scrapers" sitting empty now.... Such as theaters , stores, etc.   Turn the clock back to what used to work and work well in Downtown and not try to create another Chicago or Manhattan. 

[Ocklawaha]

I agree Tim. However I would like to see a few more tall towers, mostly because of the companies that built them and the many employees or residents that work and live in them. I was really looking forward to The St. Johns project, which is now in limbo, and the 70 floor 1 Biscayne tower duplicate that was once proposed. A couple of new tall towers between I-95/CSX and the Fuller Warren would give an illusion of width and depth that our CBD is larger then any other Florida city. Those extra tax dollars could go a long way toward saving some of the historic stock.

[reednavy]

I think downtown Jax needs to concentrate more on mid-rise infill than more skyscrapers. Yes it makes a more "pow!" presence, but good infill can do so much more.

[JFman00]

Anything mixed-use and integrated into the urban environment. Basically the opposite of the high-rises on the Southbank.

[Anti redneck]

Maybe they want to be small. That probably explains all the over-regulation. But honestly, how can we talk about adding skyscrapers when there are already a bunch of empty ones?

[Timkin]

Maybe they want to be small. That probably explains all the over-regulation. But honestly, how can we talk about adding skyscrapers when there are already a bunch of empty ones?

Exactly, A R.    I am not anti- skyscraper... I simply do not see them happening when some of them we presently have in place sit mostly empty.   I guess in part I ran the thread off topic, not intentionally .  We certainly have space for them. I think first we need to utilize what we have, and bring destinations back to our downtown , such as those we , for whatever reason , decided to bulldoze and  either do away with entirely or put out at SJTC.

Highrises can work.. they did 60 years ago and they still can but we still must come up with ways to bring jobs, people and destinations back to downtown.   

[JFman00]

Until there's incentive for clustering, either in the form of a diversity of uses or infrastructure (i.e. transit) support, there's no rhyme or reason for increasing density. The commercial buildings downtown and in Brooklyn remind me of Deerwood and the Berkman/Strand/Peninsula look more like 14402 Marina San Pablo off of Butler than urban high-rises. Simply put, downtown can't compete with Southside unless it offers something that Southside doesn't.

[Garden guy]

If we want our DT to grow we could start by banning any suggestions from first baptist which would help remove some of the goodole christian boy redneck attitudes running rampent down there...personally id like to ban the idea of no more than one councilmen from the same churches. Seems to me that conservative ideas rules and regulations dampen any progressive modern growth... maybe a big skyscraper right on top of fbc..lol...

[Jdog]

Just visited Cincy, St. Louis, and Oklahoma City.  Took a five mile walk on the OKC "riverwalk" / biking path.  The St. Johns is heaven and our riverwalk is unbelievably superior than what those cities even have the possibility of creating.  We can bend down and virtually touch our (non-muddy, non-massively embanked) river from our walks. 

There are (were) density / potential density areas in Jax, still I wonder if it's fair to say there is a little bit of a downside (not that I'd change the natural set-up in anyway if I were god) with such a nice river: Does the central city stretch out a bit trying to hug  the river?  IE, the Fidelity area, east to central Brooklyn, Northbank, and Southbank?

I've wondered if you can accept that and create density in the stretched out development on the river better - both sides at the same time?  Maybe a lot of green park space - very good biking - in the shipyards area, JEA generating station area, to force density west and across on the river from each other?  You'd have better transit to support quick movement along the north and southbank "corridors" hugging the rivers...yes, close a lane on the Main Street bridge for crossing from northbank and southbank...anyway to get quick movement from the northbank and southbank dense areas...dead end streets that lead to the river (I've always wondered, for example, if you could have had a different lay-out / different road pattern so that entry to the Hyatt would have been on the west and east side of the building so that you'd have only a walking area / seating for the hotel restaurant between the hotel and the river...having the road there sucks).   

Maybe the river is too much of an obstacle to have strong urban density on both sides...maybe a dense area to force buildings up has to be more targeted just on the northbank...     

   


 




 

 

[Jdog]

...beyond my prior babbling though...

I think it would be cool to have something fill in the parking area south of RCBC.  Something with a bit of curvature mimicking the fountain curve, allowing views of the fountain, river, northbank at the same time...not too close to the fountain...continued great view and access to the fountain from San Marco Blvd traffic / pedestrians south of the fountain...obviously parking / parking garage space for RCBC (but it might be unfair to RCBC if the visibility of it were hampered...it's got to be allowed to thrive...I know there's a deal with the city to keep it, and it should be kept, of course, I don't know much about the exact structure of the deal)...not too tall building..5 to 15 stories to keep from hawking over the park but only providing shaping...

[simms3]

The history of skyscraper development in Jacksonville is and has been completely driven by single owner-operators.  Independent Life built the current Wells Fargo Center for its own use.  Barnett Bank built the current Bank of America tower for its own use.  Gulf Life the same.  BCBS the same.  Prudential the same.  CSX the same.  Government entities obviously the same.

There has been very little traditional office development and certainly no spec development in the city.  The most recent and one of the few examples of traditional office development was that of Hallmark Partners' Everbank Plaza/501 Riverside Ave with several tenants signed on for nearly all the space before construction commenced.

Jacksonville won't see another skyscraper until its economy changes whereby there are more traditional office users.  Our insurance industry went from one of corporate offices to support services, thereby reducing the need for traditional clustered class A office space.

I can't stress enough the clustering.

Downtown Atlanta - 3 of the big 4 accounting (Ernst & Young, Deloitte, KPMG...PwC is in Midtown), government agencies

Midtown Atlanta - almost all the major law firms (King & Spalding HQ, Alston & Bird HQ and DLA Piper in same building, Jones Day, Holland & Knight, McGuire Woods, Bryan Cave, Seyfarth Shaw, Troutman Sanders HQ, Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton HQ, Sutherland Asbill & Brennan HQ, Fisher & Phillips HQ, Arnall Golden Gregory HQ)

Banks - Suntrust (corporate is downtown), BOA, Wells Fargo, Regions, PNC, BB&T

Buckhead - Investment Banks/Advisors (Merrill Lynch, UBS, Morgan Stanley Smith Barney, Bain & Co, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, Credit Suisse, Citi, Morgan Keegan, Deutsche Bank, ING Group, Blackstone, SunTrust Robinson Humphrey, Nomura Securities, RBS, Macquarie Group, Guggenheim Partners, Lazard, Wells Fargo Securities)

Real Estate firms (CBRE, JLL, all the private groups, Reznick Group, which is the country's largest CRE focused accounting firm...Cushman is downtown)


On top of this the clustering happens in individual buildings.  3414 Peachtree (Monarch Tower) is literally a mini Wall St, and so is Terminus.  ALl the Midtown buildings are stacked almost entirely with big 100 law firms, either local HQ or branch offices of prestigious firms from NYC/Chicago.

191 Peachtree downtown is home to several architectural firms (Cooper Cary, HOK, HKS) and 999 Peachtree is also stacked with architectural firms (Gensler, Heery Int'l. and others).

There's a rundown of firms that use skyscrapers and how clustering works when available.  Jacksonville's whole economy needs to change first before firms start going into high rise office space.  I don't think any major law firms outside of Foley & Lardner and Holland & Knight have offices in Jax.  I don't think any major architecture firms have offices in Jax.  I don't think any big accounting firms have offices in Jax.

[Ocklawaha]

If we want our DT to grow we could start by banning any suggestions from first baptist which would help remove some of the goodole christian boy redneck attitudes running rampent down there...personally id like to ban the idea of no more than one councilmen from the same churches. Seems to me that conservative ideas rules and regulations dampen any progressive modern growth... maybe a big skyscraper right on top of fbc..lol...

garden guy this is incredibly tiresome.  And it wasn't good old boy conservatives that destroyed the downtown, it was well meaning liberals, mostly.

It's no use Stephen, in the name of 'openness', 'liberal acceptance,' 'free thinking,' and 'progressive ideals, this guy spends 99% of his time on here spewing hate and bias, rarely contributing anything of substance to our conversations. He would apparently rewrite our Constitution to suit his own narrow minded ideas. He is also coming across as woefully ignorant of the fact that FBC is the ONLY major downtown institution to follow through on the downtown master plans. Because he can't tolerate people with different beliefs, he accuses his victims of being the ones who are 'redneck', 'Christian' and close minded.

I think he's somewhere just to the left of STJR on the Skyway!

OCKLAWAHA

[jerry cornwell]

Maybe they want to be small. That probably explains all the over-regulation. But honestly, how can we talk about adding skyscrapers when there are already a bunch of empty ones?

Exactly, A R.    I am not anti- skyscraper... I simply do not see them happening when some of them we presently have in place sit mostly empty.   I guess in part I ran the thread off topic, not intentionally .  We certainly have space for them. I think first we need to utilize what we have, and bring destinations back to our downtown , such as those we , for whatever reason , decided to bulldoze and  either do away with entirely or put out at SJTC.

Highrises can work.. they did 60 years ago and they still can but we still must come up with ways to bring jobs, people and destinations back to downtown.   

All the new skyscapers will be down upon the I-95 corridor. DT wont compete against such offerings. Parking, space, employee convenience makes downtown on a business aspect low on the list.
  The future of DT lays in the hands of people like Ron Chamblin, excellently covered by the thread and story in MetroJax.
Skyscapers, just like the NBA, arnt in the immediate future.
  But, aesthetically, there are lots of ideas to ponder.

[Timkin]

If we want our DT to grow we could start by banning any suggestions from first baptist which would help remove some of the goodole christian boy redneck attitudes running rampent down there...personally id like to ban the idea of no more than one councilmen from the same churches. Seems to me that conservative ideas rules and regulations dampen any progressive modern growth... maybe a big skyscraper right on top of fbc..lol...