Historic Neighborhoods & Downtown Jax Revitalization

[Bill Hoff]

Historic neighborhoods could be a tool as Jacksonville looks to revitalize downtown

Talk to any downtown revitalizer long enough and the issue of residents will come up, part of the chicken-and-egg problem of getting a moribund downtown back on its feet.

Without residents, there’s no business … and without businesses, residents aren’t interested in moving to the area.

That’s one reason downtown Jacksonville isn’t thriving. With only a few thousand residents and little room for more, there’s not the customer base needed to attract retail or pressure commercial tenants to move jobs to the area.

But as the city embarks on a new push to revitalize downtown, it might have one secret weapon: Depending on how “downtown” is defined, the broader urban core already has a residential component, with the historic neighborhoods of Riverside, Springfield and San Marco home to thousands of residents.

With the proper linkages to the center city, development in the historic neighborhoods might serve as launchpads for downtown revitalization, say those who study the issue, attracting residents who then attract businesses and help the entire urban core grow.

Downtown isn’t just downtown, in other words, but the areas around the center city as well.


More at the link:
http://jacksonville.com/news/metro/2012-10-15/story/historic-neighborhoods-could-be-tool-jacksonville-looks-revitalize

[CityLife]

Good to see that people are starting to get this concept....which some of us have been saying for years.

[thelakelander]

^I would say Brooklyn is an example of this.  Without the success of Riverside/Avondale over the last decade, the new developments proposed for Riverside Avenue would probably not be as feasible as they are today.  Given their proximity to the traditional CBD, the Northbank benefits from redevelopment taking place in a historically peripheral urban neighborhood.  Something as simple as a skyway station at the maintenance center extends that benefit to the Southbank.

[thelakelander]

And those neighborhoods provide a pool of housing when residential space in downtown proper is scarce. Typically, Shea said, about 10 percent of a downtown’s workforce are candidates for living downtown; in Jacksonville, that’d be about 5,000 people. Instead, about 2,500 people live downtown.

Reading Don's comments, I assume the 50,000 downtown employment number comes from the city including everything from Brooklyn/Riverside Arts Market to North Florida Shipyards as "downtown."  I wonder how this boundary ranks in comparison with the official downtown areas of peer cities?



If this is the case, we probably had over 10,000 residents living in Brooklyn and LaVilla alone before deciding to destroy them through urban renewal.  However, when talking about growing from 2,500 to 5,000 people, if that population isn't in a compact setting or along a transit corridor linking compact clusters together, the result is going to be like kicking an ant hill.  Lots of money spent but little pedestrian scale synergy created to visually kick things into high gear.

[Jason]

That’s one reason downtown Jacksonville isn’t thriving. With only a few thousand residents and little room for more, there’s not the customer base needed to attract retail or pressure commercial tenants to move jobs to the area.

Not sure what the author is getting at with this statement though....   There is more than enough room to increase our core population tenfold.  Fiftyfold!!!

[tufsu1]

In addition to transportation connections, the other big key is to begin marketing these areas together!

[fieldafm]

^I would say Brooklyn is an example of this.  Without the success of Riverside/Avondale over the last decade, the new developments proposed for Riverside Avenue would probably not be as feasible as they are today.  Given their proximity to the traditional CBD, the Northbank benefits from redevelopment taking place in a historically peripheral urban neighborhood.  Something as simple as a skyway station at the maintenance center extends that benefit to the Southbank.

Highly agree.  Brooklyn and in a few years North San Marco stand to benefit greatly in terms of fiscally lucrative redevelopment opportunities.

[thelakelander]

That’s one reason downtown Jacksonville isn’t thriving. With only a few thousand residents and little room for more, there’s not the customer base needed to attract retail or pressure commercial tenants to move jobs to the area.

Not sure what the author is getting at with this statement though....   There is more than enough room to increase our core population tenfold.  Fiftyfold!!!

Yeah, running out of land for infill development in downtown should be the least of our worries.  We still have streets you could lay down and sleep in the middle of rush hour and not worry about getting ran over.

In addition to transportation connections, the other big key is to begin marketing these areas together!

Better transit connectivity is a great marketing tool.  Hopefully, the DIA brings JTA, the community, and other stakeholders into the process very soon.

[Bill Hoff]

Jason, I believe the author is referring to the low apartment vacancy rate.

[Captain Zissou]

The 5 Points intersection is almost exactly 2 miles from the intersection of Forsyth and Main Streets if you take park the whole way to Forsyth and then Forsyth all the way down to Main.  This connects 4 Urban Core neighborhoods in a 10 minute bike ride (less if you're not on a fat tire), or 5 minutes on a streetcar.  Since the city has already done its best to turn Riverside Ave into the next Southside Blvd, I'd like to see the Park/Forsyth corridor preserved as a bike and streetcar connector for Riverside/5-Points, Brooklyn, La Villa, and the Northbank.  I have used that route a few times to ride downtown, but it isn't safe by any means.  The fact that Park is mostly deserted between Forest and Water Street helps, but there is still nothing separating cars and bikes for that stretch.  If I could safely ride that route and be able to pick up some good speed on that corridor (17-21 mph), that would greatly expand my daily reach in terms of dining, shopping, hanging out, and spending money.  I don't think I'm alone in that thought.

[thelakelander]

Park Street through Brooklyn would be a great candidate for a road diet.  Going to two lanes would provide the right-of-way necessary for dedicated transit and bicycle lanes.  With the existing building fabric still lining the street, it also be a great spot for innovative adaptive reuse and infill.