Khan interested in developing shipyards

[MusicMan]

I pointed out the contamination issue to Mark Lamping (regarding development of the entire Shipyards site) when he was an in studio guest on WJCT "First Coast Connect" 2 weeks ago and he pretty much said "It isn't an issue."............"The City has a plan" I think was his response.

Hum........

[downtownbrown]

Lamping has always said that the $34M remediation price tag was a rounding error.  But he also has said it'd the city's rounding error, not his.

[TimmyB]

Lamping has always said that the $34M remediation price tag was a rounding error.  But he also has said it'd the city's rounding error, not his.

A ROUNDING ERROR???   "Yeah, the cost is $0 when rounded to the nearest 100 million."  What on earth could he mean?

[downtownbrown]

I take it to mean that remediation would not stand in the way of a serious developer.  The bank of a serious developer would be miles north of $100M. 

[MusicMan]

It's Jacksonville, so we will be waiting a LONG time before any finished product at The Shipyards. 

(Ennis has pointed this out several times....)

In the meantime all the HYPE surrounding The District has been a load of horse manure.  3 years wasted.........

And Berkman II, I hear rumors all the time but nothing "finalized." 

And on a parallel thread the 13 tower building in the Aetna Parking lot is being threatened after being approved by DDRB twice.
WTF is going on here.

[thelakelander]

In the meantime, entities like Vestcor, Alliance Residential, Chance Partners and Profit Investments are quietly doing their thing. Maybe we're just hyping the wrong players and projects?

[Keith-N-Jax]

Nobody's being hyped, just happy for anything, we should be thrilled this property has a chance to be developed instead trying to pit one development over another!!

[howfam]

It's Jacksonville, so we will be waiting a LONG time before any finished product at The Shipyards. 

(Ennis has pointed this out several times....)

In the meantime all the HYPE surrounding The District has been a load of horse manure.  3 years wasted.........

And Berkman II, I hear rumors all the time but nothing "finalized." 

And on a parallel thread the 13 tower building in the Aetna Parking lot is being threatened after being approved by DDRB twice.
WTF is going on here.

MusicMan. The answer to your question is in thelakelander's reply # 574. See that link showing all the dead projects it shows. If all those were built, downtown would be a totally different place today. We can't blame the economy for all the dead projects. At some point we have to admit that it's just good ole hick town politics. In other words, good ole Jax at it's best. 

[MusicMan]

Khan had it right:

"A homeless man in Detroit has more mojo than a millionaire in Jacksonville!"

[KenFSU]

It's Jacksonville, so we will be waiting a LONG time before any finished product at The Shipyards. 

(Ennis has pointed this out several times....)

In the meantime all the HYPE surrounding The District has been a load of horse manure.  3 years wasted.........

And Berkman II, I hear rumors all the time but nothing "finalized." 

And on a parallel thread the 13 tower building in the Aetna Parking lot is being threatened after being approved by DDRB twice.
WTF is going on here...

Khan had it right:

"A homeless man in Detroit has more mojo than a millionaire in Jacksonville!"

Totally disagree.

Khan's worth $7.2 billion.

The Jags have increased in value by over $1.3 billion since he bought the team, driven largely by new NFL television deals.

Meanwhile, the Shipyards have been in limbo for years over relative pocket change, for him.

Maybe he's the one who needs to up his mojo.

If you ignore the big-ticket projects on the periphery of downtown and look at what's actually happened in the last two years in the CBD, you'll find more mojo than you know what to do with. Adkins and his epic battle to bring the Laura Street Trio and Barnett back to life. FSCJ and UNF investing in downtown rehabilitation and expansion. Vestcor bringing affordable housing to LaVilla. JTA's new regional transportation center and First Coast Flyer coming to life. Insetta and Bellwether having a line out the door every day at noon. Forking Amazing spending $4 million to transform one of the city's most endangered buildings into the city's signature steakhouse. Hemming Park's amazing staff and management turning the front porch of our city into a desirable place. Profit bringing new rooms, two new restaurants, and a new rooftop bar to the CBD. Field's food truck court bringing life to a dead city block. The Icemen group bringing hockey back to Jacksonville. The USS Adams group fighting tooth and nail to bring her to Jacksonville.

The 'scrapers might not be going up as fast as people would like, but I'd argue that those aren't the type of projects that give a downtown and its surrounding neighborhoods character. I'd point toward the Intuitions, and the Bold Citys, and the Happy Grilled Cheese, and the Pura and Bold Beans, and River and Post, and Bread and Board, and Crane Ramen, and Black Sheep, and the Memorial Park Association working tirelessly to preserve Jacksonville's crown jewel, and Manifest, and Sweet Pete's, and everyone else fighting to improve the urban fabric of our city.

The Shipyards and District are two big opportunities, but the success or failure of our urban renewal efforts in no way depends on these projects, or the Cordish project, or any other big-box development.

The biggest success is going to come from block-by-block redevelopment of the CBD, a storefront or building at a time, starting from Laura Street and expanding outward.

[MusicMan]

Ken I love your positive attitude. Unfortuantely I don't think it's matched by reality on the ground. If one drives through downtown today the homeless will outnumber everyone else combined UNLESS there is a special event going on. Khan DID change the team however and that shows he's serious about improving Jacksonville's viability in National Press. Main Street north of downtown (Through 12th Street) is still WAY MORE empty buildings and vacant lots than occupied ones. There are still several large towers and structures downtown that no one seems to know when will ever be re-vitalized.  IMO the "no one knows when or how" scenarios (by that I mean, Old Courthouse, Berk II, Shipyards, District, USS Adams, .....even a new tenant for Burro Bar!)  outweigh all the others you've mentioned. So I'll stick with my belief that we are at least 10 years away (2028) from a downtown where people come from Riverside /Five Points/San Marco/Avondale/Springfield into downtown on a weekend because it offers more than their current neighborhood does. And I'll double down and say by 2028 downtown will still fall short of 10,000 year round residents in the CBD.

Where are we at now with that number, 2000-3000?

[jaxnyc79]

Ken I love your positive attitude. Unfortuantely I don't think it's matched by reality on the ground. If one drives through downtown today the homeless will outnumber everyone else combined UNLESS there is a special event going on. Khan DID change the team however and that shows he's serious about improving Jacksonville's viability in National Press. Main Street north of downtown (Through 12th Street) is still WAY MORE empty buildings and vacant lots than occupied ones. There are still several large towers and structures downtown that no one seems to know when will ever be re-vitalized.  IMO the "no one knows when or how" scenarios (by that I mean, Old Courthouse, Berk II, Shipyards, District, USS Adams, .....even a new tenant for Burro Bar!)  outweigh all the others you've mentioned. So I'll stick with my belief that we are at least 10 years away (2028) from a downtown where people come from Riverside /Five Points/San Marco/Avondale/Springfield into downtown on a weekend because it offers more than their current neighborhood does. And I'll double down and say by 2028 downtown will still fall short of 10,000 year round residents in the CBD.

Sadly, you're correct Music Man.  I guess everyone gets excited because Jax is going from mere zero to a very small spark.  I live in Manhattan and work for a major Wall Street bank.  We are considering a conference venue for a client gathering, and considered a property in Palmetto Bluffs
Where are we at now with that number, 2000-3000?

Downtown Jax is a dump, and the Jax area is fairly dull and generic.  Some places have been fully ensconced in the ideas of the enlightenment and human progress, and other places and peoples are sitting around and waiting for progress to fail because they believe that the only salvation is in the after-life. 

[thelakelander]

MusicMan, what do you consider the CBD? What are the borders?

[MusicMan]

Put a pin on the Times Union PAC and draw a circle with radius of 1 mile?

How many live there?  Maybe 5,000.  Within that circle no one is building single family homes except single digits in Springfield and San Marco.  But if everything planned within that circle gets built (including The District) it might get to 10,000.  You are more of an expert than I am.

According to my Realtor map, that circle encompasses most of The District and most of The Shipyards. So expand it by a quarter mile if that makes sense. That circle reaches pretty well into Springfield, which I personally do not count in the CBD. I'm thinking downtown or SouthBank living, like The Peninsula, Berkman I, The Strand, San Marco Place, Eleven E, The Carling, plus all the smaller pieces of the puzzle. Condo and apartment dwellers, who would be walk up customers for every business downtown that is currently closed on the weekend. Personally do not want to count single family homes in SM that fall within that circle, but I'm willing to.

[Tacachale]

Ken I love your positive attitude. Unfortuantely I don't think it's matched by reality on the ground. If one drives through downtown today the homeless will outnumber everyone else combined UNLESS there is a special event going on. Khan DID change the team however and that shows he's serious about improving Jacksonville's viability in National Press. Main Street north of downtown (Through 12th Street) is still WAY MORE empty buildings and vacant lots than occupied ones. There are still several large towers and structures downtown that no one seems to know when will ever be re-vitalized.  IMO the "no one knows when or how" scenarios (by that I mean, Old Courthouse, Berk II, Shipyards, District, USS Adams, .....even a new tenant for Burro Bar!)  outweigh all the others you've mentioned. So I'll stick with my belief that we are at least 10 years away (2028) from a downtown where people come from Riverside /Five Points/San Marco/Avondale/Springfield into downtown on a weekend because it offers more than their current neighborhood does. And I'll double down and say by 2028 downtown will still fall short of 10,000 year round residents in the CBD.

Sadly, you're correct Music Man.  I guess everyone gets excited because Jax is going from mere zero to a very small spark.  I live in Manhattan and work for a major Wall Street bank.  We are considering a conference venue for a client gathering, and considered a property in Palmetto Bluffs
Where are we at now with that number, 2000-3000?

Downtown Jax is a dump, and the Jax area is fairly dull and generic.  Some places have been fully ensconced in the ideas of the enlightenment and human progress, and other places and peoples are sitting around and waiting for progress to fail because they believe that the only salvation is in the after-life.