Urban Construction Update - January 2014

[PeeJayEss]

Jacksonville: "We're not San Francisco?"

[Bridges]

I think Pulp Juice bar should be included in every construction update in the future, even after it is hopefully completed.  It's become something I look forward to in the updates.  It's the constant for which I compare all other changes in my life.

[David]

Unfortunately, there's not a lot of urban infill and construction going on in Jax in comparison with larger and similar sized metropolitan areas.  When we first started MJ, it used to bother me but I travel so much that over the years I've become somewhat immune. Jax has a ton of potential, but the city, the politics, the discussion, etc. is a decade or two behind everyone else when it comes to urbanism.  Over the years, I think we'll be pulled kicking and screaming to embrace certain trends but Jax is what it is.

Exactly. During my first few visits to NYC as a teen I'd constantly compare Jax to Manhattan and come home depressed, but eventually I reached this zen like state of acceptance.  I'm happy when we get a project going but unphased when we have our quiet spells. it's just, how it is here.

The upside is an individual can make more of a difference in this town. Where as in a larger city you'll get quickly swallowed up, here you can stand out more as an individual business. There's a certain closeness to the urban core that comes from it being so small.

Love it, hate it. That's the reality.

[ben says]

I'm just saying, if I didn't live in a construction filled city and didn't travel, and all I had to go off of was the monthly Jax Urban Construction thread, I would beat my head against a wall...I've been meaning to get this off my chest for a while and I'm sure there are others who feel the same way.  It's not for lack of Lake's awesome effort and superb reporting, but for lack of anything interesting going on!

Unfortunately, there's not a lot of urban infill and construction going on in Jax in comparison with larger and similar sized metropolitan areas.  When we first started MJ, it used to bother me but I travel so much that over the years I've become somewhat immune. Jax has a ton of potential, but the city, the politics, the discussion, etc. is a decade or two behind everyone else when it comes to urbanism.  Over the years, I think we'll be pulled kicking and screaming to embrace certain trends but Jax is what it is.

+1

[Overstreet]

A couple things about wood buildings.

Wood construction often becomes cost prohibitive some where around the 75' level. Another reason than the LA codes.

Wood construction like the 22 Riverside building will have "fire seperation" built in. Basically it is fire walls and floor/ceiling systems utilizing UL rated assemblies to seperate floors and/or tenants.  Most are gypsum board products on wood framing. Unfortunately those systems require maintenance of their integrity that often gets compromised. For example if you put a phone line through you have to sleeve the hole and fire caulk the penetration. Many "low voltage" contractors........or maintenance man ......knocks a hole through the system with a hammer and leaves the hole unfilled, sealed, etc. System no good after that.

Wood framing can be made to resist storm events. But like the fire walls the building must be "maintained" in original integrity or it won't work.

[ProjectMaximus]

Speaking of wood framed apartments, here's a really interesting article about their use in downtown LA. Basically, if a developer wants to build over 75' they have to use steel and concrete. So what is happening is a lot of developers are building just under that threshold to avoid the extra costs and apparently steel and concrete construction doesn't become cost effective until 20 stories and up. So LA is seeing a lot of low-rise construction, but not much mid-rise, which is really needed to add the type of density to make it a walkable, transit oriented downtown like NYC, Chicago, etc.

http://www.ladowntownnews.com/news/is-downtown-s-low-rise-building-spree-hurting-the-community/article_0e5f97ec-eb52-11e2-a694-0019bb2963f4.html

But if there is lots of available land, as indicated in the article, then it probably would be preferable to have the streets lined with dozens of mid rise buildings. That would really create better density than a couple isolated high-rises. (In LA, probably would be mostly occupied by part-timers too) In a few decades when the infill is complete it would make sense to replace some of the older buildings with high rise construction.

Exactly. During my first few visits to NYC as a teen I'd constantly compare Jax to Manhattan and come home depressed, but eventually I reached this zen like state of acceptance.  I'm happy when we get a project going but unphased when we have our quiet spells. it's just, how it is here.

The upside is an individual can make more of a difference in this town. Where as in a larger city you'll get quickly swallowed up, here you can stand out more as an individual business. There's a certain closeness to the urban core that comes from it being so small.

Love it, hate it. That's the reality.

Yeah, i agree. Except that from my personal experience I never even considered comparing Jax to Manhattan after many trips there. Wasn't even in the same universe in my mind. Not until I discovered metrojacksonville about five years ago while living in Chicago did I begin to think of my hometown as the unpolished gem that it is.

[simms3]

I wasn't trying to compare the level of activity in Jax to the level of activity in SF, but rather pointing out that in less time it takes to open a store here or renovate a building, in another city they can somehow put up 55 floors of concrete and glass.  Sloooowwwwww progress.

The other point I was making was that we have been stuck in such a low in terms of activity now for years that the bulk of these construction updates consists of progress on a potential Firehouse Subs, or something super small.  There is obviously no comparison to a large city, but what would be totally depressing is if we compared ourselves to a smaller city such as Charlotte, Austin, Nashville, or even Birmingham these days, which is seeing considerably more activity in its core than Jax with new apartments and building conversion/renovations, a new Westin hotel, etc etc.

[thelakelander]

I plan to keep doing the monthy updates but I'm also planning to bring back the development projects list (http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=73930) that will only highlight major projects under construction or proposed. It will just take me some time to compile all the information and renderings into a presentable fashion.

[grimss]

Looks like you forgot to include the Commander redevelopment project in your list. According to the developer, it's a $40 million project.

[thelakelander]

It will be included in the new development projects list. The one linked above was started on another site in 2003 and last updated by me in 2005.

[Kickbackssteve]

Simms, not sure why my project made the list of projects that depress you?  I think most people that have seen the project first hand feel like the project is quite "un-Jacksonville-like"...whatever that means.  I could write a book about the trials and tribulations that we have faced every single step of the way and why the construction has taken almost a year and the development has taken 3 years.  But it shouldn't depress you.  It depresses ME...let me handle the depression.  You should be excited that someone has jumped a thousand hurdles to make a building that is extremely unique, embedded in a unique neigborhood, that our neighbors can be proud of and people will travel from other cities to visit.  Building a 3 story, 14,000 square foot building on a single lot, in clay, attached and interwoven with a 90 year old (continually functioning) building, next door to a building that is turning and twisting and wanting to collapse under its own weight, connecting it's basement to the bedrock below, with a series of civil and political challenges a mile long takes time.  Lots of it.  The truth be told, we could have closed Kickbacks for a few months and maybe shaved a few weeks off the construction time but then our 65 employees would be out of work and our loyal customers might be "depressed", to borrow one of your words.  Wink.  It is my hope that the project will be a source of joy for our neighbors and friends (and hopefully you) and something to take people away from the real things out there to be depressed about.

[simms3]

Kickbacks and G&G excite me, not depress me.  What depresses me is the lack of any "significant" construction projects in the core, and the time it takes to complete small projects (often not at all to the fault of the owner - it's just painful to see the slow progress in pictures, I want them all to be done! .  I work in real estate myself, and live for development.  To see the same string of small neighborhood improvements in the Urban Core Construction Thread month in month out depresses me because I would rather see a downtown focused construction thread filled with tower cranes and major projects.  That's just me.

I would love Jax to boom enough where perhaps we have individual neighborhood construction threads or more people occasionally posting pics of construction in their own neighborhood (that way it's not just Lake and everyone can contribute a little bit - perhaps you could create a G&G Updates thread with photo updates - that would be so kind and I believe that's better than forcing Lake to feel obligated every month to run all over town getting pictures of store openings and new bars and stuff).  I follow certain contractors on Twitter just to see their construction updates on certain projects they're working on that I find interesting.  In Jax, construction pics are a one man job, but the burden can be eased.

It's also fun to return home every now and again and be "surprised" by the latest opening or new place that people are going to.  I don't get excited seeing monthly construction pics of store openings, Firehouse subs, Mellow Mushroom, home rehabs, etc.  I want to come home and experience some of these things!  FTR, your place would be at the top of my list and I have many fond memories at Kickbacks.  I personally don't care one bit about MM and that whole thing disappoints me because it could have been so much better, so not only seeing it in person on a home visit would not excite me, seeing it in a construction thread doesn't, either.  I think the owner seems like a great guy, but the city/locals/RAP/WLA screwed him over and I'm not a fan of MM pizza in general.

The street I live on has probably 100-200 bars, restaurants, and shops within blocks of me.  I see shops and restaurants and bars come and go all the time.  It's a neighborhood fact of life, not a "construction update".  I post local construction pics in a similar format to Lake on another forum - I go for relatively significant infill and larger because it takes time and effort to snap pics, edit them to size, upload them, and post them in a viewable and readable format.

The only reason we are probably showing something like Pulp Juice opening in the Shoppes is because it fills up the update and there is nothing else significant going on.  I hate boring architecture, suburban blandness, etc etc, but I love construction and development in general.  For that reason, in a spit of irony, the SS Construction Update actually excites me.  The average project going up in that update is much much larger than the Urban Core update.  The Beaches update is downright offensive.  Jax Beach is soooo painfully ugly and disgusting to look at it, I just don't even open those up anymore.

[JaxNole]

Maybe you could bring all your "big city development" knowledge, prowess, and influence here. Some may say for all the cheerleading of Atlanta and now San Francisco, that there would be some left for Jacksonville.

You could be the one to change how these urban construction updates lead you to a state of depression.

[Scrub Palmetto]

Unfortunately, there's not a lot of urban infill and construction going on in Jax in comparison with larger and similar sized metropolitan areas.  When we first started MJ, it used to bother me but I travel so much that over the years I've become somewhat immune. Jax has a ton of potential, but the city, the politics, the discussion, etc. is a decade or two behind everyone else when it comes to urbanism.  Over the years, I think we'll be pulled kicking and screaming to embrace certain trends but Jax is what it is.

Exactly. During my first few visits to NYC as a teen I'd constantly compare Jax to Manhattan and come home depressed, but eventually I reached this zen like state of acceptance.  I'm happy when we get a project going but unphased when we have our quiet spells. it's just, how it is here.

The upside is an individual can make more of a difference in this town. Where as in a larger city you'll get quickly swallowed up, here you can stand out more as an individual business. There's a certain closeness to the urban core that comes from it being so small.

Love it, hate it. That's the reality.

Well said.

To me, it's similar to how every working class person feels climbing the social strata is within their reach. It's not. Likewise, every city can't be booming. In tandem with our San Franciscos and Atlantas, we'll always have our Detroits and Rochesters. But even these cities have people who love them and who want to be a part of their positive change. No, none of us want to see Jacksonville stagnate, but that's just it. Nobody wants to see any city decline. It happens anyway. If we're to have these great boom towns, attracting people from all over the country and beyond, then we're logically to have the counterparts that repel, that act as population drains. And of course most places will be somewhere in between. If an average or below-average rate of growth or development is not something you can handle, it's probably best to move on, literally and figuratively.

Personally, I think rapid growth is a mixed blessing. I would argue that it's in this name that Jax has lost so much of its historical fabric. Savannah and Charleston wouldn't be what they are if they had ballooned up as rapidly as Atlanta or Charlotte. Without stagnation in the 16th and 17th centuries, cities like Ghent and Bruges in Belgium wouldn't be the revered collections of Medieval architecture that they are today. That's not to say Jacksonville compares to any of these places architecturally, rather that stagnation or decline are not death knells. There is some level of carelessness and loss of character that can result from growth worship.

[ben says]

Maybe you could bring all your "big city development" knowledge, prowess, and influence here. Some may say for all the cheerleading of Atlanta and now San Francisco, that there would be some left for Jacksonville.

You could be the one to change how these urban construction updates lead you to a state of depression.

Nicely put

Unfortunately, there's not a lot of urban infill and construction going on in Jax in comparison with larger and similar sized metropolitan areas.  When we first started MJ, it used to bother me but I travel so much that over the years I've become somewhat immune. Jax has a ton of potential, but the city, the politics, the discussion, etc. is a decade or two behind everyone else when it comes to urbanism.  Over the years, I think we'll be pulled kicking and screaming to embrace certain trends but Jax is what it is.

Exactly. During my first few visits to NYC as a teen I'd constantly compare Jax to Manhattan and come home depressed, but eventually I reached this zen like state of acceptance.  I'm happy when we get a project going but unphased when we have our quiet spells. it's just, how it is here.

The upside is an individual can make more of a difference in this town. Where as in a larger city you'll get quickly swallowed up, here you can stand out more as an individual business. There's a certain closeness to the urban core that comes from it being so small.

Love it, hate it. That's the reality.

+1