Peter Rummell's Healthy Town Site Plan Released

[thelakelander]

Need something to tie several nodes together? JTA's Skyway expansion plan perhaps?

[Non-RedNeck Westsider]

JTA's Skyway expansion plan perhaps?

[remc86007]

What's going to be different this time?

Hopefully the market won't crash this time.

[Noone]

Need something to tie several nodes together? JTA's Skyway expansion plan perhaps?

2016-18 and the ADA Non Motorized hand launch at the DCPS building property. The School Board property people have said that COJ has Noded out on this one. The School Board property people are Noded in. Boyer Dist. 5 at a Waterways meeting is slapping these Nodes together. Wants to look at the (WTF) Node at Gefen on the Northbank as well.  Boyer is Noded up. She was telling them at Waterways. She was Nodedly making a lot of sense.
HUGE meeting 1/26/17 at 1pm in the Lynwood Roberts Room. Open to the Public. Waterways and Waterfront Activation.

I am Downtown and why you aren't.
Stay positive.

[vicupstate]

I don't see JAX as being at the tipping point yet, but if 2017 goes well, it might be within sight of it.       

I would agree with you here, but I'm really loathe the phrase 'at the tipping point'.  What does that even mean?  #rhetorical

I like the outlook that Rummel and Munz have on their project.  They seem to be hopeful, but not obscenely confident.  As Rummel said at the beginning of the posted article - the best thing for Jacksonville is if this project makes them both an obscene amount of money. 

I do think the sports district is getting a needed boost with their own district coming online and I fully expect something from Khan in that area as well, but the key to all of this is going to be sustainability. 

Early success is great.  Momentum is awesome.  But what this town has been in dire need of for a long time is sustained success.

To use your words, I felt like this city might have been at a 'tipping point' around 2004/2006, but once the housing market tipped, so did all of our hopes - right in the dumpster.  10 years later, here we are again.   What's going to be different this time?   We have several clusters of development happening at the same time.  In order to make this thing work, there HAS to be something tying them together.

I define the tipping point as when a preponderance of the evidence shows sustainability.

Evidence would include:

*  Major projects are not seeking incentives.
*  If incentives are given, they are only for public realm items, or at the very least public infrastructure.
*  Out of state investors are doing more projects instead of locals like Rummel, Vestcor, etc.  Of course you would still get projects from locals too.
* More projects are private than public, both in number and dollars.
* National retailers or at least regional ones have opened locations.
* A significant sized, general appeal grocer.
* Rents are higher than suburbs. That goes for not only office but residential and hotel rooms.
* Pleasure tourism is rising significantly for consecutive years.
* Articles are being written from out of state newspapers about the 'turnaround' or the great environment DT.
* Parking is getting to be a genuine problem and not an imagined one.   
* You see at least moderately filled sidewalks outside of business hours and ideally MORE filled than during business hours.  Ditto for parking     

[acme54321]

In other news, it looks like the district is still moving along at a slower pace than expected.  Shocking I know.

http://jacksonville.com/business/business-notebook/real-estate/2017-04-01/sunday-business-notebook-westside-costco-still

[thelakelander]

On the positive side, St. Johns Village, Broadstone, Lofts of LaVilla, Houston St Manor and Hendricks/Baptist Convention mixed use site appear to be humming along.

[finehoe]

2015

Healthy Town, probably by another name, could start taking shape on the Downtown Southbank by fall.
Developer Peter Rummell said Thursday that he and development partner Michael Balanky hope to complete the $18.5 million contract to buy the property from JEA within 10 days. The JEA board meets next week.

"Then we'll spend obscene amounts of money and be in the ground this year," Rummell said.

After due diligence on incentives and entitlements, horizontal development could start by fall.

2017

Groundbreaking, he said, could be in August or September.  The group has agreed to pay a little more than $17 million for the 30 acres.

[thelakelander]

One of these days everyone will wake up and stop putting their hopes and dreams on big one-trick pony development schemes. Even if everything went according to plan, it would take a good decade or two before projects like The District and Shipyards start to resemble what's been shown in their promotional renderings. Real change typically occurs by getting the much smaller and less complex projects off the ground within a compact setting.  If you catch a whale in the process......cool. However, you can get fat with regular plates of Mahi-mahi too.

[Tacachale]

^Who put their "hopes and dreams" into the District? Most just thought it would be cool as it's the definition of a dead space and it's a pretty impressive vision. I don't recall them asking for many incentives or making grand promises (unlike, say, the Laura Street Trio).

[thelakelander]

If you read the papers and listen to most people talk about downtown development in this town, The District, Shipyards, Landing, etc. are the projects you hear.  At least I do, when media, downtown advocates, etc. reach out to me.  Basically its like downtown's fortunes depend on these few complex long term projects, when in actuality it does not.

Revitalization will be made or broken on our ability to get the Elena Flats, Lerner Shops, Jefferson Street Manors, Broadstone, etc. off the ground and activating the dead streets around them, with things like the Court Urban Food Parks, road diets, better lighting, signage, etc., while also backfilling existing vacant office spaces.  If a major project on the fringe of downtown, like the District or Shipyards is delayed or doesn't happen, it's not the end of the world. Development proposals fail to materialize in every city. The key is to squeeze as much stuff and complementing activity into a compact area, as possible, to allow pedestrian scale synergy to generate.

[FlaBoy]

I think this will still happen. Unlike most developers, Rummell has proven he is a very civic minded individual who wants this to work both financially for him but also for Jacksonville. The guy lives about two miles away in San Marco. He cares about this for the city.

[thelakelander]

If I had to guess, I'd say something will happen but it will never be built out as originally shown in the master plan.

[Steve]

If I had to guess, I'd say something will happen but it will never be built out as originally shown in the master plan.

That's the interesting thing about The District. The whole thing is sort of dependent on the entire development, so to speak. I feel like unless they do the whole thing, it's going to look half done.

That's one of the reasons I've been skeptical about this entire thing. I sometimes think the better route would be to lay out the street grid, and sell it block by block. There's a lot more folks that can take 1 or 2 city blocks than a chunk like The District.

[jcjohnpaint]

But at least having one residential building up at the district would be better than a large empty lot, which seems to be the Jacksonville status quo.