Five Lessons for Jacksonville to Bring Retail Downtown

[Bativac]

As an entrepreneur, I've been complaining for years about unreasonably high rents downtown. Why are they so high on all those spaces which had been vacant for years?
There must be a few good landlords outhere who would take lower rent on a 5 year lease today rather than get nothing today and tomorrow in perpetuity.

I don't know how big a problem this is in other cities, but it's a terrible issue in Jax. Rents are high and in many cases, landlords are unwilling to do any kind of building repairs or upgrades. They must come out of the tenant's pocket. And I have heard cases of tenants doing repairs only to have rents raised as a result of improving the property value!

To hear my dad tell it (he's a born and raised Jacksonvillian, and so was his dad, and both have owned and managed several businesses here), this has been an issue here for at least a couple decades. It probably happens in other cities, too, but Jax being where I live, it's where I see it firsthand. (That and as much traveling as I do, I don't notice as many vacant retail spaces as in Jax... but maybe I'm not looking for them.)

[mtraininjax]

Why would someone come downtown (to live, dine or work) rather than go somewhere else ?

+1

Town Center, love it or hate it, continues to grow and expand. Why? Because that is where the people are, duh. It will continue to do so, until the roads look like Blanding Blvd and Wells Road on any given day, and then they will still continue to come. TC for all intent/purposes, is really the center of Jacksonville, until downtown can take it back. We need a game changer in the Landing or Shipyards.

[Gunnar]

I did not mean to infer that there were no reasons to come downtown, just saying that this is the question  the city / developers / investors  would need to ask.

For this, all the pros and cons - including the cost to come (in terms of time, parking, ease of getting there (or unpleasantness thereof) and getting around) - need to be included in an honest fashion.

[tufsu1]

Town Center, love it or hate it, continues to grow and expand. Why? Because that is where the people are, duh. It will continue to do so, until the roads look like Blanding Blvd and Wells Road on any given day, and then they will still continue to come. TC for all intent/purposes, is really the center of Jacksonville, until downtown can take it back. We need a game changer in the Landing or Shipyards.

correction...the Town Center is really the center of Jacksonville's wealth

[jaxlore]

Right on Ron!

"Funds .. taxes ... In the interest of using funds more productively, one might consider that crime is a problem not solved by more policemen, but by more jobs.  Therefore, we should divert funds from the sheriff's budget to invest in mass transit and infrastructural projects -- thus creating much needed jobs, not only for the general population, but for the suffering minorities.  Jobs reduce the pressure to survive by acts of crime, reducing the need for more policemen and jail beds.  Its easy ... the sign of a lazy mind ... to hire more policemen.  Its more difficult, and much more creative and productive, to work hard to educate workers and, by additional hard work, to make jobs for the newly trained workers.  "