Downtown Jacksonville

[BossmanOdum10]

I believe that Jacksonville's image and tourism will be 110% better if we presented a better urban core.....Please share your thoughts!

[Murder_me_Rachel]

I think you just summed up the entire ethos of this site.

[FlaBoy]

^ LOL

[urbaknight]

Some high rise condos would be fine, but we need affordable apartments as well. They don't need all the frills such as granite counters or dishwashers. Kitchenettes are all that's really needed, small bedrooms but decent sized living rooms, something that low wage workers can afford. That's just part of my opinion as we do need much more.

[BossmanOdum10]

I think you just summed up the entire ethos of this site.

I understand that lol

[CCMjax]

You can improve and have a vibrant urban core without skyscrapers.  See Savannah, Charleston, DC, Portland, Maine . . . the list goes on.  Sometimes skyscrapers take away from the street level vibrancy.  Jacksonville needs infill of any size, not necessarily skyscrapers right now . . . baby steps.

[Gunnar]

I agree with other posters that you do not necessarily need to have new high rise buildings but a downtown per-se. Filling in many of the gaps with mid rise buildings (that existed before) would IMHO probably be better as a starter than building a few Skyscrapers (that really only make sense financially if land is expensive) in the middle of almost nowhere.

This would also make for a livelier downtown (ground floor retail, above that apartments and offices).

[Gunnar]

Which reminds me that a friend of mine once referred to Jacksonville as "Spartanburg with Skyscrapers" - that was before the BMW plant was built, btw. So not sure if more of them would help.

[Adam White]

I don't think they'd hurt, but the issue (as I see it) is lack of infill and any sort of street-level stuff going on. I'd rather a few cafes and shops or whatever than 10 skyscrapers.

[BenderRodriguez]

There doesn't just need to be skyscrapers downtown. There needs to be things to do, places to see, places to live, places to shop, places to eat. Why currently none of that exists downtown is wildly confusing to me. Not everyone likes the suburban atmosphere, and the city's most mainstay developers are failing to see that because they are too busy building more strip malls in Mandarin, Nocatee, and the beaches to care. The closest "commercial" or "big chain" movie theatre is a 44 minute bus ride away from the core, that's unacceptable. Jacksonville is the only city that I know of that fails to embrace a famous river running right through the center of it. There should be developers and visionaries climbing over each other for the chance to put their radical vision on the banks of the St. Johns. There should be water taxis going to riverside and other places along the river. The convention center is supposed to be this grand spectacle directly on the Southbank. After all that happens, then those high-rise skyscrapers that everyone knows and loves will start to grow into existence. But we should take care and fill the holes that aren't there, first, before we remotely get to that point.

[RattlerGator]

We have enough skyscrapers. We desperately need that entertainment district around the stadium to grow and become a district that isn't limited to sports entertainment, but entertainment as it is broadly understood. It looks like that is about to happen. This, more than folks on this MetroJax board seem to understand, will change everything.

[Gunnar]

There doesn't just need to be skyscrapers downtown. There needs to be things to do, places to see, places to live, places to shop, places to eat. Why currently none of that exists downtown is wildly confusing to me.

I'd guess because too much existing building stock in dt and dt adjacent was destroyed. This removes a lot of places that could be rented out cheaply to start making the area interesting (i.e. low budget pioneers first, then gentrification).

[tufsu1]

There doesn't just need to be skyscrapers downtown. There needs to be things to do, places to see, places to live, places to shop, places to eat. Why currently none of that exists downtown is wildly confusing to me.

I wasn't aware that none of that exists.  Seems to me there are things to do downtown just about every day (and night).  We have museums, theaters, arenas/stadiums.  Interestingly enough, there are also places to live (my home is proof), shop, and eat.

[Noone]

I voted we need more than that.

So active legislation 2016-305 and for some of you MJ'ers will get the inside joke that we have all given up asking you know who about you know what.
But this is an opportunity to immediately use the SHIPYARDS PUBLIC FISHING PIER. This was reinforced by Stephanie Burch, Real Estate with Public Works at the 5/11/16 Jacksonville Waterways Commission meeting and then reinforced again by Stephanie at the 5/16/16 Finance agenda meeting.
We need this.

Visit Jacksonville!

[mtraininjax]

but we need affordable apartments as well.

There are plenty of affordable apartments in the new City Center called Town Center, and movie theatres closeby as well as restaurants and shopping. The residents are in and around Town Center. The lease rates prove this, we looked at an 8000 sqft property recently near TC and the rates are $25 a square, compare that to downtown. There is no real demand or push in downtown because the people are not there. You can demand all you want, but until there are more people downtown, you won't see a lot of new or more services downtown.

Jax tried this back in the early to mid 2000s, right after the Super Bowl and it went nowhere. Would love to see it happen, again, but got to get more people living downtown.