Southside Construction Update - Winter 2017

[jaxlongtimer]

I say to see our future, look at some other more populous (assuming historic population trends, today's large city populations will become the population of tomorrow's mid-size cities such as Jax) and/or more mature/advanced cities. 

I look, for example, at the beltway suburbs of D.C.  As build-out ate up all develop-able land in the beltway 'burbs over the last 50 years, and traffic problems grew to the point where travel times became a factor for significant numbers in choosing to live "closer in," closer to employment/shopping and/or closer to mass transit hubs, or all of the above, I have observed increased density of development, as evidenced by more high rise construction, popping up around major traffic nodes.  Based on this, I would envision a future round of (re)development in Jax being high rise construction appearing, first, at major interstate/expressway interchanges, and then spreading to other arterial/major intersections.  These nodes will become the new front lines of development vs. the massive sprawls down two to four lane roads of today.  This may be 50 years down the road, but I see it as inevitable.  Density increases are surely the future.  The 3 to 5 story apartments, retail and office buildings of today's suburbs will yield to the 10 to 40+ story buildings of tomorrow, no longer confined to just the original urban/downtown core.  Retail will be in multilevel structures and/or at the bases of the office/residential high rises.  Parking garages will become commonplace.  And, mass transit will become an enabling infrastructure, also inevitable, despite Jax's extensive efforts to postpone dealing with it.  Effectively, we will have downtown Jax ringed with "mini-downtowns."

I would guess certain interchanges with I-95 (e.g. JTB, Baymeadows, U.S. 1) and the southeast quadrant of I-295 (JTB, Baymeadows, U.S. 1) will be the starting points due to the ease of redeveloping existing heavy commercial and multi-family properties (vs.suburban-style housing) dominating those areas currently.

I may not be around to see it but the pattern is well established elsewhere and I don't see Jax being immune to it.