Mayor Curry wants the Landing back

[thelakelander]

For dedicated parking to exist, the city will either need to build Sleiman a $10-15 million parking garage (where?) or figure out a way to have dedicated spots from what is already there/being built.

From the article that Ennis quoted earlier in this thead at http://jacksonville.com/news/metro/2011-09-13/story/jacksonville-landing-says-35-million-grant-parking-garage-not-enough

You either need new parking or take existing spots from someone else.

The city made a deal to provide parking before the Landing opened in 1987, but that still hasn't been fulfilled. Doing that would require the city to provide another 300 parking spaces on weekdays and 375 on nights and weekends.

My initial thought is, we need to at least be able to meet the nights/weekend portion.

Dedicated parking is parking that's available 24/7 for that specific use. Not just nights and weekends.

It [Parador Garage] could also meet the Landing's night and weekend quota and open 200 weekday spots for shoppers. But Barcelo said the location doesn't meet the needs of the top-grade mall tenants the Landing seeks.

It seems they don't want the Parador, even with sufficient dedicated spots.

Parador doesn't include parking spaces that are dedicated to the Landing's tenants 24/7.

$3.5 million will be provided by the City of Jacksonville towards the [Parador Garage] project's costs in exchange for 200 daily and 375 night and weekend public spaces on a first come first serve basis to benefit the Jacksonville Landing and other surrounding commercial businesses.

http://www.news4jax.com/news/local/retail-less-parking-garage-proposed-for-downtown

So it looks like the city has the sufficient level of spots for the Landing due to this deal if dedicated strictly to the Landing and not other commercial districts, correct? I don't know what else Sleiman or his attorney could want with it right across the street.

If dedicated to the Landing, it would suffice.  However, the majority of the spots in that garage are dedicated to Suntrust tenants. 

The city agreed in 2011 to earmark $3.5 million to help Parador build the garage. The city's payment is in exchange for Parador setting spaces aside 200 spaces on weekdays and 375 spaces on weeknights and weekends for the public. The garage would increase parking options for patrons of the Landing, located across the street from the site. But the Landing has said the garage is not enough to comply with the city's long-standing obligation to provide parking for the riverfront mall.

http://jacksonville.com/news/metro/2012-10-11/story/600-space-parking-garage-downtown-jacksonville-wins-final-approval


1) Is the city done with its weekend obligation for the Landing or easily could attain it?

The answer seems to be Yes.

Yes, if one ignores the true definition of dedicated parking. Otherwise, no.

[fieldafm]

Given that I am fairly familiar with the 'Parador Parking Garage', absolutely zero spaces in the garage are dedicated for the sole use of Landing tenants. In fact, the garage is roughly 3/4 full with monthly parking customers.

[thelakelander]

Can he not fill up the current dedicated parking spots with those leases at least? Nothing has held him back especially with the Parador Garage. If the place is so full it needs additional parking, that will be a new conversation. I just feel as if there will never be enough parking and we will always be running around, even if the city met the parking agreement, which it seems to be only short of by 100 spots.

Field's post answers what has held things back.

why does sleiman need a dime or any commitment from the city to operate it as strip center as he described.  He's had 12 years.

has he been proposing he pay for all the landing improvements if he can get his 600 spots?  I'm assuming no, but please correct me.

in my view he's been refusing to do anything until he gets what he wants from the city- money.  sleiman positions it as you do.  the city wont "let" him do anything?

the city wont give him everything he wants seems more accurate.  if sleiman was worth his salt and such a savvy operator he would've done something besides complain for the last 12 years

there's been nothing stopping from running it like a strip center since day one.  sure they owe him parking but he wants more and wont operate in good faith otherwise.

Let's put something to rest, as there are a lot of facts that get glossed over in this discussion. The City's Development Agreement and subsequent operating lease with Rouse signed over 30 years ago, that Sleiman took over and now operates under, REQUIRES the city to provide additional parking. In fact the word 'parking' appears more times than there are pages in the lease (there are over 700 pages in the lease). Parking isn't something that Rouse thought would be nice to have. They required the City to build additional parking as a condition of the developer breaking ground. The City has never lived up to that agreement 30 years later. Most WalMart leases don't go beyond 30 years. Another interesting tidbit, there is also clawback language that indicates that if the People Mover (AKA the Skyway) was ever torn down that there is significant recourse due to the building owner as consideration.


The vast majority of land leases require the landowner's consent before the building could undergo substantial renovations. Sleiman can't just tear the building down without the City of Jacksonville consenting to such action. So in effect, 'the city wont "let" him do anything' in regards to redevelopment. Seeing as though the City owns the land underneath the buildings, I simply can't think of any developer who would ever completely redevelop property on land owned by a local municipality without said municipality pay for any infrastructure improvement needed to support a new building on said land.
As a point of comparison, the Shipyards development and The District development will also require much more public infrastructure improvement paid for by the City of Jacksonville, than any redevelopment proposal that Sleiman has ever presented since taking ownership of the Landing more than a decade ago. Why is it completely reasonable to expect the City to pay for infrastructure improvements to serve The District... but not the Landing? At least in The District's case, the master developer will own the land.


As to what kind of landlord the City has been... take a look at the floating public docks lining the Northbank Riverwalk/Jacksonville Landing. Over half of the available dock space has been in a state of disrepair and are closed off to the public. That's the City of Jacksonville's responsibility. Not only is the City refusing to live up to their 30 year obligation in regards to automobile parking... they aren't even repairing boat parking that presently exists.  That puts things in quite a different perspective if you removed the words 'Toney Sleiman' out of the equation and looked at the situation objectively.

[FlaBoy]

Given that I am fairly familiar with the 'Parador Parking Garage', absolutely zero spaces in the garage are dedicated for the sole use of Landing tenants. In fact, the garage is roughly 3/4 full with monthly parking customers.

Wasn't that the point of the $3.5 million provided by the city contingent upon 200 24/7 dedicated parking spots and an additional 175 evening and weekend spots (adding up to 375 spots after 5:30 and weekends)?

[Keith-N-Jax]

The city has come up short on its part for over 20 plus years, I think its time to move on from this and find a solution.

[KenFSU]

Also, count me among those who think that there's a lot of value in keeping at least at least a portion of the existing structure in place. Despite the checkered history and comparatively short lifespan, the Landing is iconic. Why would we raze one of the most identifiable features of our skyline, simply because it's not being utilized properly? I'd much rather see a renovation than a total redesign.

To me, there are few things more picturesque in Jacksonville than the Landing:







And it's also downtown's primary civic gathering spots for things like...

Florida Georgia weekend:


The Christmas tree-lighting:


Political rallies:


Concerts:


Paint it, pressure wash it, do whatever it takes to modernize it, but why would we tear down such a great space without exhausting every possible effort to make it work?

[jlmann]

Parking is an issue at the landing and it always has been. The city should have provided the parking they said the would 25-30 years ago.  But they didn't.  Back to 2017 and the current state of the landing:

Sleiman himself suggests that he could just choose to run it as regular ole strip center if the city wont work with him.

Sleiman would certainly say that providing no additional parking would qualify as the city "not working with him".  So in this hypothetical Sleiman allgedly goes on to manage a reasonably successful strip center.  With no additional parking.  This is according to him.  Otherwise if it couldn't, why suggest it?

Ergo Sleiman is ultimately saying there is some viable retail operation that could be run at the landing in its current form without huge amounts of tax payer dollars being required.

We can blame the last few decades worth of coj employees and politicians.  But they aren't in office now.  Curry is looking at this in 2017 and he correctly sees a partner who has not made a good faith effort to run the landing as he himself says he can with no help for the city.

[Keith-N-Jax]

Major events is really the only time most residents utilize the Landing. Those that work DT weekly usually dont return until Monday morning for work again.

[KenFSU]

Major events is really the only time most residents utilize the Landing. Those that work DT weekly usually dont return until Monday morning for work again.

To your point, Keith, I remember reading in the Business Journal a year or two back that restaurants at the Landing like Hooters depend on a handful of big events each year - Florida/Georgia, 4th of July, NYE, etc. - to break even and offset losses from this lack of foot traffic during the rest of the year.

If changing the structure itself is off the table in the short term, I wonder if better, more frequent, more consistent programming could be the key to pumping new life into the Landing?

Crazy idea, but what if rather than taking control of the Landing, or committing money to building or remodeling structures the city doesn't own, the city took control of the interior courtyard and riverfront space and essentially operated it as a park:



Dare as I say, make it over and run it as a public-private partnership with Sleiman. Lunch time programming. Daily events. Exercise or art classes. Movie nights. Happy hours after work with live music and open containers in the courtyard. Bigger tentpole events on the weekends. Whatever, as long as people know that there is always going to be activity down there.

We call Hemming "Jacksonville's front porch," but really, the Landing courtyard - particularly if opened up to Laura Street - literally is the front porch of our CBD, and making that public space more active, giving people more reasons to come down, and eventually making that activity visible from Laura street could have a really positive impact on businesses at the Landing.

[FlaBoy]

Major events is really the only time most residents utilize the Landing. Those that work DT weekly usually dont return until Monday morning for work again.

To your point, Keith, I remember reading in the Business Journal a year or two back that restaurants at the Landing like Hooters depend on a handful of big events each year - Florida/Georgia, 4th of July, NYE, etc. - to break even and offset losses from this lack of foot traffic during the rest of the year.

If changing the structure itself is off the table in the short term, I wonder if better, more frequent, more consistent programming could be the key to pumping new life into the Landing?

Crazy idea, but what if rather than taking control of the Landing, or committing money to building or remodeling structures the city doesn't own, the city took control of the interior courtyard and riverfront space and essentially operated it as a park:



Dare as I say, make it over and run it as a public-private partnership with Sleiman. Lunch time programming. Daily events. Exercise or art classes. Movie nights. Happy hours after work with live music and open containers in the courtyard. Bigger tentpole events on the weekends. Whatever, as long as people know that there is always going to be activity down there.

We call Hemming "Jacksonville's front porch," but really, the Landing courtyard - particularly if opened up to Laura Street - literally is the front porch of our CBD, and making that public space more active, giving people more reasons to come down, and eventually making that activity visible from Laura street could have a really positive impact on businesses at the Landing.

I have a feeling that is what they want to do...just without Sleiman. I think they want a third party to manage the venue and work closer with the city on programming the venue. It just seems that there is no longer a working relationship between Sleiman and COJ.

[remc86007]

For me at least, the reason I rarely go to the landing is because the current mix of tenants does not appeal to me at all. The few places I've gone there have been so poorly managed and dirty that I refuse to return.

It's funny that the Landing's website displays a banner that says "Downtown's Premier Dining & Nightlife Scene" on top of a picture of five fried dishes. I think that is representative of how in-touch the current management (and tenants?) is with the current market.

I'd love it if it was cleaned up and had some places to get craft beer, wine, and good (healthy) food with a good view of the river. Hooters doesn't cut it for me..

[Non-RedNeck Westsider]

I'd love it if it was cleaned up and had some places to get craft beer, wine, and good (healthy) food with a good view of the river. Hooters doesn't cut it for me..

There have been better mixes there.  Southend Brewery was on the north end where Fionn McCool's is now and they brewed their own beer on sight.

Jock's and Jill's was a sportsbar.  American Cafe above Hooters.  A handful of bars and clubs, Huey's, Twisted Martini, Huey's II...  rotated in and out of many of the spaces.  All of this was in the early 2000's when I used to bartend down there, and business was decent all week - I'd bring home $100-$200 nightly.  And there seemed to be a lot more going on nightly, the restaurants were more varied, there were just bars if that's all you wanted....  it feels like it was a totally different place than it is now...

But as many have pointed out, it still fills up when there are events going on downtown, I just don't see anything there currently that says, "Hey, we should go to the Landing for..." on a random Tuesday night.

[Keith-N-Jax]

Anybody know why all those places left. I really liked American Café, twisted martini and that place that cooked your food as you watched cant remember the name. WHAT HAPPENED

[thelakelander]

Parking is an issue at the landing and it always has been. The city should have provided the parking they said the would 25-30 years ago.  But they didn't.  Back to 2017 and the current state of the landing:

Sleiman himself suggests that he could just choose to run it as regular ole strip center if the city wont work with him.

He said shopping center.  However, it is a shopping center and it should be run like one, as opposed to something we're wasting time and energy conducting visioning sessions for full redevelopment every other year.

Sleiman would certainly say that providing no additional parking would qualify as the city "not working with him".  So in this hypothetical Sleiman allgedly goes on to manage a reasonably successful strip center.  With no additional parking.  This is according to him.  Otherwise if it couldn't, why suggest it?

Call his bluff and let's see what happens.  Seriously, what does Jacksonville have to lose?

Ergo Sleiman is ultimately saying there is some viable retail operation that could be run at the landing in its current form without huge amounts of tax payer dollars being required.

Sounds like it. However, that also means  he's not paying to tear a hole in the middle of it to open the courtyard to Laura Street or paying for public space surrounding it or any of the other add-ons that have come from past visioning efforts.

We can blame the last few decades worth of coj employees and politicians.  But they aren't in office now.  Curry is looking at this in 2017 and he correctly sees a partner who has not made a good faith effort to run the landing as he himself says he can with no help for the city.

What's your proof he hasn't made a good faith effort to run the landing? The dude has been lobbying for redevelopment the last 14 years!  Let's see what happens when it's known and accepted that COJ isn't financially assisting in full redevelopment.

[thelakelander]

Major events is really the only time most residents utilize the Landing. Those that work DT weekly usually dont return until Monday morning for work again.

When the Landing was built, it was supposed to be supported by 70% tourist. For whatever reason, that tourism base still has not materialized three decades after the promises to lure Rouse to town.  It would be a bad business decision to depend on residents for primary support.  They'll need a mix of tourist, downtown workers, residents and suburbanites drawn in with occasional events.