Convention Center Wars

[downtownbrown]

makes sense.

[120North]

Hearing project might get shelved.  Heaven forbid if someone else wants what Shad wants....

[billy]

they should have done an rfp to renovate/repurpose  courthouse annex

[KenFSU]

Hearing project might get shelved.  Heaven forbid if someone else wants what Shad wants....

Courthouse site never stood a chance after Khan's power play the day after the RFP closed.

Not sure paying $1.2 billion over 25 years for the Jacobs convention center was the right choice either (funny that outlandish requirements in the RFP result in an outlandish project cost), but it'll be a big missed opportunity to not have the convention center in the CBD.

I just hope that:

1) Whenever a convention center agreement is reached, the Jags agree to front a significant portion of the project cost. If we can get a $450 million convention center and hotel for $225 million in local contributions (plus $10 mil in remediation costs), and use the ~$700 million 25-year difference to stand up urban projects like the Emerald Necklace, Veteran's Park, Landing improvements, historic building credits, transit, environmental remediation, the decision would be a little easier to swallow.

2) We don't gift Rimrock Devlin the Courthouse property as part of the deal. There's a lot of interest in that property outside of convention use. I think we can do much better than what was proposed by RRD. If it's not going to be a convention center, we need to put something there that will add equal vibrancy to the surrounding area.

[thelakelander]

Hopefully, the whole thing will go on ice and we can reconsider when Curry's out of office. Would hate to blow millions on something we end up discovering that we don't need at such a significant scale and at a location that doesn't really benefit the downtown core.

[downtownbrown]

hope it doesn't go on ice.  In Jacksonville, once things freeze up they never thaw.  What the hell does it take to get cranes in the air in this town?  Shad was right about Jacksonville and Mojo.

[KenFSU]

Hopefully, the whole thing will go on ice and we can reconsider when Curry's out of office. Would hate to blow millions on something we end up discovering that we don't need at such a significant scale and at a location that doesn't really benefit the downtown core.

The strawman game is strong.

"We can't afford to build a sixty-story, $1.2 billion mega-center directly atop the St. Johns River in the CBD. I guess we have no choice but to go with the Shipyards instead..."

If it isn't included in the economic development agreement for Lot J, it'll probably get iced until 2020.

Have zero doubt a handshake agreement is in place, though.

Leads to the question though - if we ice a public decision on the convention center for the foreseeable future, what do we do with the Courthouse property? Keep it on hold for a potential convention center? RFP it for other purposes?

[Kerry]

hope it doesn't go on ice.  In Jacksonville, once things freeze up they never thaw.  What the hell does it take to get cranes in the air in this town?  Shad was right about Jacksonville and Mojo.

Don't expect to see Jax on this list any time soon.

[KenFSU]

hope it doesn't go on ice.  In Jacksonville, once things freeze up they never thaw.  What the hell does it take to get cranes in the air in this town?  Shad was right about Jacksonville and Mojo.

Don't expect to see Jax on this list any time soon.

Wait, Jacksonville doesn't have as many cranes in absolute terms as MSA's up to 13 times our size?

It's kind of a misleading map in terms of relative growth.

Cranes-per-capita, now there's a stat I can get behind.

[downtownbrown]

that would be good.  Let's see, Jax has around a million people in the greater metro area.  And there is a crane on top of the Trio.  Not the most comforting ratio.  But perhaps I missed two or three others.  And I'm not counting the cranes being used for demolition.  But maybe every demolition crane should be subtracted by the construction cranes....

[thelakelander]

Hopefully, the whole thing will go on ice and we can reconsider when Curry's out of office. Would hate to blow millions on something we end up discovering that we don't need at such a significant scale and at a location that doesn't really benefit the downtown core.

The strawman game is strong.

"We can't afford to build a sixty-story, $1.2 billion mega-center directly atop the St. Johns River in the CBD. I guess we have no choice but to go with the Shipyards instead..."

If it isn't included in the economic development agreement for Lot J, it'll probably get iced until 2020.

Have zero doubt a handshake agreement is in place, though.

Leads to the question though - if we ice a public decision on the convention center for the foreseeable future, what do we do with the Courthouse property? Keep it on hold for a potential convention center? RFP it for other purposes?

We're going to be looking at an overgrown grass lot. We've had over a decade to figure out what to do with that site and we didn't even bother to issue a RFP to see if there would be any private sector interest in the existing buildings. Then to tilt things towards TIAA Bank Field, we developed a bloated list of criteria in a convention center to result in a bloated price. We have no clue what we're doing. Also, no matter what we do, does Hyatt still have first dibs on the property?

[thelakelander]

hope it doesn't go on ice.  In Jacksonville, once things freeze up they never thaw.  What the hell does it take to get cranes in the air in this town?  Shad was right about Jacksonville and Mojo.

Don't expect to see Jax on this list any time soon.

Wait, Jacksonville doesn't have as many cranes in absolute terms as MSA's up to 13 times our size?

It's kind of a misleading map in terms of relative growth.

Cranes-per-capita, now there's a stat I can get behind.

It's a pretty inaccurate list. Miami has more cranes than the majority of places on the list and it's not even mentioned.

[downtownbrown]

neither is Nashville.  Cranes everywhere.

[JBTripper]

hope it doesn't go on ice.  In Jacksonville, once things freeze up they never thaw.  What the hell does it take to get cranes in the air in this town?  Shad was right about Jacksonville and Mojo.

Don't expect to see Jax on this list any time soon.

I guess Alabama and Georgia sorted out their dispute over the Chattahoochee by merging into one state?

[120North]

Mayor kicked it back to DIA to reconsider the selection.  Jacobs was 1.2B all in (deferred until year 4 of operation) while RRD was close to $1B (with huge money up front).  Jacobs was much larger SF so actual SF cost is less than the RDD shipyards version.  We all know shipyards will take $$$ to become a viable site that is not included in cost.