Convention Center Wars

[marcuscnelson]

The parking lot was crumbling into the river. 2 separate collapses happened over the last few years. Plus, maintaining a bridge structure over a river just to support a surface parking lot is a waste.

Oh, okay. That makes sense. With all the other needless demolition going on I wasn't sure if this was part of that. An actual structural problem is all the reason to tear it down.

Here's the thing: In a box, sure the Hyatt Garage/Parking lot is a fine site for it....if it was completely empty. But it isn't. There's a cost to demo/replace the garage, cost to replace what is currently some Hyatt Meeting space, etc.

And yes....especially if you get rid of the Main St Bridge Ramp to Newnan Street, it is a slightly larger site

It just doesn't seem like a very pragmatic solution.

Scrolling through this thread and others earlier, one idea mentioned (I think by Lake?) was that it makes the most sense to do the simple exhibition hall add-on ASAP to be done with Prime Osborn. Then, if there's a later opportunity to redevelop that parking area into a larger convention center (assuming we made enough intelligent decisions in a row to make Jax in-demand for such things) it can be added in addition to the new space or serve as a replacement. At which point the exhibition hall can either continue as a secondary part of the larger center or be put up for redevelopment.

[thelakelander]

Since City Hall Annex is gone now, the simple solution would be to add an exhibition hall to the Hyatt. It would resolve Jax's convention center issues for the foreseeable future, pull those types of events into the heart of downtown, help existing downtown businesses and allow for the redevelopment of the Prime Osborn site.

[Ken_FSU]

Since City Hall Annex is gone now, the simple solution would be to add an exhibition hall to the Hyatt. It would resolve Jax's convention center issues for the foreseeable future, pull those types of events into the heart of downtown, help existing downtown businesses and allow for the redevelopment of the Prime Osborn site.

Would have been nice to have some construction on this under way during the pandemic so we'd be ready to go when events start to pick up back post-vaccine.

Maybe by next pandemic...

[marcuscnelson]

We could have started construction on this two years ago instead of the original RFP before Khan started jerking everyone around with the idea of a big center at the Shipyards. This idea has been talked about since at least 2014.

But clearly Jacksonville won't get its crap together until we get a Mayor who will at least try to advocate for making any amount of sense in urban development policy. 2023's coming, I guess...