Greening of Main: A failure in the making?

[Yourworstnightmare]

Stop picking on Johnny Boy !!!! He wants to be everyones Mayor even at your expense.

[spidey]

Greening of Main: A failure in the making?



They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions.  Well in this case, let's substitute the asphalt with a $700,000 patch of grass.   Today we'll introduce 10 things needed to create a successful urban public space and illustrate why the pocket park being constructed as a part of the Greening of Main project is destined for failure.

Full Article
http://www.metrojacksonville.com/content/view/362

Has anybody checked out this pathetic excuse for a park.  What? Are they planning on holding croquet or bocce games there?  What a waste of space and natural resources, i.e., all the water that will be used to keep that green grass growing.

It was disappointing enough when they decided to put a pocket park there in the first place. And now I see the actual park. Words escape me.   

[Lunican]

Yes, it's being documented. We will wait until it is complete before passing judgment on its success.

[thelakelander]

This can't be it.  It cost $700k.  What other additions are included to help get to that number?  Also, what's the deal with that big wood fence in the background?  What's on the other side of it?

[spidey]

Lunican, thanks for posting the pictures. 

And yes, Lake, that IS it.  Unbelievable......

Want to meet me there for a game of croquet?  I'll bring my wickets.   

[hightowerlover]

i wonder who will be the first to take a crap in the mayor's 700,000 dollar "park"?

[Jason]

I'm with you Spidey.  I just don't know what to say.

[Jason]

And to think, with the right vision we could have seen something like this...

[thelakelander]

Btw, since we're in a budget crunch and all, the creation of this park was at least a $1 million dollar loss.  I come up to that number by taking the $700k spent, plus the amount of money (over $300k) that could have been made by issuing an RFP and selling the land at a market rate value.  So in the end, you end up with at least $1 million less in your pocket for a lower grade use of the site.  Nevertheless, we'll moniter and photo document this park in the future.  Since we have tons of before shots and dialouge about how to properly integrate public spaces in urban areas on record, it makes for a great case study on urban revitalization.

[Lunican]

Actually, you could make the case that this was a $1.7 million loss by factoring in the lost opportunity of using the $700K to maintain existing parks. Plus, the annual maintenance of this new park can also be added, bring the number even higher.

This was a total misallocation of tax dollars. The excuses from city hall are, "Well, it's a small drop in the bucket" and "We could only use the money on parks along a state road". Confederate park is adjacent to Main St, the very same state road as the new park.

[copperfiend]

i wonder who will be the first to take a crap in the mayor's 700,000 dollar "park"?

I am sure somebody already has

[thelakelander]

This was a total misallocation of tax dollars. The excuses from city hall are, "Well, it's a small drop in the bucket" and "We could only use the money on parks along a state road". Confederate park is adjacent to Main St, the very same state road as the new park.

Now that you mention it, the little used pocket park across from the Florida Theater and the one on the corner of Bay & Broad Streets are both on State/Federal roads as well.  In the Florida Theater park's case, they probably could have funded the concept Tri Vu pushed a couple of years ago with his "Connect the Dots" (I can't remember the exact name, but it had dots/points/destinations on it) plan.

[Jason]

RFP's would have done a much better job at "Greening Main" because of the green bills that city would be collecting from property sale and tax revenue.