Former Gulf Life Insurance Headquarters to be demolished

[CityLife]

Kerry is actually somewhat correct that Fire Departments are sometimes at odds with unique or innovative site design due to their need for wide turn radiuses and drive aisles for fire trucks. I've had to make recent modifications on projects ranging from a hospital to a mixed use village due to Fire Departments. Both made the sites less pedestrian friendly, and neither was functionally necessary for fire access. It is pretty common in the site planning world for Fire to be at odds with urbanism and innovative designs.

That said, not sure it's really relevant to the discussion at hand.

[thelakelander]

Yes, in this case it's an office building, not a fire station.

[Steve]

Yes, in this case it's an office building, not a fire station.

Correct - I'd object less if this was a discussion about needing to rapidly get on the fire truck or get in the Ambulance. these are office workers; more than capable of walking a block or two to their car.

[thelakelander]

FBC has a garage the sits empty for most of the week directly across the street. In fact, they have a couple of them, along with declining membership. They're also adjacent to the Skyway's Rosa Parks Station. Those garages are positioned to serve as a bundled parking solution for that entire section of downtown.

[Jagsdrew]

Their garages that are on either side of Julia Street, are relatively vacant during the week. Their garages on Laura are the ones used the most during the week.
Not sure how many space they have in those garages, but leasing a few hundred spaces would be beneficial to both parties.

[avonjax]

Another Jacksonville step down. But is this a surprise? We are a suburban city. I'm sad.

[JeffreyS]

Very disappointed in the church  and the Fire department for doing this.  Clearly neither entity is thinking about being a good part of the community as far as this endeavor is concerned.

[thelakelander]

I think they both mean well. From a high level, a long vacant building and block is being put back to use and both are playing a role in making that happen. Unfortunately, urban planning, historic preservation and walkability just aren't their areas of expertise or focus. Also unfortunately, they aren't for many of our local design and engineering firms as well. So the church is selling property/buildings it doesn't need anymore and the fire department is restoring an office building. The key here is to make this happen without turning an urban street corner into a gated parking lot.

[Kerry]

Fire departments are one of the biggest deterent to walkable urbanism, so this is just par for the course.

What?

The trucks disrupt the peace.

Yeah, wish they'd just shutup and let the town burn to the ground. Nothing spurs new urbanism like another Great Fire! 1901 move over, Great Fire of 2018 is gonna be wicked!

/s

It has been well documented by the good people at Strong Towns and CNU.

[Kerry]

Another Jacksonville step down. But is this a surprise? We are a suburban city. I'm sad.

This is what I struggle with here.  How do we change the mind-set of the average Jaxson?  I found the New Urbanism movement in 2007 when I realized the tax rate we will have to pay eventually to cover the cost of sprawl.  As a right-wing tea party conservative the New Urbanism movement really spoke to me because it makes so much sense economically and socially.

I know it can be done because places like OKC, Tulsa, Omaha, Des Moines, Memphis, Nashville, Wichita, and on and on and on have all managed to do it.

[jax_hwy_engineer]

Fire departments are one of the biggest deterent to walkable urbanism, so this is just par for the course.

What?

The trucks disrupt the peace.

Yeah, wish they'd just shutup and let the town burn to the ground. Nothing spurs new urbanism like another Great Fire! 1901 move over, Great Fire of 2018 is gonna be wicked!

/s

It has been well documented by the good people at Strong Towns and CNU.

Notice the "/s" at the end, denoting my incredible over-the-top sarcasm. I obviously don't want the town to burn down, nor do I think fire trucks in an urban environment are conducive to a walkable urban environment, but they're an absolutely necessary part of modern society, especially in an urban environment. I brought sarcasm in to add some whimsy to a sub-conversation that began about firetrucks, but I wonder why it was even brought up in the first place. Sure, the trucks are bad for walkable urbanism, as is surely documented, but having the town burn down is certainly worse than a lack of walkability (which only gets disrupted when a firetruck needs to leave the station). You can't get rid of firetrucks because they're bad for walkability, so why even mention it?

[Steve]

Fire departments are one of the biggest deterent to walkable urbanism, so this is just par for the course.

What?

The trucks disrupt the peace.

Yeah, wish they'd just shutup and let the town burn to the ground. Nothing spurs new urbanism like another Great Fire! 1901 move over, Great Fire of 2018 is gonna be wicked!

/s

It has been well documented by the good people at Strong Towns and CNU.

Notice the "/s" at the end, denoting my incredible over-the-top sarcasm. I obviously don't want the town to burn down, nor do I think fire trucks in an urban environment are conducive to a walkable urban environment, but they're an absolutely necessary part of modern society, especially in an urban environment. I brought sarcasm in to add some whimsy to a sub-conversation that began about firetrucks, but I wonder why it was even brought up in the first place. Sure, the trucks are bad for walkable urbanism, as is surely documented, but having the town burn down is certainly worse than a lack of walkability (which only gets disrupted when a firetruck needs to leave the station). You can't get rid of firetrucks because they're bad for walkability, so why even mention it?

Guys, we're missing the point. If this was an actual fire station where first responders would be dispatched from it would be a completely different discussion. This is an office building. No More. If this was an office building for a bank, would the opinion be any different?

[fieldafm]

Fire departments are one of the biggest deterent to walkable urbanism, so this is just par for the course.

What?

The trucks disrupt the peace.

Yeah, wish they'd just shutup and let the town burn to the ground. Nothing spurs new urbanism like another Great Fire! 1901 move over, Great Fire of 2018 is gonna be wicked!

/s

It has been well documented by the good people at Strong Towns and CNU.

Notice the "/s" at the end, denoting my incredible over-the-top sarcasm. I obviously don't want the town to burn down, nor do I think fire trucks in an urban environment are conducive to a walkable urban environment, but they're an absolutely necessary part of modern society, especially in an urban environment. I brought sarcasm in to add some whimsy to a sub-conversation that began about firetrucks, but I wonder why it was even brought up in the first place. Sure, the trucks are bad for walkable urbanism, as is surely documented, but having the town burn down is certainly worse than a lack of walkability (which only gets disrupted when a firetruck needs to leave the station). You can't get rid of firetrucks because they're bad for walkability, so why even mention it?

He just wants something to complain about by bringing up a straw man's argument- fire trucks are an entirely different issue than tearing down a building for an office used by the fire department. Championing places like Tulsa, Memphis and Wichita as models for zoning reform (all Sunbelt sprawlers that have WAY worse urban environments than Jax), is just icing on the cake.

[fieldafm]

I think they both mean well. From a high level, a long vacant building and block is being put back to use and both are playing a role in making that happen. Unfortunately, urban planning, historic preservation and walkability just aren't their areas of expertise or focus. Also unfortunately, they aren't for many of our local design and engineering firms as well. So the church is selling property/buildings it doesn't need anymore and the fire department is restoring an office building. The key here is to make this happen without turning an urban street corner into a gated parking lot.

Think Lakelander hits the nail squarely on the head. Both the Fire Dept and FBC have decent enough intentions.  Ultimately, this is a challenge that has a solution that can work for everyone- keeping the built environment intact, while also contributing to the sorely-needed rehabilitation of a downtown building.

[CityLife]

I deal with complex shared parking agreements pretty frequently, and churches and offices are a perfect pairing demand wise.

Generally, office only has a 10% parking utilization from 6pm-midnight on weekdays and on weekends. So if an office has peak parking demand of 150 spaces (9am-4PM weekdays), it would only need 15 spaces on weeknights and weekends. I don't have a utilization table for churches, but would guess that it is no more than 20% during 9am-4pm, but probably closer to 10%. Long story short, there should be sufficient excess spaces at FBC's parking garages for a shared parking agreement since their periods of peak demand are opposite each other.

I'm happy to help anyone that wants to try and work out a shared parking arrangement between the two parties...