Help plan the Duval County Courthouse Plaza

[avonjax]

Why bother?

[Bill Hoff]

So this will be a place that you can take a picture of but not use. Fantastic use of money.

All about the 'gram, bro.
#gramlife
#igersjax
#ig4eva

[Steve]

Why bother?

Seriously, with these rules just take the $650k or whatever is in the budget and do something else.

[thelakelander]

and people wonder why most of downtown remains a ghost town. 95% of downtown's issues are self inflicted.

[heights unknown]

Why bother?

Exactly! Too many restrictions and too much "red tape."

[heights unknown]

and people wonder why most of downtown remains a ghost town. 95% of downtown's issues are self inflicted.

You can in large part thank non-creative leaders and leadership for that as well. They hate earning their paycheck.

[Papa33]

It describes Lenny's Lawn.  You don't have to envision it.  You can get a sneak peak of what we are going to get by looking at the Jacksonville Landing site.

[marcuscnelson]

The winning design is getting announced on June 1st at 9am on the courthouse lawn.

https://www.jaxdailyrecord.com/article/design-for-duval-county-courthouse-art-project-to-be-announced-june-1

Not sure how much they're going to do with requirements like

No trees may be planted, no water features or long-term seating may be installed and any landscaping in the design must be easily maintained with lawn mowers, leaf blowers and pressure washing.

Not sure how you can even spend $619k at that point, but I guess we'll find out.

[thelakelander]

I'd be interested to see what they come up with. Especially Walter Hood.

[Papa33]

https://www.jaxdailyrecord.com/photo-gallery/these-truths-selected-as-art-for-the-duval-county-courthouse

Renderings show a re-build of Monroe Street (which I imagine would only be a service road).

[BridgeTroll]

I actually like it... The road part makes no sense to me but the sculpture and public space might work well...

Of course my artistic tastes are admittedly rudimentary... 

[jaxlongtimer]

At this point, rebuilding Monroe Street in front of the Courthouse seems pointless.  We have lived this long without it, why waste money putting it back.  And, if, as they say, they are concerned about security, having the street that close to the face of the building can't be a good thing.  Finally, putting in the street with the curvy pathway is just not a great design for a downtown street.  It would be much better leaving it as green space.

As to the park's overall design, I am fine with the sculptures.  But, it is clear that all the limitations put on the design make this an overall uninspiring space, especially with the absence of benches, significant shade trees, other landscaping and water features and the amount of paving relative to green space.  I imagine this space will be very uncomfortable on a summer afternoon.  My guess is most people will quickly walk through the space - there won't be a whole lot of "lingering" but I guess that was their intention.  Mission accomplished.

[thelakelander]

We'll have to play the long term game with this one. My hope would be after a few people die out or move on to other endeavors, that this will be a space where more trees and amenities can be added. In the meantime, we'll need to keep a street from being built there. It's more of a security risk than trees, benches or plants would ever be.

[jaxlongtimer]

^  LOL.  Ennis, care to name who needs to die?  Need their ages so I can make a tickler file to check back in on them.     Maybe we can plant a tree in this park in honor of each of the deceased just to have the last word.

[jcjohnpaint]

I thought we went through this with Monroe cutting through a few years ago. It was a terrible idea then and it is a terrible idea now. Those are not sculptures. They seem like some strange propaganda graphic design installments.