Lori Boyer floats alternate site for convention center

[Ken_FSU]

https://www.bizjournals.com/jacksonville/news/2020/03/12/as-plans-advance-for-ford-on-bay-boyer-envisions.html?iana=hpmvp_jac_news_headline

During [KBJ Architects President Thomas] Rensing's appearance at the February board meeting, board member Moody suggested a convention center could work in the Shipyards, somewhere between Spandrel's development and the Lot J development.

Rensing disagrees. Moving towards the stadium would mean the convention center wouldn't be in walking distance to the Hyatt, the closest hotel — and it would make the convention center neighbor a jail, police station and the Maxwell House manufacturing facility.

The Hyatt also wants to be a part of a convention center, Rensing said. The Hyatt's owners were part of Jacobs' team when the group pitched in 2018.

And what the Hyatt wants is important not only for a convention center, but also for the Ford on Bay. If the Hyatt doesn't release its right to purchase the land, Spandrel can only develop one parcel, and a city parcel with a market value of $8.5 million could remain a patch of grass.

Even so, what the Hyatt wants is not the only consideration for where a convention center should go, Boyer said.

"Clearly it's the best site for the Hyatt, but is it the best site for the city?" Boyer said.

But she thinks there may be another way to make the Hyatt happy, a way that better serves the city's interests: Instead of building from the Hyatt towards the stadium, build from the Hyatt towards the former site of the Jacksonville Landing, which will soon be bid out for development.

Boyer imagined a convention center engulfing the Hyatt, the Hyatt's parking garage and the Landing's parking lot, heading west along the river instead of north into downtown. If the Main Street bridge ramp running over the parking lot were removed, that would dedicate almost 7 acres to a convention center.

Removing the submerged acres from Jacobs' convention center cite, the space is almost equivalent. Spandrel is also willing to build exhibition space in its second phase, the parcel on which the Hyatt has its right of refusal, Boyer said.

Boyer's exploration of a convention center between the Hyatt and the Landing has not yet gone beyond a theoretical exercise.

She has not formalized any such convention center plan or land banking action to take to the DIA board. For now, it's just an idea.

Meanwhile, the board will vote in its March 18 meeting on Boyer's recommendation to reject KBJ's bid, while the City Council waits to sign off on Spandrel's plan for the property.

As for the convention center, Rensing's vision for the site may never exist beyond virtual reality — but Boyer said she believes Jacksonville's convention center aspiration remains alive ... although the time is not now, she said, and the place is not the Ford on Bay.

[Kerry]

Having been down the "Convention Center" discussion in other cities over the past 10 years, the best place for a convention center in Jax is in the parking lot of the current convention center.  If this is built in the heart of downtown it will set Jax even further behind, but it will never come to that because the cost to do so is going to be so expensive (or it will be so ugly) it will never see the light of day.

[thelakelander]

Let Spandrel build the exhibition hall as a part of Ford on Bay and call it a day for the foreseeable future. Let's stop making this more expensive, difficult and time consuming than it has to be. Haven't we missed enough economic cycles already?

[CityLife]

The idea makes a lot of sense and mirrors something I posted about a year and a half ago in this thread.

https://www.metrojacksonville.com/forum/index.php/topic,35225.msg487529.html#msg487529

"I'll throw a thought out there. Why doesn't the City partner with Hyatt to expand the existing tiered meeting space building to meet the City's convention center needs? This building would be rendered obsolete by a new convention center, so Hyatt should have a desire to play ball. The City could even consider funding a portion of the expansion with sales of the courthouse and city hall properties, AND hopefully get those properties back on the tax rolls in the future. I would also imagine that Hyatt would love to freshen up the exterior of the architectural atrocity that is the main hotel tower (particularly with new competition coming downtown), so it may be a good time to re-imagine the exterior of the hotel tower and tiered building.

To me it makes no sense to waste valuable real estate when there is a potential opportunity to go vertical a few blocks away. Virtually every real estate development project I work in compact/dense areas, seeks to go as vertical as possible, so as to preserve as much land for future development opportunities."

[Kerry]

You can go verticle in meeting room space but exhibit space is a whole other issue.  They need tons of column free space that can support a tremendous amount of weight, have 25' to 35' ceilings, and staging/loading docks for 15 to 20 semis.  None of that gets accomplished downtown.

[heights unknown]

You can go verticle in meeting room space but exhibit space is a whole other issue.  They need tons of column free space that can support a tremendous amount of weight, have 25' to 35' ceilings, and staging/loading docks for 15 to 20 semis.  None of that gets accomplished downtown.

It can get accomplished downtown if people would earn their paychecks and put their minds to it; nothing is impossible, and the word "no" or "can't" should ever be in anyone's vocabulary.

[thelakelander]

You can get you a good +100k square feet of exhibition space attached to the second level of the Hyatt. That gives you an entire ground level for commercial, support, cultural uses, etc. That, combined with the Hyatt's ballroom and meeting spaces gives you a complex much larger than the Prime Osborn for a fraction of the costs of building completely new and without the isolation of LaVilla.

[Kerry]

I'm content to mostly sit back and watch this whole idea fall apart until the people in charge educate themselves and see how unrealistic it is to build in the heart of downtown and then come to their senses.  If Jax ever does get a new convention center I can tell you right now exactly where it will be located - in the parking lot of the Prime Osborne.

For a whole list of reasons the Prime location is the only make logistical, aesthetics, and economic sense.  For example, we just spent how many millions building a multimodal transit facility so wouldn't it make sense to construct public facilities as close as possible to it?  You know - clustering and all that good stuff.

[thelakelander]

The Prime Osborn's problems are no hotel rooms, no restaurants, no shops, no entertainment and a slim chance of any of that ever happening within the next 20 years. All it does is help tie up a train station from being a train station, while sending home grown conventions and tradeshows to other communities like Daytona, that offer guests something to do.

[Kerry]

The Prime Osborn's problems are no hotel rooms, no restaurants, no shops, no entertainment and a slim chance of any of that ever happening within the next 20 years. All it does is help tie up a train station from being a train station, while sending home grown conventions and tradeshows to other communities like Daytona, that offer guests something to do.

Hotels will build where ever the convention center is.  Building in the PO parking lot will allow the PO to become a train station again (if VT ever decides to come to Jax).

The longer the City fools around with unrealistic ideas the longer it will take to actually build something.  We are wasting valuable time.

[Captain Zissou]

Hotels will build where ever the convention center is. 

That's definitely been the case so far.  I love all the hotels around the Prime Osborn.  The nightlife is GREAT!!

[heights unknown]

I'm content to mostly sit back and watch this whole idea fall apart until the people in charge educate themselves and see how unrealistic it is to build in the heart of downtown and then come to their senses.  If Jax ever does get a new convention center I can tell you right now exactly where it will be located - in the parking lot of the Prime Osborne.

For a whole list of reasons the Prime location is the only make logistical, aesthetics, and economic sense.  For example, we just spent how many millions building a multimodal transit facility so wouldn't it make sense to construct public facilities as close as possible to it?  You know - clustering and all that good stuff.

What you just said, and explained, makes a lot of sense to me; but obviously it doesn't make sense to Boyer and City Leaders. This is what I mean by earning their paychecks. They may have a degree (I have one but I don't know it all), and some background and experience, but it just seems that no one in Jax possesses the intelligence and wisdom to really sit back and listen, and think things through, and listen to others that may help them improve their ideas or give them better ideas to help and assist them in making plausible, right, correct, sensible, and sound/profitable decisions for the City of Jax and the area as a whole.

[heights unknown]

Hotels will build where ever the convention center is. 

That's definitely been the case so far.  I love all the hotels around the Prime Osborn.  The nightlife is GREAT!!

LOLOLOL...Captain you're killing me!

[Kerry]

Hotels will build where ever the convention center is. 

That's definitely been the case so far.  I love all the hotels around the Prime Osborn.  The nightlife is GREAT!!

The Prime Osborne isn't in a position to compete for conventions that require many room-nights.  It's old, undersized, and lacks modern amenities.  I assume a new center would at least make an attempt to host regional or national conventions which would require room-nights.  If not, then just keep Prime.

[thelakelander]

That would be one of the primary points of adding on to the Hyatt. It is Jax's convention center hotel that it provided millions in subsidies for two decades ago. Adding to it, builds off previous public investment and places guests in an area where shops, restaurants, bars and attractions can be within logical walking distance. By reducing convention center costs, you free up money to spend on other needs.