Clustering and the 'Three C's' of urban revitalization

[thelakelander]

Successful urban revitalization projects of all scopes and sizes rely on a simple three-pronged principle: the clustering of complementing uses within a compact setting. It's a tried and true formula for bringing life to urban streets that doesn't rely on massive new developments.

Read More: https://www.thejaxsonmag.com/article/clustering-and-the-three-cs-of-urban-revitalization/

[Charles Hunter]

How to get the Powers That Be to embrace - or even recognize - this common sense idea?

[vicupstate]

How to get the Powers That Be to embrace - or even recognize - this common sense idea?

Well, sending them on a trip to place that have done it well, has NOT worked. 

[thelakelander]

We'd be better off having the powers that be, step aside and let the natural order of things take the lead. They should simply support the market as opposed to trying to create one where one has never existed and that the local populace isn't demanding.

[jaxjaguar]

'Three D's' of Jacksonville Urban planning.    
1. Demolition 
2. Divert funding 
3. DOA projects 

On a more serious note. Do you think it would help if we made made Hogan and Laura into single lane roads and expanded the pedestrian areas? I've see something like this done in other cities and it seemed to boost foot traffic /  interest in the stores within that section.

[thelakelander]

I think Laura between city hall and the river is fine as is. Instead, I'd recommend focusing on working with office tower owners to retrofit their ground floors so that their retail is fully integrated with the sidewalks. Simply do this for BOA and Wells Fargo, along with getting rid of Snyder Memorial, and you'd easily have a four block long stretch of activity (assuming the Trio + Trio garage get done).

Hogan will be converted to the next segment of the Emerald Trail. I assume it will have to go down to a single lane.  With the Skyway overhead and the sidewalk already pretty wide, this could easily be a pedestrian oriented promenade lined with retail and sidewalk dining from the food truck court up to State & Union. If I were Boyer, this, along with Laura and Adams would be major short term initiatives. Get these three streets active and the downtown core comes alive, regardless of what happens or doesn't happen in Brooklyn, the Southbank and the Sports District.

[CityLife]

The urban core of Jax has a clustering problem and it's not that clustering doesn't happen. It's that there are far too many small clusters and not one or two great ones. There is a finite amount of dining and entertainment patrons and they get spread out all over the place, with little connectivity between each other.

The distance from River City Brewing Company to River and Post is .3 miles further than it is from Chelsea Market is to Times Square.
The distance from Vista Brooklyn to Cowford Chophouse is .5 miles further than it is from Times Square to Central Park
The distance from the Laura Street Trio to Intuition is the same distance as it is from Central Park to Bryant Park
The distance from BB's to Matthews is the same distance as it is from Bryant Park to Union Square

Downtown Jax actually has enough stuff to already have a vibrant entertainment district, but everything is spread out as widely as Midtown and Lower Manhattan, with 1/250,000 of the residential density and tourists.

Jax has:
Riverside/Avondale/Murray Hill
Five Points
King Street
Shoppes of Avondale
Edgewood Avenue Murray Hill

Southbank/San Marco
San Marco Square
Hendricks Avenue (between Atlantic and 95)
Southbank

Downtown
Brooklyn
Urban Core Downtown (JWJ Park to Bay Street)
Main Street Springfield
Soon to be Stadium District/Lot J

If you consolidated everything in Brooklyn, Springfield, Urban Core of Downtown, and added Intuition, you would have an amazing dining, brewing, and entertainment district.

If you consolidated everything in the Southbank, Hendricks Avenue, and San Marco Square and added Bistro Aix, you would have an amazing dining district.

Instead, there are a myriad of cool pockets here and there, but none that can hold a candle to the entertainment/dining districts around the state. There are a lot of mistakes Jacksonville has made related to Downtown over time, but perhaps the biggest is not creating a defined entertainment/dining district downtown years ago; aggressively trying to attract dining/entertainment uses near each other with incentives, streetscape/placemaking improvements, along with special events and programming.

[thelakelander]

Most cities have their small pockets of neighborhood commercial districts like you'll find in Riverside, Murray Hill, San Marco, etc. However, speaking of downtown specifically, this is exactly an example of something you'd figure out and develop within a true master plan.

You should know what streets you want to cluster retail/dining activity on versus others suited for service and other uses. You should know if you want restaurants clustered around a historic square like JWJ Park (ex. Pittsburg's Market Square) or if you desire a cluster of older warehouses like LaVilla's Houston Street, to revamp as an arts or wholesale district (ex. Raleigh's Warehouse District), and revamp your policies, public projects and incentives programs to encourage it. You should know where your convention center solution will be, when it will be funded and how its role should play with your hotels, dining and museums, etc.

Locally, we don't really know any of these things and we easily rip down the buildings suitable for repurposing. As a result of having no plan, you end up with incremental and isolated projects happening all over the place. In the long run, they tend to struggle and close due to being isolated.

[bl8jaxnative]

Jax has a lot more clusers than listed