Design Driving Economic Development

[Tacachale]

The folks developing and moving to the Southside and St. Johns don't spend a lot of time worrying about whether they'll attract enough folks from Murray Hill or Northwest Jax. Why do we assume that Downtown will only work if it attracts enough suburbanites? It's a matter of to each their own.

[Adam White]

The folks developing and moving to the Southside and St. Johns don't spend a lot of time worrying about whether they'll attract enough folks from Murray Hill or Northwest Jax. Why do we assume that Downtown will only work if it attracts enough suburbanites? It's a matter of to each their own.

Perhaps, but while downtown is its own thing, generally the city center is an area that is the focal point of a city and is used/enjoyed by the residents of the city. As it is central, it can be accessed by people from everywhere. I don't think its unreasonable to try to get people from all over Jax to patronise the businesses downtown. In fact, we already do that - I doubt many of the bars and restaurants downtown today are solely surviving on the custom of people living downtown.

People go downtown to visit things like museums, see football and baseball games, attend concerts, etc. Right now, those people aren't probably enough to sustain restaurants downtown - but presumably if enough stuff was always happening downtown, more complementary businesses would be able to survive.

Ideally, a lot more people would live and work downtown. How do we get there? That's an honest question.

[thelakelander]

^How do we get there? That's a good question and easy one to answer from my perspective, based off a country full of good and bad examples.

You have to start somewhere. Downtown already has museums, stadiums, places for concerts, a convention center, regional transportation center, etc. that are regional oriented facilities. Plus, none of these things aren't going any where. Excluding COVID-19, they do attract people regionally.

What it lacks are the basic things needed to support a growing residential base and workforce. Instead of worrying about retail to attract someone to visit once or twice a month from Julington Creek, focus should be placed on having more places for people already in downtown to have access to a pharmacy, nice parks, fresh foods, efficient mass transit, upgraded public schools, etc. How we get there is very easy. We're so far behind in the downtown revitalization game, just about any city of similar size or a round smaller in this country has already figured it out. Copy the process. Light the streets, clean up the parks, start locating complimentary uses together within a pedestrian scale setting. When you luck up with a VyStar moving its corporate headquarters to downtown, aggressively work to make the adjacent buildings and blocks complementary to that private investment.

While you certainly don't have to prioritize them, when opportunities to upgrade facilities like MOSH or the convention center, you take advantage of them and situate them in spots that build upon the greater picture. A good example would be the struggling Prime Osborn Convention Center. A mile east, we have a growing entertainment district, a struggling 1,000 room convention center hotel and a big patch of dirt (lawn) separating them. We also have some silly report, claiming not to invest in a new convention center until there are things people visiting can go to. Well, it could take decades for that type of environment to come to fruition in LaVilla or next to TIAA Bank Field. However, you could easily create that environment by making the Hyatt your convention center. That very use becomes the glue that fills the gap between other complimentary uses like the riverwalk, Florida Theater, Elbow District, a potential MOSH relocation, etc. Heck, if it were mixed-use itself, it also becomes something that further gives people attending conventions and trade shows something to do within walking distance.

Do these types of basic things, then the environment that the existing population has long sought, begins to materialize. Get an area full of things to do within a five or six block stretch of connected uses and it will naturally start to draw suburbanites a couple of times a month, the same way that Five Points, Shoppes of Avondale and San Marco Square do now. However, if you don't get the basics right for the population already there, there's nothing you can really do to truly attract the population that has already chosen with their lifestyle and pocketbooks to move further away.

[thelakelander]

^Here's an example of something basic. It's an office building that's been on Orange Avenue in Orlando forever. In fact, it's very similar to the BB&T Building in DT Jax:

BEFORE:



AFTER:


The first floor lobby level was flipped to allow the retail to have visibility and interaction with the street. While you don't see a lot of people in the image (I took it last week while down for work, while taking a pre-workday morning walk in the mid 30s), It's significant subtle change that cost around $3 million to revamp the office tower's lobby and first floor. Just imagine what the core of the Northbank could quickly look like if we took that low key, short term pedestrian scale improvement approach with TIAA Bank, BOA, Wells Fargo and the Enterprise Center. Basically the same thing that VyStar is doing with the Life of the South building right now:


Life of the South Building renovations

It's not sexy but continuing to do these little things, makes a hell of a difference in creating the dense types of environments that appeal to downtown residents and office workers, which in turn helps put more people and vibrancy on the street, attracting suburbanites. The little things, when added up, are the things that separate the haves and the have nots.

[Adam White]

^How do we get there? That's a good question and easy one to answer from my perspective, based off a country full of good and bad examples.

You have to start somewhere. Downtown already has museums, stadiums, places for concerts, a convention center, regional transportation center, etc. that are regional oriented facilities. Plus, none of these things aren't going any where. Excluding COVID-19, they do attract people regionally.

What it lacks are the basic things needed to support a growing residential base and workforce. Instead of worrying about retail to attract someone to visit once or twice a month from Julington Creek, focus should be placed on having more places for people already in downtown to have access to a pharmacy, nice parks, fresh foods, efficient mass transit, upgraded public schools, etc. How we get there is very easy. We're so far behind in the downtown revitalization game, just about any city of similar size or a round smaller in this country has already figured it out. Copy the process. Light the streets, clean up the parks, start locating complimentary uses together within a pedestrian scale setting. When you luck up with a VyStar moving its corporate headquarters to downtown, aggressively work to make the adjacent buildings and blocks complementary to that private investment.

While you certainly don't have to prioritize them, when opportunities to upgrade facilities like MOSH or the convention center, you take advantage of them and situate them in spots that build upon the greater picture. A good example would be the struggling Prime Osborn Convention Center. A mile east, we have a growing entertainment district, a struggling 1,000 room convention center hotel and a big patch of dirt (lawn) separating them. We also have some silly report, claiming not to invest in a new convention center until there are things people visiting can go to. Well, it could take decades for that type of environment to come to fruition in LaVilla or next to TIAA Bank Field. However, you could easily create that environment by making the Hyatt your convention center. That very use becomes the glue that fills the gap between other complimentary uses like the riverwalk, Florida Theater, Elbow District, a potential MOSH relocation, etc. Heck, if it were mixed-use itself, it also becomes something that further gives people attending conventions and trade shows something to do within walking distance.

Do these types of basic things, then the environment that the existing population has long sought, begins to materialize. Get an area full of things to do within a five or six block stretch of connected uses and it will naturally start to draw suburbanites a couple of times a month, the same way that Five Points, Shoppes of Avondale and San Marco Square do now. However, if you don't get the basics right for the population already there, there's nothing you can really do to truly attract the population that has already chosen with their lifestyle and pocketbooks to move further away.

Thanks Lake.

I used to work downtown (in the Ed Ball bldg) back in 2002. At the time, there weren't very many businesses open downtown - aside from the dying Landing food court, there were a handful of places to get lunch and I think a small convenience store that had very limited hours. It always seemed like a chicken-and-egg thing: there would be more businesses if there were people downtown to support them, but people won't move downtown without the businesses there to shop at.

I always thought it would be great if there were lots of cheap rentals and warehouse spaces downtown. Then you'd get your artists, musicians and young people who would be willing to live there without a lot of the convenciences that many of us need or expect. And over time, businesses would open to serve them. And eventually it would become like Riverside or something.

I don't know if it's true, but I seem to remember reading something in the T-U back in the early 90s that said the CoJ gov't actually gave financial incentives for companies to move from downtown to the southside. If that's true, then surely they could figure out some incentive to get companies to relocate downtown. Who knows.

[thelakelander]

Thanks Lake.

I used to work downtown (in the Ed Ball bldg) back in 2002. At the time, there weren't very many businesses open downtown - aside from the dying Landing food court, there were a handful of places to get lunch and I think a small convenience store that had very limited hours. It always seemed like a chicken-and-egg thing: there would be more businesses if there were people downtown to support them, but people won't move downtown without the businesses there to shop at.

Downtown probably has 5,000 more people living it it now, than it had in 2002, if including Brooklyn, LaVilla and the Southbank in those numbers. There's a lot more residential either already under construction or proposed to break ground this year. I do think that changes the dynamic a bit between what you experienced in 20 years ago and now, in terms of what to do next. In essence, there's something positive to continue to build off of now, by focusing on filling in the holes of vacancy by targeting certain sites and building for clustering of complementary uses. I also suspect, even in 2002, there were likely businesses in buildings you may have not known were even there because of a restrictive sign ordinance and lack of visibility from the street. So a low hanging fruit isn't actually recruitment of new businesses. It would be to better expose and activate what's already there. It's something we still continue to glaze over but if we really want dramatic change in the short term, it gives us the most bang for our buck.

I always thought it would be great if there were lots of cheap rentals and warehouse spaces downtown. Then you'd get your artists, musicians and young people who would be willing to live there without a lot of the convenciences that many of us need or expect. And over time, businesses would open to serve them. And eventually it would become like Riverside or something.

It can be tough to create things like an arts or entertainment district from the politicos in city hall. These things tend to evolve naturally in areas where cheap rents and available space are a part of the market. Years, ago they did try something like this. It failed. Without much public hands in the cookie jar, these types of uses have ended up at CoRK in Riverside, Phoenix Arts District in Springfield and now the Rail Yard District west of I-95. It also doesn't help that the buildings suitable for small arts studios, craft breweries, etc. have been systematically razed for the most part in former downtown warehouse districts. Of interesting note, a good chunk of the nightlife that is in downtown now, along East Bay, is located in buildings that were former warehouses that survived the wrecking ball.

I don't know if it's true, but I seem to remember reading something in the T-U back in the early 90s that said the CoJ gov't actually gave financial incentives for companies to move from downtown to the southside. If that's true, then surely they could figure out some incentive to get companies to relocate downtown. Who knows.

Yes, financial incentives have been provided in the past for development in the Southside and JTB corridor that have attracted companies formerly in downtown to relocate.