Rebuilding RISE Doro

[CityLife]

I like riverfront plaza, but add up the price of demolition, lost property tax revenues, cost of new construction, etc and what is the total we have sunk into Phase 1 of a riverfront park? (Albeit, a world class one!)

I think it is interesting because the Landing was perfect shell for the "Food Hall" craze. it got demolished right before it could have become an "Armature Works" type place. Just insane.

Have we spent $50 million+ so far? What would $25 million have done for the Landing? Renovated entire thing easily.

We were well into the food hall craze when the Landing was demo'd. The Jaxon posted this article and probably others too. https://www.thejaxsonmag.com/article/so-jax-may-be-the-only-city-to-demolish-its-landing/

I know before demo I mentioned multiple times that The Landing would be far more successful if modified with more outdoor seating, better views, and a better tenant mix. My pitch was to make it a Best of Jax type place and get many of the good restaurants from the beach or other parts of town to have a stall there. I still think that would have been one of the best bang for your buck type projects the city could do downtown.

Speaking of Riverfront Plaza and active food/dining on the water, what is the status of the Beer Garden?

[thelakelander]

Tearing down the Landing set downtown back by a decade. It was one of the dumbest DT development decisions ever made in Jax history by people elected to serve locally. As predicted back then, we'll spend more than $100 million on Riverfront Plaza when its all said and the space will still stimulate less consistent foot traffic. What should have been a simple retrofit of an already active space ended up being a big opportunity loss. It will take some time to regenerate what was lost, so it will be good for the council to stop looking at the bone headed moves in a vacuum.