Duval County Courthouse Renderings

[reednavy]

If anyone wants to see a possible good use for the south lawn, look at the newly renovated Metropolitan Nashville City Hall. It is a massive, sprawling lawn that has a couple of fountains and nicely landscaped. People that live downtown love the space, and it has very good views of the skyline.

That is what they need to do with this space. Granted, they should've gone vertical, but the design isn't horrible, it could be better. The Monroe Street "curve" should be done away with and take out the low portion to keep connectivity.

[copperfiend]

A mediocrity produced by mediocrities.  What a terrible structure, what a ridiculous misuse of downtown space and streets, what vandalism of historic structures for nothing. 

I don't agree with you on much, but you are dead-on.

[thelakelander]

reednavy, I agree.  One of the few things that will salvage this thing is a well designed public space on the wasted blocks.  Nashville's project was one well done.

Nashville Public Square

[TheProfessor]

They need a good landscape architect to come in and redesign the area in front of the courthouse in order to create a nice vista, granted the buidling could have been more interesting, but we must move on and hope for a brigher future and administration with FORSYTH!

[copperfiend]

I'll hold my breath and wait for this city to build anything close to that in front of the courthouse.

[JaxByDefault]

Nashville's urban planning is now stunning. From the Metropolitan Nashville City Hall re-do to the Schermerhorn Symphony Center new construction, from the Downtown-to-Vanderbilt connectivity plan to reinvestment in urban neighborhoods, Nashville has made some smart choices in recent years. Jacksonville, with a similar MSA population, should take notice.

[downtownjag]

I didn't see if anyone touched on this so far in this post, but I don't think so.  I love the idea of public green space but right now our bum situation is out of control and I am afraid we are giving them one more place to sit around at and harass people.  Yeah it looks great in pictures but will it become overrun with bums like Hemming?  I hope not!

[copperfiend]

I didn't see if anyone touched on this so far in this post, but I don't think so.  I love the idea of public green space but right now our bum situation is out of control and I am afraid we are giving them one more place to sit around at and harass people.  Yeah it looks great in pictures but will it become overrun with bums like Hemming?  I hope not!

That's exactly what it will be, especially at night and on weekends.

[hanjin1]

Take a look at Peyton's Bum Station aka Main Street pocket park.

[stjr]

Building design is uninspired.  Looks like it was copied from multiple architectural styles bastardized into one single building.  We should have done like the Feds - built straight up on a single block.  It would have been far cheaper and a 20 to 35 story high rise downtown is always impressive.  We could have then taken the multiple blocks of land now owned by the City and developed them into surrounding office and hotel towers at great profit to the City to try and recoup the blown dollars being investigated by the Grand Jury.  Also, this destroys any possible continuity for a retail and/or restaurant/entertainment district in this section of town.  The courthouse will be to its area what First Baptist is to its corner - an area of interest only to its constituents.

As to parking garages, the City pushes mass transit and then builds more parking downtown than anyone else.  Build these garages at the stadium or periphery of town and make people use employee shuttles, trolleys, buses, or the skyway in the core area.

All in all, another symbol of Jax's paralysis when it comes to decision making on the "great" projects of the City.  And to think we will be hung with it for at least the next 50 years before another generation can round up enough money to erase it from the Earth. 

Jax has so much natural beauty and potential - too bad our leaders don't know how to use it.  It really isn't that difficult - mostly its common sense and doing what right for the public good, not special interests.

[CDG]

"Jacksonville is drowning in its own nostalgia" 
If you keep doing what you have always done, you always get what you have always gotten before.  As long as Jacksonville continues to keep trying to live in the past and not move forward with exciting architectural styles, we will continue to get buildings that are just so, so...We are getting ready to duplicate the downtown library.  Trying to make something new that might resemble something old.  If the architects of 100 years ago had done so with the same kitschy nostalgia for their history that we seem to hold for them, we would not have had the style which is representative of 100 years ago; we would have the style of 200 years ago. Why do we choose not to progress, when our architectural forefathers used every new material and technology known to them in their time? I agree with the previous post that the Fed. got it right.  Good architecture has the power to bring people to a city.  Is anyone going to come to see our new county courthouse?  What makes a city beautiful is not the sameness, it is difference, the juxtaposition of the old and the new.  Diverse architectural styles are like diversities in people.  These differences are what give major cities an interesting social fabric to promote a rich culture, something that Jacksonville could use a good jolt of.....  Just my $  .02.

[nestliving]

The site would make for a beautiful urban neighborhood.

[RiversideGator]

The problem is not that the design is nostalgic.  The problem is the design is suburban faux-courthouse nothingness.  It is not classical or neoclassical as was the Cannon design.  I could live with the Cannon design's use of so much land because it was beautiful and created the vistas on Monroe Street.  This new design, on the other hand, is a junky, shoddy looking building which has the same footprint so we are left with the worst of both worlds.  It is a truly awful situation.

If we only had someone with good taste, intelligence and foresight in City Hall...

[heights unknown]

I suppose it looks okay, but I still say they should have went vertical.  And I know this is a broken record, but all of those "war zone" looking blocks just doesn't suit one new building surrounded by nuclear devastation.  Hopefully that tired looking court house will spur development on that west end of downtown and into Lavilla and Northern part of Brooklyn.

Heights Unknown

[DetroitInJAX]

Should we take bets on how long it'll be before the space between the courthouse and Adams St. becomes a gated parking lot for the important people that work there?