Top 10 Things to Make DOWN-town a BOOM-town

[north miami]

STJR- ypour reference to Chicago's Lincoln Park as it could relate to the ShipYards & JEA is most helpful.

A native Miamian,I did spend early childhood summers on the Chicago waterfront.I returned a couple of years ago for a visit and was so pleased.
Every time I make such ventures I return to Florida perplexed over the demise of my native North Miami and sputtering Jacksonville.

Where are we as far as any vision status for the ShipYards and JEA??
Is the ShipYard property in default??What actions is the city taking or not taking??

[charlestondxman]

How about perhaps making more hotels in downtown Jacksonville? If you could connect one to a casino, look at all the money you could make.

People don't know that Jacksonville is the major city for most people in South Georgia (all the way to Savannah), all of Northern Florida, and even SC, all the way to Hilton Head. Even up here in SC, people travel all the way to Tunica to gamble, as companies charter flights from Charleston over to the Tunica airport.

I know this is not downtown, but try and get some new events in the arena. Try to pick up a ECHL hockey team (like you had before). That would be a big deal, as you've got teams in Charleston and Fort Myers, plus Gwinnett, to make rivalries.

Maybe have a MLB exhibition (between spring training and the regular season) in Municipal Stadium. Jacksonville, being a Marlins affiliate, could have a game against maybe the Red Sox or Yankees, and you could draw 60-70,000 people. I know it's not set up for baseball, but you could find a way, and it would show a message that Jacksonville is a major-league city.

I've been through and to Jacksonville many times, and it is a beautiful city. They need to take advantage of it.

[stjr]

Another great example below from Dayton, Ohio, of why we need riverfront megasites at JEA and the Shipyards.  Who says Jax can't attract big crowds for events.  If lil' ol' Dayton can attract crowds of 50,000 and more to the Miami River, a mere ditch compared to the St. Johns, we can easily do 100,000 plus.  But, for now, where to put them?!

...Through surveys and meetings, the DDP quickly learned that the public thought the best way to bring people downtown was to enhance the river’s edge. MetroParks, which had hired Belgian landscape designer Francois Goffinet, learned that Van Cleve Park had the potential to provide a beautiful and exciting downtown park. With these two goals in mind, MetroParks and the DDP partnered with The Miami Conservancy District in 1997 to develop a master plan to reconnect downtown to the river and begin downtown revitalization.

RiverScape Partnership

These three organizations were soon joined by Montgomery County, the City of Dayton and the Miami Valley Regional Transit Authority (RTA) to establish the RiverScape partnership. Over $30 million was raised to fund the construction â€"over a third from private individuals and companies in a campaign led by David Holmes of Reynolds & Reynolds. Over the next four years, ten consultants and well over a dozen contractors worked to turn the vision into bricks and mortar, flowers and fountains. On May 19, 2001, the park opened to a crowd of 50,000, the largest crowd ever to gather in downtown Dayton. Crowds continued to grow at special events throughout the summer, but even on a Tuesday afternoon or a Sunday evening, the park bustled with hundreds of people from throughout the Miami Valley. Dayton had returned to the river.

Metrojax Article: http://www.metrojacksonville.com/article/2009-nov-elements-of-urbanism-dayton

[thelakelander]

I have a few images of RiverScape in the Dayton article that ran the other day.  RiverScape did not seem to be any larger than the Friendship Fountain area.  It was just better laid out.

[AaroniusLives]

Sorry it took so long; here's mine.

1. Build to the marketplace, not the rich folk. I worked extensively in real estate advertising (for LandMar and their Shipyards project in Jax, as well as other nonsense in Sprawl FloriDUH,) and it's pretty damned mind boggling that most of the high-rise developments either planned or built for downtown came at a huge price premium to live there. I'm an urbanite. If it costs me $100K less to live in the 'burbs, I'll do it. If it costs me $20K and a little space? I'll consider the downtown alternative. Moreover, it really shouldn't cost more at all to buy/rent downtown versus the 'burbs (and especially now, considering the husk that is Jax.) That brings me to my next point...

2. Build density, not height. Building dense is not the same as building up. In fact, in a depopulated place, a high-rise can sponge away the potential for the other lots to be developed (since the market now all lives there.) You need to reach critical mass and then build your skyscraper residences.

3. Know who is really going to move downtown. Let's face it. Right off of the bat, you're not going to convince families en masse to give up the yard, the Wal-Mart and the illusion of Rockwellian-a-burbia. In a toothless downtown, you're getting urban pioneers. Childless couples. Artists. Gays. People who go against the grain. Cater to these buyers. Sell unfinished new construction, so that buyers can imprint themselves on the condo. Encourage galleries, nightlife, etc. This is poison to Jax politicos, I'm sure, but if you really want Downtown Jacksonville to become renewed and refreshed, get the gays to move there. Before South Beach became an international hotspot, it was a gayborhood. That's just been proven all across America: gays are the first group to gentrification.

4. Market this environment as an escape. People in the 'burbs, raising kids, office parkin' a career...need a place to be adults again. To be reminded that life is about more than peas in their hair. Don't get me wrong...I mean this is a classy way...not Tampa's "Strip Club/Strip Mall" model for adult reminders! Downtown should be a place for adults to hear a great band. Or have a romantic dinner. Or see an art exhibition. For those that choose to live there...this is their daily life, but only some will initially buy into the promise...and then, only some will be able to live there...you need a commercial base outside of your resident population. 

5. Create a design/architect bible. Paris is beautiful because it has this. Seaside in Florida is stunning because of their design requirements. Consistency is not an enemy.

6. Respect and preserve your historical structures. Every city in the South has a multi-story, cement parking deck built in the 1970s, Jacksonville. We don't really need to wreck another building for another example of the "parking garage." Moreover, Jacksonville actually has history to protect and exploit. Miami/South Florida doesn't have a single Victorian-era building, as it wasn't a "place," for example. I can't believe I'm actually typing this, but Tampa has actually done very well here, using their historical, unique buildings to create desired places (albeit out of downtown, which they've wrecked and turned into a hole.) Whatever is historical that's left in the downtown core must stay. New adjunct development must integrate with the historical.

7. Be Jacksonville. Whatever that is, be it. Whatever you decide it to be, be it. My huge complaint with most downtowns is their ridiculous generic nature. [INSERT RANDOM HIGH-RISE HERE.] In FloriDUH, this is taken to the next extreme, where each downtown has a vaguely Miami-ish flavor (spanish drag, deco drag buildings.) Let Miami/South Florida be Miami/South Florida. Take advantage of your unique location, climate, culture and vision and present design and architecture that's built by you for you. It doesn't have to be big, nor flashy. It just has to be right. For your city.

8. Eliminate all one-way streets. Period.

9. Plan connections for the future. Each edge of downtown should be conceived as a gateway to the neighborhoods next door. If you take off, perhaps so will they, and your collective success will reinforce further success.

10. Effective, appropriate, affordable, 1st class transit. I don't care what this is (streetcar, bus, trolley, jitney, horses,) as long as it's the best, most top drawer variant of system. Convince people that it's not a social step down to leave the car behind and they will. 

[JeffreyS]

Good list

[stjr]

Agreed, Aaron, a good list.  Now, if we could just get these common sense ideas knocked into the heads of our public officials and light a fire under them.  You don't need to have billion dollar budgets to get much of this done, just the discipline and willpower to see it through.  Every project and every day is a new opportunity to get it right.

[Ocklawaha]

Here is an idea, born of late night postings:  How about creating a structure or monument so unique it becomes the City's 'world famous" signature.  So awesome, that anyone visiting can't say they came to Jax without paying a visit to the site and taking a picture by it.  A must see for anyone coming near or to Downtown Jax.  Something that just a picture of it says Jacksonville, Florida.

stjr, I think I have it! How about a 300 foot high statue of Jaime Pressly, wearing a miniskirt and otherwise posed as Joy Turner from the "My Name Is Earl," TV series? Talk about a signature Jacksonville monument, she could even have her Lynyrd Skynyrd tee shirt on (wet of course!). Hey, she can be standing with one leg on each side of the football stadium with floodlights placed in a discreet manner, just for the highlights.

OCKLAWAHA

[sandyshoes]

...or a likeness of anyone on the People of Walmart website - any one of them look like representatives of Jacksonville : )

[sheclown]

Awesome list.  

I especially like number 4, "Market this environment as an escape." Makes tons of sense to me.

And 6 & 7:  this is why it is important to preserve Hogan's Creek as it is.  What other city has a Klutho Venentian canal?

[AaroniusLives]

And 6 & 7:  this is why it is important to preserve Hogan's Creek as it is.  What other city has a Klutho Venentian canal?

This actually always drove me nuts in South Florida. The cliche is that everybody lives near a canal...and instead of creating parks, or promenades, or boat transit...they're just drainage ditches.

[Captain Zissou]

Great List Aaron.  I agree on the density and Jacksonville style architecture points especially.  As a resident of one of the DT highrises, you'd never know there are 100 families on my block. There is very little foot traffic outside and no further development has sprung up as a result.

[hillary supporter]

Locate a major 4 year university DT (not gonna happen)
Build an artifical surfpark downtown.
Its sounds quite crazy, but if its state of the art it would be the only one in the world.
Estimates are less than $20 million to build.
Some type of truly unique attraction.

[Fallen Buckeye]

Sorry it took so long; here's mine.

1. Build to the marketplace, not the rich folk. I worked extensively in real estate advertising (for LandMar and their Shipyards project in Jax, as well as other nonsense in Sprawl FloriDUH,) and it's pretty damned mind boggling that most of the high-rise developments either planned or built for downtown came at a huge price premium to live there. I'm an urbanite. If it costs me $100K less to live in the 'burbs, I'll do it. If it costs me $20K and a little space? I'll consider the downtown alternative. Moreover, it really shouldn't cost more at all to buy/rent downtown versus the 'burbs (and especially now, considering the husk that is Jax.) That brings me to my next point...

3. Know who is really going to move downtown. Let's face it. Right off of the bat, you're not going to convince families en masse to give up the yard, the Wal-Mart and the illusion of Rockwellian-a-burbia. In a toothless downtown, you're getting urban pioneers. Childless couples. Artists. Gays. People who go against the grain. Cater to these buyers. Sell unfinished new construction, so that buyers can imprint themselves on the condo. Encourage galleries, nightlife, etc. This is poison to Jax politicos, I'm sure, but if you really want Downtown Jacksonville to become renewed and refreshed, get the gays to move there. Before South Beach became an international hotspot, it was a gayborhood. That's just been proven all across America: gays are the first group to gentrification.

7. Be Jacksonville. Whatever that is, be it. Whatever you decide it to be, be it. My huge complaint with most downtowns is their ridiculous generic nature. [INSERT RANDOM HIGH-RISE HERE.] In FloriDUH, this is taken to the next extreme, where each downtown has a vaguely Miami-ish flavor (spanish drag, deco drag buildings.) Let Miami/South Florida be Miami/South Florida. Take advantage of your unique location, climate, culture and vision and present design and architecture that's built by you for you. It doesn't have to be big, nor flashy. It just has to be right. For your city.

Sorry but some of your points seem to conflict with each other in my way of seeing things. You say to "build to the market place, not the rich folks," but then talk about gentrification of downtown. To me the goal is not to transform the downtown area necessarily into something upscale and ritzy as implied by gentrification, but it's to revitalize downtown to a point where people of all walks of life can live there and enjoy it. I know that sounds a little pie in the sky or maybe like it's a trivial difference, but I say that's a better goal. Poor people need a place to live just the same as rich people. I know that the culture of the rich is big on exclusivity, but I think that's wrong. To me the question is how do we make downtown a great place to live for all people.

I agree on what you say about building density not height for the sake of height. I agree about the preservation of our stock of historic buildings, and I believe that lends itself towards creating a unique Jacksonville identity,too. Here's a thought, too, maybe the Jacksonville identity doesn't need to revolve so much around architecture or stuff. Maybe our fingerprint is our people. The reason I prefer Jacksonville to some other cities is because the people I'm in contact with have usually been very warm and welcoming. I always felt like they were small town people in a big place. Obviously there are exceptions, but how do we encourage and nurture a stock of good citizens and a warm, friendly culture?

[finehoe]

In 2002 I sent a copy of Richard Florida's Rise of the Creative Class to every member of the Jacksonville City Council and suggested that a great way to fuel economic development is to attract a larger gay population.  Guess how many I heard back from?  NOT A ONE.