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

[AaroniusLives]

With all due respects y'all, I think you have lost sight of this articles intended theme. This is not about "saving downtown," this article is about big ideas and making downtown boom.

My "big idea" is to bring the "town" back downtown. That will make it boom in a sustainable way, instead of having temporal, touristy lifts. In SunBelt America, if you create a walkable, attractive environment, even without the razzle-dazzle of museums, stadiums and the rest (since we've already seen those to be, in essense, failures,) that...in and of itself...is an "attraction." It's almost absurd that part of the appeal of Disney World is Main Street, USA: a proto-lifestyle center that's basically a glorified mall that you can walk and shop in. People yearn for this style of development; it's almost novel in modern, drive-in America.

In South Florida, they built Mizner Park in Boca Raton...and people came in droves just to experience the pedestrian environment. Never mind the fact that 90% of the people there couldn't afford the shops, or more than a Diet Coke at a cafe. It was just so much more pleasant than their local mall, or a day spend traversing a parking deck to go to a bunker of a museum. In short...the "town" aspect is essentially the draw.

DC might be a good example of a goal to set for a vibrant downtown in some ways (Population density and park space come to mind), but it doesn't seem like such a good model for how to get there. They have so many government entities and so on to anchor their inner-city area that we don't have. Until they move the U.S. capital people are definitely going to be there.

Actually, DC lost a tremendous amount of population along the way as well, much like Jacksonville. The three main differences are that DC didn't decimate their building stock (and thus was able to be repopulated when the District took off again,) that DC didn't slice through their city with highways (although they almost did,) and that DC has the government there (thus retaining a solid employment base.) Probably the largest reason DC isn't a model involves federal funding for the city. There are vast lessons to be learned here (anyone want to come and do a photo tour, contact me,) but as a model for the country, and for Jacksonville? There are too many special conditions that set DC apart.

I just wonder which cities of a similar profile to Jacksonville have had success in bringing their downtowns back from the dead and I wonder specifically what they are doing.

I'd talk seriously to the governing body of West Palm Beach. Their multi-plot downtown plan has been remarkably successful, although their county is more populated than Duval to feed their efforts. Memphis, with a MSA about the same size as Jacksonville would be another city to look at. They've done a phenomenal job creating a boomtown from their downtown, notably their 8-block Peobody Place. Moreover, as the idiots who built the pyramid-shaped arena, Memphis already knows the folly of using monuments to "create" a downtown. They had to get it wrong before they got it right.

...it also makes sense to think about what is obstructing people from living in the downtown area as opposed to a suburban area, so that we can remove these barriers. For me, off the top of my head, I would say:
-access to basic amenities such as grocery stores and general and hardware stores
-space
-access to good schools

In my opinion, the people you will attract downtown, at least initially, will not be concerned with schools as much. The urban pioneers will typically be young, childless professionals who have an adventurous spirit, and don't want to live on a typical cul-du-sac, and are willing to risk the initial "sketchy" stages of gentrification. (Absurdly, once the downtown takes off, the rich people buying the new condos are sending their kids to private school anyway!)

The access to basic amenities is a must. The problem is in convincing both the merchants AND the governing power not to just drop a typical strip mall in downtown: they have to build an appropriately scaled, pedestrian-friendly variant.

Space is related to price...you just get a great deal more space for your dollar in the 'burbs. What city living should provide is almost another set of rooms outside, in the streets, for your dollar. It's why I'm so reticent about land-bombing downtown Jacksonville with attractions, as these tend to monolith a city block (and considering Floridian development, are usually surrounded by parking decks.) Downtown/city living is about gaining the space of public life. Georgetown is my living room, for example. I may watch television inside my actual living room, but the streets, the parks, the shops and the paths are an extention of my home. For myself, it's worth the insane amount of money to live here. Then again, I'm one of those young, childless professional people that DC attracts. (I'm not an urban pioneer, however...Georgetown is anything but sketchy.)

Damn. I don't even live there...and I freakin' love this site!

[Captain Zissou]

Man, I'm going to have to get up to date on this during my lunch break.  Great ideas all around.

[JeffreyS]

Damn. I don't even live there...and I freakin' love this site!

It is great and your input has been really interesting. Come visit and buy Jags tickets.

[Reaper man]

8. Having a recurring weekly or monthly special event downtown a la RAM or First Fridays could expose people to downtown in a positive light as long as it's well orchestrated and hopefully begin countering the perception that downtown is unsafe. I heard that there's a farmers market happening every week in Hemming Plaza. This would be a good example which also helps offset the fact that there is not much in the way of grocery shopping available downtown. It might be cool to have a place where local fishermen could sell their catch too.

9. They were talking about letting local artist use these empty spaces for galleries and studios. I say organize a monthly gallery hop or something. Create some synergy within the community. Or how about actually encouraging the artists to live in the downtown area. In my hometown, they have an artist colony downtown where they bring in artists from all over to live in these old buildings that no one was going to use anyways for fairly low rents. They open their studios to the public and have regular events like I described. Works really well.

We have this.  It's called the art walk.

[Fallen Buckeye]

I split my time between 2 cities so sometimes I get confused about what's here and what's there. I was thinking that there was only an art walk in some of the surrounding areas like Riverside, but apparently I was wrong. One thing I'm glad to be wrong about.

[Ocklawaha]

With all due respects y'all, I think you have lost sight of this articles intended theme. This is not about "saving downtown," this article is about big ideas and making downtown boom.

My "big idea" is to bring the "town" back downtown. That will make it boom in a sustainable way, instead of having temporal, touristy lifts. In SunBelt America, if you create a walkable, attractive environment, even without the razzle-dazzle of museums, stadiums and the rest (since we've already seen those to be, in essense, failures,) that...in and of itself...is an "attraction." It's almost absurd that part of the appeal of Disney World is Main Street, USA: a proto-lifestyle center that's basically a glorified mall that you can walk and shop in. People yearn for this style of development; it's almost novel in modern, drive-in America.

Jacksonville has an image more like 1965 Pittsburgh, then it does Boca, Cocoa or Orlando. In fact it is an image that was once the pride of a liberal, diverse, industrial city. We were often described as "The Newark of the South," and for better or worse, we groomed that image. When the big mills and heavy production moved out, a new class of "clean industry," came calling, highway based and often much smaller, they could just as easily go to Orlando as to Jacksonville, and many felt, "Why locate in the midst of the ruins of a once industrial society."

We'd all agree that a traditional urban downtown is superior to a strip mall or mega mall but in Jacksonville its a chicken and egg proposition. Which comes first? If we lay out the retail and dining without residential, it's not going to accomplish anything but bankruptcy. If we lay out residential and it remains empty for lack of retail and dining, that isn't going to accomplish anything either. What we need are the critical pieces of our story that are missing. There is a rich story in Jacksonville, far richer then any other city in Florida, but we have done a horrible job of preserving or showcasing it.

The problem is like a recent encounter with my 20 something daughter. She returned from the trip with a new pair of jeans, and asked me, "Dad, is this how you guys got your jeans?" It occurred to me that no, we didn't buy jeans with holes in them. As a matter of fact, each hole in the "hippie jeans" was a story, each story patched with love by a boyfriend or girlfriend, and the jeans were said to contain a "Soul." Modern day Orlando, Boca, and Cocoa, are like my daughters jeans, a quick knockoff of a city. Jacksonville is the real thing, in fact there wouldn't be a Miami, Orlando or Tampa, had we, and our citizens, not financed it.

Our challenge lays in getting the speeding hordes on I-95 and I-10 to stop for a quick visit, once they do, if we do our job, they'll be back. You are correct in stating that we have a stadium (baseball) and museums (MOSH)(Cummer) etc...

The venues haven't failed us, we have failed them. We have the birthplace of the Negro Leagues but no team, no real museum, no reason to stop and see. The Landing is the same story, we have the gift shops and food court, but no major mall or tourist attraction to attach it to. We once had plans for such, but like so many other things, we have never had the leadership to more forward on anything. We have the pub where Ray Charles started his career - sitting empty and abandoned. We have the largest railroad station south of Washington DC, and we made it into a cracker box convention center. We have the only complete silent film era studio IN THE WORLD, preserved it and ?? nothing. Southern Rock was probably invented here, yet who knows? At least 5 federal ships and one confederate ship were sunk during the War of Yankee Aggression, and our museum will fill a phone booth. We HAD a beautiful beach midway, often compaired with Cony Island a hurricane took it down and we never rebuilt.

Ask yourself, if you could go to the Negro League ball field and watch an all star team of African-American team representing the JACKSONVILLE RED CAPS vs the NY Yankee's would anybody come? You bet they would, but a few more posters on sheets of foam board isn't what we are talking about here.  We really need to complete those big ideas, properly show cased and promoted, we would be on a roll.

OCKLAWAHA

[finehoe]

I never heard the "Newark of the South" but I remember hearing the "Hartford of the South" because of all the insurance companies.

Slightly off-topic, take a look at what cool transit venues can do for creating a sense of place:

http://www.designboom.com/weblog/cat/9/view/8346/subway-architecture.html

[buckethead]

Beautiful Photographs! I wanna live there!

[JeffreyS]

Thank you finehoe.

[AaroniusLives]

Jacksonville has an image more like 1965 Pittsburgh, then it does Boca, Cocoa or Orlando.

Outside of Florida, Jacksonville doesn't really have an image. Inside of Florida, it's the other generic mid-sized metro area that's not Mickey-town or Cubarusalemaica York City. Not that it matters: in many ways, it's better to not have some imagined reality to try and live up to.

If we lay out the retail and dining without residential, it's not going to accomplish anything but bankruptcy. If we lay out residential and it remains empty for lack of retail and dining, that isn't going to accomplish anything either.

Lay out both simulataneously. It's the very definition of mixed-use development. Furthermore, by creating mixed-use development, you encourage the growth of both sides of the equation. A residential population within walking distance of commerce encourages commercial enterprise to move in. A commercial district with a captive, walking distance population of consumers encourages more residential. That's just proven: it's why the paradigm shift to monocultured zoning has been such a failure, and frequently is difficult to retrofit. Mix the uses right from the start for success.

Modern day Orlando, Boca, and Cocoa, are like my daughters jeans, a quick knockoff of a city. Jacksonville is the real thing, in fact there wouldn't be a Miami, Orlando or Tampa, had we, and our citizens, not financed it.

Not exactly. Orlando exists in its current form because of Disney World. Boca Raton and Miami are the result of a privately funded railroad being pushed down by Henry Flagler, because he saw a demand there that just wasn't being met further up the coast. Tampa exists as a metro specifically because Plant built his railroad there, and the sheltered port defined the city. But again, outside of Orlando's development in the age of Disney, the cities you mentioned became cities in the age before the state/federal funding era, and were primarily funded/financed by rail and land barons in the Gilded Age of unregulated capitalism.

Besides, does it matter? Should we give credit to whatever city came before Jacksonville for the success of Jacksonville? If that's the case, Boston and St. Augustine should be our shining cities on the hill for whatever came afterwards.

Furthermore, this is kind of a dangerous row to hoe, as South Florida is currently funding a majority of state projects designed to grow the other regions. I actually think that's correct in theory (although perhaps the percent of revenue directed away is too much,) as the large metros need to support the others along their way to development. I respect that you have pride in your hometown. I respect that you see Jacksonville as having a rightful place in the firmament of Floridian history. But I don't think the denigrating of other cities and their places in the present remotely helps Jacksonville find its future.

The venues haven't failed us, we have failed them. We have the birthplace of the Negro Leagues but no team, no real museum, no reason to stop and see. The Landing is the same story, we have the gift shops and food court, but no major mall or tourist attraction to attach it to.

Stop building for tourists and start building for people. Then you will have both success in downtown revitalization and tourism. All of the other stuff you have, or you could develop will come when you activate a pedestrian-friendly, mixed-use downtown. When you add the "town" back. That lesson has been proven all over the country. Time and time and time and time again, the museum, mall, stadium, or the rest did nothing without the proper canvas of mixed-use, lively development to knit it all together. That's been proven in Jacksonville, for Pete's sake. Add the town back first. Then we can have the African-American Baseball Silent Film First Major City of Florida monument. At that point, they'll actually be people and business downtown to care.

[stjr]

New Times Union series on Downtown picks up many of our points in this thread including need for affordable housing, parks, street-friendliness, everyday type retail and services, sticking to a plan until it is completed, and, from our consolidation discussion, the distractions from Downtown caused by a consolidated government worried about the suburbs.  Read it below:

Lights dimming on Jacksonville's bold plans for downtown
Why Jacksonville's downtown vision remains unfulfilled and unfocused.

   * By David Hunt, David Bauerlein
   * Story updated at 8:41 PM on Friday, Dec. 11, 2009

Fireworks exploded. Thousands of people gathered. Cash registers rang up sale after sale.

It was a summer night in 1987, brimming with promise. The Jacksonville Landing had just opened, giving downtown its first riverfront center for shopping, dining and entertainment.

Two decades later, the center struggles to fill darkened retail space once occupied by trendy national chains, and Jacksonville is still searching for the formula that will make downtown the vibrant hub and cultural heart of a sprawling city.

City Hall has set a straightforward goal for downtown: Become “the place to be in Northeast Florida.”

The preferred address for people who want to live in a walkable neighborhood. The premier office location. The hot spot for nightlife.

The reality isn’t kind: A series of high-profile development meltdowns has left downtown scarred with empty, tomb-like buildings. Prime city-owned acreage along the St. Johns River remains barren. Sorely needed revitalization plans have been undermined by on-again, off-again funding.

Today, Jacksonville lags behind other cities that have lured tens of thousands of people downtown to live, work and play. And the gap is widening.

“Downtown just really hasn’t caught on,” said Hugh Jones, who retired in 1993 as CEO of Barnett Bank. “I saw it disappearing as I was leaving.”

A Times-Union analysis into what’s ailing Jacksonville’s downtown found major obstacles to revitalization and a pattern of resistance by city leaders that belies long-playing save-the-core rhetoric:

* Just as residential development was picking up steam, the city pulled back from offering critical financial incentives. A flurry of proposals for new high-rise towers never got off the ground.

* While downtown development authorities in other cities grow stronger by the year, Jacksonville eliminated its agency in 2006 in the name of streamlining.

* There hasn’t been an office skyscraper built downtown in 20 years because high vacancy rates keep such projects from being viable. The rate currently tops 22 percent and the number of downtown workers has fallen this decade.

* City Hall has hit the wall financially on its revitalization programs. Millions generated by a special district that plows taxes back into downtown have been virtually exhausted. Another downtown fund was tapped to cover cost overruns at an animal care shelter in Riverside.

* City Hall hasn’t picked any concentrated area of downtown for a fully funded, complete revitalization that would create a walkable area where businesses, venues and residences can feed off each other’s foot traffic.

As a result, Jacksonville ranks near the bottom of the list nationally on two key indicators of a healthy core: the number of residents and retail stores.

Today, there are an estimated 2,600 downtown residents â€" well short of the 10,000 city officials and revitalization experts say are needed to give retailers the confidence to set up shop.

Jerry Moran, owner of La Cena Ristorante near Hemming Plaza, said he won’t forget the way one of his customers described downtown: “You have a beautiful city, but where are the people?”

“We still have a ways to go,” Mayor John Peyton said in a recent interview. “There have been a lot of cities that have turned the corner. You see a lot of cities in the South that have made that turn, and we have not. But we have put a lot of building blocks in place.”

Those building blocks include scenic riverfront property with prime acreage under city control, relatively cheap land, a concentration of cultural attractions and nearby sports stadiums.

The Times-Union spent four months investigating the health of downtown, with a team of reporters conducting more than 200 interviews and traveling coast to coast in search of solutions.

Role models weren’t hard to find: From San Diego to Pittsburgh, from Charlotte, N.C., to Greenville, S.C., scores of rebounding downtowns are ushering in an urban renaissance in America, drawing an invigorating mix of empty-nesters, young professionals and hipsters.

Those success stories took years to unfold, but they share common ingredients: hard work, a fierce commitment to the inner city and strong public-private partnerships. Keep reading this series to learn more about how other cities breathed new life into troubled cores.

Jacksonville, Peyton said, must continue to invest in downtown because it’ll be a hot spot for residential growth in the future.

For the remaining 19 months  of his term, however, budget woes will hamper revitalization.

“These are symptoms of an under-resourced government,” he said. “Downtown is a casualty of that. Digging out of this [budget] hole will be working through the need-to-have versus the want-to-have.”

'Not ready for prime time’

At least on paper, downtown as a place to live appeared ready for liftoff four years ago. Developers were unveiling eye-grabbing renderings of glass-walled towers rising from the riverfront â€" 35 stories, 43 stories, 70 stories high.

With thousands of new residences seemingly within reach, confident city leaders took the position that downtown had reached the point where taxpayer incentives were no longer necessary.

If all the projects had been built, downtown’s population would have hit a projected 9,300 residents by now. Instead, the red-hot real estate market went into the deep freeze. Developers vanished and many of the projects evaporated. Others couldn’t move forward without subsidies.

Over the past decade, downtown has seen growth in residential housing, but almost all of those projects obtained financial incentives from City Hall in redevelopment deals struck between 1999 and 2004.

The pullback on incentives played out prominently in the fate of four historic buildings that remain vacant in the middle of downtown: The Barnett Bank building and the nearby “Laura Street Trio,” which once housed two other banks and an insurance company.

Mike Langton, developer of the W.A. Knight Lofts, a downtown office building conversion, attempted to renovate the 23-story Barnett building along Laura into apartments. He figured he needed a $1 million grant and a low-interest $11 million loan from the city.

That package would have been less than the $5 million grant and $16.5 million loan the city previously provided Jacksonville-based Vestcor Cos. to turn the nearby empty Roosevelt Hotel into a 100-unit apartment building: The Carling.

But Langton said Peyton told him politely at a social gathering that the city simply couldn’t afford to give him the incentives he wanted.

Langton said taxpayer assistance is vital because developers cannot charge higher rents to residents until downtown gets more retail and entertainment within walking distance of their apartments.

“Downtown is not ready for prime time yet,” he said.

After he dropped out, Orlando developer Cameron Kuhn bought the Barnett and said he didn’t need city loans. He got a $900,000 grant from the city’s historic preservation program. His planned redevelopment flamed out in foreclosure.

The same dead-end scenario unfolded for the Laura Street Trio, also a Kuhn project.

After the city bought the trio in 2002, the Downtown Development Authority and Jacksonville Economic Development Commission approved an $18 million incentive package with Signet Development Ltd. to turn the buildings into housing with street-level shops.

In 2004, the city called off the deal and gave the trio to the Jacksonville Police and Fire Pension Fund, a move aimed at reducing the city’s unfunded pension liability. The fund’s managers planned to restore the buildings, but later sold them to Kuhn.

The city approved a $1.05 million grant to Kuhn for the trio. His plans dissolved in his company’s financial meltdown.

Downtown likewise couldn’t capitalize on the real estate boom by getting development at The Shipyards. Up to 1,000 housing units, plus retail and office space, were envisioned for 40 acres of former industrial property between the downtown core and the sports complex.

City officials called it part of a “billion-dollar mile” that would transform a desolate piece of waterfront with housing, offices and shopping.

The city paid out $36.5 million for work at the site, but a bitter dispute about how the money was spent forced out the first developer, TriLegacy. LandMar, which replaced TriLegacy, continued to work on items such as the bulkhead before its parent company declared bankruptcy this year. The land remains vacant.

“After Kuhn and The Shipyards, you’re not real unless you’re under construction,” said Jacksonville developer Bill Cesery.

'Drifting along aimlessly’

How public money factors into downtown development has been an age-old issue in Jacksonville.

Frank Nero, former director of the now-disbanded Downtown Development Authority, used the term “trench warfare” to describe his experience in the 1990s.

“It played better to be for [suburban] drainage and against the Riverwalk,” Nero said. “Downtown became a poster child to get kicked.”

Former City Councilman Matt Carlucci was among the council members who pushed for shifting money to the growing suburbs instead of downtown. He later changed his mind.

“Executives would want to know if they were moving to a city on the go or a city that’s just drifting along aimlessly,” Carlucci said. “That was like a light bulb going off in my head. We can’t just do this [job growth] with tax breaks.”

In the past decade, the city has approved $140 million in taxpayer incentives â€" mainly grants, loans and tax breaks â€" to attract private investment for housing, offices and retail in the downtown area. Another $686 million has been invested in new civic buildings â€" the arena, baseball park, main library, county courthouse, plus upgrades to the football stadium, extension of the Northbank Riverwalk, parks and streets.

There’s been some payoff. The 90-block inner city’s taxable property value totaled $869 million in 2008, a 37 percent increase over 2001.

But in Jacksonville’s consolidated city-county form of government, downtown must compete for funding priority with demands from constituents spread across 841 square miles.

Jacksonville used to have a downtown development agency with an appointed board and executive staff beating the drum for the city core. The Downtown Development Authority, formed in the 1970s, became an advisory board within the Jacksonville Economic Development Commission when then-Mayor John Delaney formed the JEDC.

In 2006, Peyton reorganized the JEDC and eliminated the DDA. The JEDC still had the responsibilities of downtown redevelopment, but with a smaller staff â€" 18 employees for the entire county, down from 40 in 2004. By contrast, Orlando’s downtown-only authority boasts a 15-member staff.

The only organization today with that sole focus is Downtown Vision, a nonprofit “business improvement district” formed in 2000 at the behest of Delaney after he learned how similar districts helped Philadelphia and other cities. City Hall is paying about $230,000 of this year’s $1.2 million budget.

Downtown Vision provides enhanced trash collection service, publicizes events and hires the orange-clad ambassadors who walk around downtown giving directions and other assistance.

Carlton Jones, a Jacksonville developer who has done projects in Washington, said it was a mistake to disband the DDA.

“The Downtown Development Authority would have its sole focus on downtown,” he said. “Each and every day, its people would wake up in the morning and ask, 'How can I improve downtown?’ ”

The key: People in homes

City officials are still banking on residential development sparking a turnaround for downtown.

“The key is residential, residential, residential,” said JEDC Executive Director Ron Barton.

But the city has little money on hand for would-be developers. Downtown’s tax-increment financing districts â€" special districts that capture taxes from rising property values and redirect them toward redevelopment â€" are expected to spin off little new money in the next five years as the market slowly recovers.

This fiscal year, the downtown tax districts will generate nearly $10 million, but most of that is already spent, earmarked for previously approved development deals, including a $4 million subsidy for parking garages built for the arena and future county courthouse. Making matters worse, the city siphoned more than $300,000 from the district’s coffers to bolster the ailing general fund.

It wouldn’t be the first time downtown-improvement money was tapped for projects outside the core. In 2005, the city withdrew $3.5 million to cover cost overruns at an animal control center in Riverside.

The bottom line: There’s scant funding available for the city to make headway on a 19-step action plan enacted in 2007 with the goal of creating a “world-class” downtown. That would cost roughly $500 million, with much of that invested in an expanded park system and revamp of city streets to make downtown more walkable.

Instead, the city is taking a bite-sized approach. In January, a $2 million Laura Street facelift will make it a two-way street with wider sidewalks that are more appealing to pedestrians. Peyton also wants to spend $19 million this year on riverfront improvements.

“The cities that you enjoy visiting that have turned the corner usually get the public realm right,” Barton said. “The parks drive people downtown. The streets are so enjoyable that you want to be on your feet on the streets.”

'I knew it was over’

Residential development is doubly important because downtown’s other source of people â€" its workers â€" is shrinking.

There were an estimated 60,000 workers in 2001, according to Downtown Vision. That number dipped to 55,000 in 2008.

Last year, Deutsche Bank picked the Butler Boulevard corridor to build offices for up to a thousand employees. In 2006, Fidelity Investments chose the Southside as the site for a 1,200-employee financial services center.

The city has tried at times to stop the migration of offices to the suburbs. In 2003, the city approved a $1.8 million incentive to keep Stein Mart’s corporate headquarters downtown.

Others couldn’t be persuaded. Delaney recalled when American General bought Gulf Life, pulling an icon out of what is now the Riverplace Tower on the Southbank.

“I was sitting there with that CEO begging him. He said, 'John, I can move anywhere there’s a phone jack and an electrical outlet.’ I knew it was over then,” Delaney said.

Not everyone shares that philosophy.

Michael Ward, CEO of CSX Corp., said downtown provides 1,800 of the Fortune 250 railroad’s office workers a pleasant look at the St. Johns River as well as a centralized commute, enabling them to live anywhere in town.

“We need to be here. It’s a wonderful location,” Ward said. “If we went to a real estate developer and said we need space for this many people, someone would be glad to build it for us. But we’re not interested in that. We’re not interested in leaving.”

In the downtown core, the last privately built office tower was the 42-story Bank of America tower. It opened in 1990, capping a construction blitz of offices that changed the skyline on both sides of the St. Johns River.

Since then, developers haven’t been able to justify the cost of another tower in the central business district, said Mike Harrell, senior vice president at CB Richard Ellis, an international real estate company with an office in downtown Jacksonville. He said if downtown filled up empty office space and leasing rates went up, the payback could be there for a developer.

The downtown office vacancy rate is now 22.3 percent â€" higher than the metropolitan area average of 20.3 percent. Harrell said the rate would have to drop to 5 percent â€" and stay there â€" before developers risk building another skyscraper.

Unfulfilled promise

Even if downtown workers were inclined to stay after work, they have a limited menu of places to go.

Many restaurateurs operate their business like a high school cafeteria â€" busy at midday and midday only. Dinner isn’t served.

Until the 1980s, downtown was home to five department stores. Today, there’s no place for thousands of office workers to even buy a dress or suit, much less do their Christmas shopping.

In 2007, a city report on what’s needed listed a pharmacy, grocery store, higher-end spa, medical center, yoga studio, sports bar, antique and consignment shops, and a large place for artisans to work and sell their wares.

Consultants said other cities have used grants and loans to help local retailers get a foothold in downtown, paving the way for national chain stores to follow.

But Jacksonville has used incentives only sporadically for retail establishments, and the results have been spotty at best:

* A $1.9 million construction loan for construction of Sax Seafood & Grill in the LaVilla neighborhood, which borders downtown. The restaurant never opened and the city now owns the property.

* A $50,000 loan for the startup of the Eclate Jazz Club on East Bay Street. Eclate later closed, but paved the way for the next tenant, The Dive Bar, which is still open.

* $260,000 to furnish and equip an eatery in the new main library. Shelby’s, a popular Neptune Beach coffee shop, opened its library location in 2007, but couldn’t make it work. No other tenants have followed.

The city balked in 2003 at a $51 million package of federal and city loans, plus city grants, for an overhaul of the  Landing that would have demolished the middle of the center, creating an opening from Laura Street to the river. Owner Toney  Sleiman also rolled out plans for more stores, plus condominiums, offices, hotel rooms and a marina. Those projects haven’t materialized.

“The Landing had the promise and never quite fulfilled it,” said Cesery, who is planning a revival of his own: Converting the old downtown library into a wine bar, restaurant and grocery.

Janice Lowe, general manager of the Landing, said Sleiman still wants to redevelop the center, but can’t do it alone.

“The successful projects are public-private ventures,” she said.
'Can’t be a ghost town’

Thirty years ago, Jake Godbold made downtown the cornerstone of his mayoral agenda.

Today, at his Northside chemical plant office, there’s an illustration he keeps on the wall of the city skyline with his portrait superimposed. It says “Jakesonville.”

Godbold said downtown has made strides since he took office in 1979, but it’s still not what he pictured.

“As downtown goes, so goes your city,” he said. “It doesn’t matter if someone is looking at J. Turner Butler or anywhere else. They judge a city on downtown and it can’t be a ghost town.”

david.bauerlein@jacksonville.com, (904) 359-4581

david.hunt@jacksonville.com, (904) 359-4025

From: http://jacksonville.com/news/metro/2009-12-13/story/lights_dimming_on_jacksonvilles_bold_plans_for_downtown

[thelakelander]

The key: People in homes

City officials are still banking on residential development sparking a turnaround for downtown.

“The key is residential, residential, residential,” said JEDC Executive Director Ron Barton.

This is the problem.  The key isn't residential, its embracing connectivity.  Public money invested in the core has not been centralized or planned to let projects feed off of each other.  That's the major difference between DT Jax and the more successful ones.  We treat DT like its a +800 square mile island and spread limited investment all over instead of using transit to connect it with vibrant urban core neighborhoods or focusing on getting one compact central spot right.  We build an arena a mile east of the CBD's heart, a convention center a mile west and a convention center hotel a mile between both of them.  We balk on the Landing (centralized and existing) but shift millions to fund proposals in Brooklyn.  We build a new library but rip down a solid block of historic buildings to do so instead of putting it on one of our surface parking lots.  We continue to not be able to land those who want to come DT (ex. Florida Coastal School of Law), sending them to the Southside instead.  To solve a traffic congestion problem that occurs once a year, we try to relocate an event bringing 500,000 to DT annually to Cecil Field.  The market is one thing but our city is it's own worst enemy.  Until the embracing of connectivity and piggybacking happens, nothing will change.  Unfortunately, we still don't get it.

[fsu813]

2 great things to get from this first piece:


1) "In 2006, Peyton reorganized the JEDC and eliminated the DDA. The JEDC still had the responsibilities of downtown redevelopment, but with a smaller staff â€" 18 employees for the entire county, down from 40 in 2004. By contrast, Orlando’s downtown-only authority boasts a 15-member staff. "


2) “As downtown goes, so goes your city,” he said. “It doesn’t matter if someone is looking at J. Turner Butler or anywhere else. They judge a city on downtown and it can’t be a ghost town.”

[vicupstate]

I think that connectivity, walkability and desireability (safe and clean appearance) will DRAW in the residents, which will in turn bring the retail and restaurants, and then additional office users. 

I don't think you can count on just drawing in Riverside and San Marco folks to DT, when they have most of what they need already in their borders.  There does have to be a resident population in DT itself of at least 10,000. 

The article is very well done IMO.  It hits the bullseye pretty good.  It also illustrates how the city has been it's own worst enemy, as lake mentions. The scattershot, uncoordinated, search for a silver bullet, stop and start, fund then de-fund approach has been a failure.  There has to be a PLAN and it has to be FOLLOWED year after year, administration after administration.

One NEW thing I learned from the article, was how TIF monies have been siphoned off to build an animal shelter and to support the general fund.  Maybe I missed it, but where was the news coverage of that?  I know in SC, the law requires TIF money to be spent within the boundaries of the TIF itself. 

Peyton talks a big game about DT, but the diversion of these funds, PLUS the distruction of the DDA, show that his actions are in opposition to his rhetoric. 

I would also like to know why the city can fund private parking garages with an 8% GUARANTEED return to the investors, but wouldn't  support other deals like Mike Langton's.  At least with Langton, 11 of the 12 million would be paid back, and a huge vacant building would have RESIDENTS and shops/restuarants.  Those garages are mostly vacant and add nothing to the quality of life DT.          

[finehoe]

Another downtown fund was tapped to cover cost overruns at an animal care shelter in Riverside.

wtf?