Carling, 11 East Bleeding Money: developer asks city for more help

[mtraininjax]

We're not trapped by water though. Our city is not against the Ocean as NY or SF is or even LA. Our county is, but the city is 12 miles or so as the crow flies to the Ocean and there are vast forests open between the downtown and the ocean.

Keith - You are free to take the bus if you choose, I'd rather drive to my destinations on the First Coast. I don't believe a new transit system will save downtown.

[Keith-N-Jax]

Well a negative attitude certainly will not. Everyone is free to do what they please I would imagine. Reading back through the thread I don't see where anyone said that a new transit would save DT. The Bus comment was really unnecessary.

[mtraininjax]

Keith - Apparently you did not read how STJR plans to revitalize downtown with transit:

One way is to have JTA offer frequent, 24/7 transit connections to join all the urban core areas to achieve the needed numbers to support everyday retail and service needs.

JTA does provide the Skyway, but what else do they provide? Bus service. What other transit connections would JTA offer?

Sorry to have offended you.

Again, I do not see how a transit system offering 24/7 connections will revitalize downtown as the first building block.

[Keith-N-Jax]

He listed alot of things, remember these are just plans and ideas. Key word was (One way). He mentioned others as was as a whole not seperately. Not sure if that would be the first building block or starting point. I do believe the city and JTA need to work side by side. Jax is really in a tough situation IMO.

[mtraininjax]

Got me thinking on transit ideas for downtown, found this from an old article back in April 2009: (Anyone else know that Orlando offers free bus service, paid for by garage fees???)

After many years of stumbling, America finally seems to be dedicated to the goal of getting transit right. The Environmental Defense Fund has just issued a report highlighting 11 of the most forward-looking and successful local programs across the country. They are:

Streetcars in Portland, Oregon: This system saves 70 million miles of car travel a year, sparked a local streetcar building industry, created billions of dollars worth of vital downtown development and is super, super sharp-looking.

The Orange bus line in Los Angeles: Dedicated bus lanes built over an old rail right of way create a service that’s “like a train on rubber tires.” With 22,000 riders, it’s getting three times as much traffic as was projected. A nice stations, bike facilities, low fares, and service every six minutes are among the features that make it a hit with commuters.

Van Pool in Kings County, CA: In the rural San Joaquin valley this very successful ride sharing program is used extensively by agricultural workers. In 2007, it was responsible for eliminating nearly 400,000 vehicle trips.

“Flex route” buses in Price William County, VA: The sprawling exurbs of this county are well served by this system that allows the buses to deviate from a fixed route in order to pick up and drop off riders.

Highway shoulders as dedicated bus lanes in the Twin Cities: This program is a lot cheaper than building a new lane, and creates advertises itself as the buses zoom past frustrated drivers stuck in congested highway traffic.

Bus rapid transit in Eugene, Oregon: When the city rolled out its BRT program, bus ridership doubled. The service has exclusive right of way over most of its route network and fancy hybrid eco-buses that make everyone on board feel like a rock star.

Bus shuttles for train stations in New Jersey: The shuttles pick up commuters and bring them to the nearest train station, reducing car dependence and the need for station parking.

“The Rapid” in Grand Rapids, Michigan: An example of a well-planned, well run transit program for a small city. Its flexible, innovative and has created strong economic benefits.

Free, high-quality downtown bus service in Orlando: The LYMMO bus is free, runs on a dedicated lane, and is paid for with a tax on parking garage fees.

“Bikestation” bicycle transit hubs: Now installed in 9 cities, including Chicago, these can include 24 hour bike parking, locker rooms with showers, and repair shops.

Select Bus Service in NYC: Features designated lanes, off-board fare collection, priority at traffic lights (i.e. they turn green for the bus), and entrance through any door.

[mtraininjax]

Link to free bus service downtown in Orlando, http://www.golynx.com/?id=1155575

Is this what the new bus lanes in Jax will bring? If downtown commuter service were free, why not use it to travel downtown, could really be a boon to growth.

[tufsu1]

mtrain...the Portland example you have listed above is a very large fare free zone (although it was shrunk some this year)...it is funded by, yep you guessed it, a special tax.

Orlando's LYMMO system is purely a downtown loop and isn't really similar to our planned BRT service...the first phase of the Jax. system will run in downtown and the southbank in exclusive Lanes...but they will not be separated by a barrier and other vehicles will be permitted to use them during non-peak hours.

As for having free downtown commuter service in Jax., I believe the two all-day trolleys serving downtown are free.

[thelakelander]

This has been clearly evident in similar sized cities that have made this investment.  With a struggling DT core, Jax needs to seriously consider this issue before writing it off.

Lake - Do you have some examples in numbers of how this investment in transportation has helped transform downtown areas into thriving environments? Not doubting you, I would just like to see some empirical data and not just some names of cities. I want to see how they have grown before and after. I just a bit more skeptical, I suppose. I don't see how an expanded transit system could and will bring life to downtown.

Manhatten is a bad example too, it is constrained by water on both sides. Do you have another example of bad traffic in an urban area where geographic constraints do not add to the traffic problem?

Sure mtrain.  Do you want links to actual studies or will a couple of articles from across the country be enough?  Here are two articles from a quick google search.

Desire Grows for Streetcars
Cristian Lupsa, Christian Science Monitor
February 5, 2007


Columbus, Ohio, might not be your image of booming America, but Mayor Michael Coleman says an explosion of jobs and immigration have made it the second-fastest-growing city in the Midwest from 2000 to 2005 (after Indianapolis). Now in his second term, Mayor Coleman is determined to shape Ohio's largest urban area â€" once No. 3 behind Cleveland and Cincinnati â€" into a 21st-century city.

His plan includes a streetcar system that would connect Columbus's spread-out downtown attractions, and bring an estimated 6 to 1 return on the initial investment, according to a city-commissioned study. They are riding streetcars into the 21st century? Is this "Back to the Future"? Well, yes.

After Portland, Ore., launched the first modern streetcar system in 2001, cities and towns from coast to coast â€" impressed by the financial success of Portland's venture â€" have followed suit or examined the possibility of returning the forgotten vehicles to their streets. While not a solution to traffic congestion or pollution, streetcars have proved to be an attractive amenity to revitalized downtowns, encouraging street life and community, boosting development, and promoting energy-efficient transportation.

"Streetcars aren't going to change the world, but they'll do their part," says Jim Graebner, a Denver-based consultant and chairman of the streetcar subcommittee for the American Public Transportation Association in Washington.

Mr. Graebner was involved in plans for more than 30 streetcar systems in the past couple of decades â€" half a dozen of which came to be. He says the vehicles are sure to return as cities themselves come back. Streetcars, he adds, don't need dedicated tracks â€" the tracks are integrated into street traffic. And they're pedestrian friendly.

But this is not a retro-transit fashion fad; it's nostalgia with a grass-roots twist. Most projects are championed not by transit authorities, but by mayors and advocacy groups. They are paid for by public/private partnerships, with little money from the Federal Transit Administration. The FTA continues to fund mostly larger people-moving enterprises, such as commuter rails. Streetcars, advocates say, are for people in growing downtowns, not commuters.

"The streetcar is not a toy or a gimmick," says Charles Hales, a senior vice president of HDR Engineering, a consulting firm in Omaha, Neb. "It's a necessary response to people's return to the cities."

Mr. Hales, who was instrumental in developing Portland's system, says the city wanted to create "development-oriented transit" as opposed to the traditional "transit-oriented development." The former aims to encourage developers to build high-density areas, where driving a car becomes an inconvenience. Couldn't buses, which are cheaper, do the same? They might, advocates say, but "have you seen developers write checks for buses?" Tracks, Hales says, show the city's commitment.

Streetcars fueled urban growth in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but as cars took over after World War II and fueled urban sprawl, most cities uprooted tracks.

Columbus is not a mass-transit city â€" it's car territory, but Coleman says he is persuaded a streetcar will make a difference to jobs, connectivity, and development. Still, he'll take it one step at a time â€" having most recently appointed a committee to examine how to pay for an initial two-mile route without raising taxes.

The average price for a mile of track ranges from $8 million to $25 million, one-third to one-fifth the cost of commuter rails and subways, Graebner says. The reason more than 40 cities are exploring streetcars today, he says, is that all systems opened recently have produced handsome returns. According to figures from local officials and data advocacy groups:

• Tampa, Fla., spent more than $55 million on its system and attracted more than $1 billion in investments.

• More than 100 projects, worth around $2.5 billion, were built along the $100-million Portland line.

• The $20-million line in Little Rock, Ark., attracted about $200 million in development.

• Kenosha, Wis., with a population just shy of 100,000, built the cheapest system ($5.2 million for two miles of track). It brought in about $150 million in development.

Advocates don't argue that streetcars are synonymous with development, but that's missing the point, according to "Street Smart," a recent report by Reconnecting America, a nonprofit that promotes urban development that integrates public transportation. "You want development to happen next to a streetcar so people won't get into a car and drive," says Gloria Ohland, a vice president of communications for Reconnecting America.

In other words, the streetcar helps build denser urban areas. Michael English, vice president of the board running the Tampa system, says the city planned its routes not to take cars off the Interstate, but to provide alternatives to driving short routes. The lines connect Tampa's historic district to a burgeoning downtown.

"We need to rethink sprawl," says Len Brandrup, director of transportation in Kenosha. "We believe in capitalism, but we have few tools to get people out of cars and into public transportation."

And that's the big question: Can streetcars be efficient means of transit? Robert Dunphy, an expert on transportation and infrastructure at the Urban Land Institute in Washington, is not entirely convinced. Mr. Dunphy likes streetcars, but views them as amenities. Most of those operating today â€" with the exception of those in larger cities such as Portland or San Francisco â€" fall into that category.

Lisa Gray, director of the nonprofit Charlotte Trolley, calls the local streetcar (currently closed while the city connects it to a new light rail line) an "attraction." It's not transit, she says, but a "moving museum" that happens to serve as transit. Ms. Gray says the vehicles are a great gathering point, and a way for local citizens to connect with the past. "When the trolley was the only mode of transportation, people met their neighbors on it, she says. "This notion of traveling is connected to community."

Streetcar advocates often talk about the trolley's power to create "place." That's exactly why they'll work in downtowns, Hales says. Graebner adds that they are more intimate transportation than buses.

Dunphy says streetcars have a hipper appeal. "People who are users of public transport are fine with buses," he says. "Streetcars are for people who don't use public transportation." Dunphy isn't arguing that streetcars should remain museum pieces, but wonders whether their resurgence can address the American transportation conundrum: "it's a lot easier to get people to support public transit than to get them on it."

http://blumenauer.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1477

From the WSJ Real Estate Archives
A Streetcar Named Aspire: Lines Aim to Revive Cities
by Thaddeus Herrick
From The Wall Street Journal Online
June 26, 2007

As a transportation system, this city's $63 million streetcar line is a dud.

Since the project opened in 2002, its financial losses have exceeded expectations. Last year ridership declined 10% to its lowest level yet. And the vintage system spans only 2.4 miles between the edge of downtown and a historic district called Ybor City.

"It goes from no place to nowhere," says Hillsborough County Commissioner Brian Blair, an opponent of the project.

But proponents say Tampa's Teco Line Streetcar System has delivered on another front: helping to spur development. Some $450 million in residential and retail space is complete along the route, most of it in the Channel District, a once-languishing maritime neighborhood. With another $450 million in development underway and $1.1 billion in the planning stages, local officials expect the district to be home to as many as 10,000 residents within the next decade.

Like stadiums, convention centers and aquariums, streetcars have emerged as a popular tool in the effort to revitalize downtowns in the U.S. About a dozen cities, from Madison, Wis., to Miami, are planning lines. But while research shows that big-ticket projects such as ballparks largely fail to spawn economic development, evidence is mounting that streetcars are indeed a magnet.

Streetcar systems are slower, less expensive and smaller than light rail, with cars that carry a maximum of 125 people and the average line 2-3 miles long. The cars are powered by electricity and run on tracks, which developers tend to favor because they suggest a sense of permanence, unlike bus routes, which can be changed overnight.

In Kenosha, Wis., city officials say a two-mile line helped generate 400 new residential units and the redevelopment of a 69-acre industrial site into a waterfront park. The streetcar line in Little Rock, Ark., has sparked revitalization of the city's River Market and warehouse district. In Seattle, a new $52 million streetcar line is scheduled to open in December that will shuttle riders between downtown and South Lake Union, a formerly industrial area that is being redeveloped by Microsoft Corp. billionaire Paul Allen.

And in Portland, Ore., the poster child for such development, officials say the streetcar system has helped bring $2.7 billion in investment within two blocks of its 3.6 mile line, much of it in the 24-hour hub known as the Pearl District. "It's one of the most vibrant neighborhoods in the city," says Richard Brandman, deputy planning director for Metro, the Portland area's regional government.

Still, streetcars face considerable odds because they vie for the same money as transportation projects designed to serve the suburbs. This has been particularly true at the federal level, where funding has long depended on how quickly projects can move people from one point to another. Streetcars, which average under ten miles per hour, are at a distinct disadvantage. By contrast, light rail moves at 20 to 60 miles per hour.

Congress sought to change the odds in 2005 with the creation of Small Starts, a Federal Transit Administration program designed to fund small-scale transportation systems, including streetcars. But streetcar proponents have been largely reluctant to pursue funding under the program, saying the FTA still favors high-speed transit such as buses.

Paul Griffo, a spokesman for the FTA, says that both mobility and development factor into the funding of transportation projects. But so far Small Starts has recommended four projects, all of them bus rapid transit, an emerging transportation alternative in which a bus operates in a designated lane much like subway or light rail with stops about every half mile.

In the meantime, cities have relied on a patchwork of public and private money to help fund their streetcar systems, hoping to tap into a demographic shift in which young professional and empty nesters are moving downtown. Streetcars are especially popular among urban planners because they encourage the sort of density that allows for offices to be developed alongside homes, shops and restaurants.

"Streetcars are not designed to save time," says Mr. Blumenauer. "They're designed to change the way neighborhoods are built."

While streetcars lack speed and mobility, proponents say the role they play in urban development makes them a worthy transportation choice. They argue that by helping to draw development to urban areas such as downtowns, and by providing a transportation link in those areas, streetcars reduce the need for extra lanes of highways to the suburbs and limit the need for cars in and around downtowns.

In several cities, such as San Francisco and New Orleans, streetcars have never gone out of style as transportation systems. But many more were shut down following World War II in favor of buses.

That was the case in Tampa. The city once had one of the largest electric streetcar systems in the Southeast, with well over 100 cars and more than 50 miles of track.

In the mid-1980s, prompted in large part by nostalgia, a group calling itself the Tampa and Ybor City Street Railway Society set about to restore one of Tampa's derelict streetcars. Out of that effort evolved a broader downtown redevelopment campaign in which a new streetcar system was proposed, linking the city's convention center and the former cigar-manufacturing hub of Ybor City.

 
Tampa's Teco Line Streetcar System links the entertainment district of Ybor City to the city's convention center at the edge of downtown.  

But county officials saw the focus on downtown as trivial compared with the needs of the larger Tampa-St. Petersburg metropolitan area, where the majority of 2.7 million people rely heavily on their cars to get to and from work. County leaders such as Mr. Blair, formerly a Hillsborough Area Regional Transit Authority board member, ridiculed the $600,000 replica streetcars as costly toys.

"The concern was the use of public money," says Steven Polzin, a former regional transit authority board member who is a director of public transit research at the University of South Florida's Center for Urban Transportation Research. "Tampa-area roads are wanting for resources."

But the controversy did little to deter development in the Channel District, a 212-acre stretch of land where the city has agreed to grant tax breaks for developers. Developers say they were also drawn by the streetcar line. Fida Sirdar, president of Key Developers Group LLC, for example, is spending several hundred thousand dollars to build a pedestrian walkway connecting the York Station streetcar stop to his Place at Channelside, a $100 million 244-unit condominium. "It's a big plus," he says.

In May, the Tampa City Council voted to extend the streetcar line by about a third of a mile into downtown, using federal money already in hand. By linking downtown and the burgeoning Channel District, officials hope they can transform the streetcar line into more of a commuter system, expanding the hours of operation and raising revenue.

Still, Tampa's streetcar line is still largely a tourist attraction, drawing 389,770 riders last year, more than half of them out-of-town visitors. A $4.75 million endowment set up to operate the streetcar system for 10 years is losing about $1 million a year. And Tampa Mayor Pam Iorio says she doesn't intend to put more money into the line, which the city owns jointly with Tampa's regional transit authority.

"Somebody is going to have to step up," says Ed Crawford, a spokesman for the regional transit authority. "It's clear we can't go on this way."

-- Jennifer S. Forsyth contributed to this article.

http://www.realestatejournal.com/propertyreport/newsandtrends/20070626-herrick.html


What investment or subsidizing of a business or development can bring the city back the type of return streetcars have done for Tampa, Portland, Little Rock or Kenosha?  You could fund a streetcar connecting Riverside and Five Points to the Northbank/Landing for the same costs the city wants to dump into upgrading Metro Park.  In the process, you'll tie in popular existing destinations (Five Points, Landing), major employment centers (BCBS, Fidelity, CSX), dense residential (Riverside), cultural (Cummer, Performing Arts Center) and recreational (riverwalk, Memorial Park, Riverside Park) uses, while spurring infill development in the areas between (Brooklyn, LaVilla).  Giving Vestcor money to renovate a building won't do this.  Bribing Publix to open a grocery won't do this.  Putting a park on the riverfront won't do this either.

As for being slow and saying they can't facilitate commuting needs, that really depends on the system (route, frequency, stop spacing, etc.) one is designing.  If you want and design a tourist line (i.e. Tampa), that's what you'll get.  If you want one that will move commuters and you design it for that purpose (i.e. Portland), that's what you'll get.

[thelakelander]

Link to free bus service downtown in Orlando, http://www.golynx.com/?id=1155575

Is this what the new bus lanes in Jax will bring? If downtown commuter service were free, why not use it to travel downtown, could really be a boon to growth.

The LYMMO hasn't stimulated economic development in DT Orlando. Buses simply don't have the power to do this like rail does.

[heights unknown]

Would be a tragedy and travesty if these beautiful buildings and developments closed down. Would like to say I hope the City can help, but the city has its own problems and can hardly help itself.

"HU"

[stjr]

STJR - Let me see if I understand your core belief....you want the citizens of Jacksonville to give up their automobile, live downtown, and use public transportation to go to their destinations? A hum and spoke system in essence where all transportation funnels back into the core from the outlying areas.

Mtrain, once again, you fail to fully grasp the words in front of you for whatever reason.  Here, as you yourself excerpted, is the relevant quote:

One way is to have JTA offer frequent, 24/7 transit connections to join all the urban core areas to achieve the needed numbers to support everyday retail and service needs.

Nowhere is there mention of a hub and spoke or any connections to the outlying suburbs and I have no idea how you got to that thought.  I merely talked about connectivity to the various URBAN CORE areas and even named them in several places as Riverside, San Marco, and Springfield.  All the discussion that follows your misinterpretation (I am being generous) is totally off point from my post.

Please, please, read the words carefully.  Each is there for a reason.  Thanks.

[CS Foltz]

Vescor can go to a normal bank to obtain funding if their business plan is viable! Taxpayers have paid far more than their fair share($21 Million plus to this date) Downtown will not be revitilized with BRT and even if there were a "No Fare" zone downtown ....I don't think that will spark much of anything! Residents are one thing, infrastructure to support residents is not there to support residents......so which comes first the chicken or the egg? City Hall has no vision, no plan  nor any idea's.............maybe its time for metrojax to get involved beyond just discussing the issue because if we wait for City Hall to take the lead.........well we can't get any worse than where we are now>

[thelakelander]

maybe its time for metrojax to get involved beyond just discussing the issue because if we wait for City Hall to take the lead

Behind closed doors we are getting involved and have been involved for a few years now.  2010 should be an interesting year.

[mtraininjax]

Nowhere is there mention of a hub and spoke or any connections to the outlying suburbs and I have no idea how you got to that thought.  I merely talked about connectivity to the various URBAN CORE areas and even named them in several places as Riverside, San Marco, and Springfield.  All the discussion that follows your misinterpretation (I am being generous) is totally off point from my post.

STJR - Have you been to Downtown Jacksonville? You do know that there is a central HUB at the end of the North line of the Skyway, correct? It feeds most of the buses that go all over the city, whenever I take the bus from Avondale I have to catch a new bus to the Southside or any other location from this central hub.

It acts as the central clearing house for most bus operations. My point was that if and when the City has money for a 24/7 transit solution with buses, why not use the central hub already in place, or the proposed transit center, when and if it ever finds money as well? Do you understand? If not, we can agree to disagree. I am moving on in 2010.

[thelakelander]

another article about Vestcor's situation.

The Carling, which opened in 2006, cost an estimated $25.5 million, of which the developer received a $15.5 million low-interest loan and $5 million in grants as part of a public financing package. Of the $22.4 million spent to restore 11 E. in 2003, Vestcor received a $17.8 million low-interest government loan.

The buildings, which have 227 residential units combined, were about 95 percent occupied during the first few years, when interest in Downtown living was still high, Rood said.

But as the economy weakened and interest in downtown waned, so to did the occupancy levels, which are now 83 percent for the Carling and 76 percent for 11 E. Rents too, which now range from $800 to $2,000, have steadily dropped at both properties. And although the 16,199 square feet of commercial space at the bottom of the buildings were never completely full, that is now down to about 17 percent occupied.

full article: http://jacksonville.bizjournals.com/jacksonville/stories/2009/12/28/daily21.html?ana=tt3245