State of Downtown: 2009 Progress Report

[Metro Jacksonville]

State of Downtown: 2009 Progress Report



While 2009 was a rough year economically, more than $500 million in capital projects were under construction in downtown. This report was compiled by Downtown Vision in an effort to shed light on the issues facing Downtown Jacksonville.

Full Article
http://www.metrojacksonville.com/article/2010-jun-state-of-downtown-2009-progress-report

[duvaldude08]

Great article! It nice to see all this information compiled into one document.And did one see the amount of proposed projects on the graph for 2006? Wow that was really the year of big dreams that didnt come true.

[Captain Zissou]

Good article.  Some of the graphs are misleading in that their scale changes frequently.  It's interesting that the southbank employs 2/3 as much as the north bank with 1/6 the number of large buildings.  There are definite areas of improvement that need to be addressed.

[5PointsGuy]

Wow, great read. I love it.

[Jason]

Fantastic information.  Let's hope we can put it to use and start filling in some of the gaps.

[Overstreet]

...................  It's interesting that the southbank employs 2/3 as much as the north bank with 1/6 the number of large buildings.  ............

The number is likely scewed by the hosptial and outlying BMC medical office buildings in North San Marco.

[mtraininjax]

With 2,700 residents, it has to be painfully obvious that companies like Starbucks, while marginally profitible at 11E, are not willing to hang around and wait for more people to come. So to me, this tells me that the City will need to bend over and give over more money for downtown development, and this is going to tick off the people in the burbs, but hey, we need to grease the skids downtown, without it, we will not get more people, and thus the stores to support the people.

[thelakelander]

Pretty much.  The city is going to have to find a way to level the playing field a bit.  Not only for the Northbank but the urban core in general.

[stjr]

What would be interesting is to compare public and non-profit sector jobs with for-profit.

Downtown's Northbank is mostly becoming government jobs (City Hall, City administration and agencies, State offices, Federal building, Federal Courthouse, Federal Reserve, Florida State College, Sheriff's Office, Library, MOCA/UNF, etc.) and home to those who depend on same (such as lawyers being close to the courthouse or businesses feeding the government workers).  Also, interesting is how much of the for-profits left are old-line regulated industries:  banks, ATT, JEA (treating this as an electric company, not a typical city agency), and CSX.

On the Southbank, it's better, but you still have Baptist and the School Board as major players.  More regulated for-profit businesses with Aetna and Prudential.

[thelakelander]

In the future, it would not be a bad idea to market downtown to companies and businesses that are associated with or complement DT anchors that aren't going anywhere any time soon (ex. medical, city government, federal government, etc.).

[thelakelander]

• Jacksonville’s office vacancy rates remain in the 20 percent range, says Cushman & Wakefield. As of June, office space downtown was 22.5 percent vacant, led by 26.1 percent on the Northbank. Suburban office vacancy was 23.4 percent, as was the vacancy in the largest market, Butler/Baymeadows.

http://www.jaxdailyrecord.com/citynotes.php?id=531360