Chick-Fil-A and Public Improvements Coming to Southbank

[Metro Jacksonville]

Chick-Fil-A and Public Improvements Coming to Southbank



Projects associated with the proposed $200 million Wolfson Children's Hospital/Adult Tower will significantly change the area around Baptist Medical's Southbank campus.


Full Article
http://www.metrojacksonville.com/article/2010-jun-chick-fil-a-and-public-improvements-coming-to-southbank

[Miss Fixit]

Baptist has done a nice job with some of its recent projects - I look forward to watching this one move forward.  And a Chik-Fil-A on the southbank?  Wow!

[danno]

The Chik-Fil-A will be inside of Baptist.

[thelakelander]

The Chick-Fil-A will be at the main entrance of Baptist, on the corner of Palm & Prudential.  You won't have to go inside of the medical center to enter the restaurant because it faces the street with its own entrances.

[Overstreet]

Chic-Fil-A is in the entrance to the Howard Building at the corner of Prudental and Palm. It is a walk up no parking adjacent. The main entrance to the hospital is a block +/- west of that.

Some of the tower figures are a little off.

The landscape revisions picture 1. shows the a future building(left) and bridge(above). Those won't be built for quite awhile. 

[fsujax]

I wonder if the Chic-Fil-A will install any signage on the building? Don't know how anyone will be able to tell that it is in there w/o signage.

[thelakelander]

Some outdoor umbrella seating could take care of that.

[Captain Zissou]

Will there be any on street parking near Chick-Fil-A??  It's a bit of a walk from my apt.  The streetscape improvements on Palm are definitely needed.  The block in front of Baptist is miserable.  Once the 4 story building gets built, that will be a really dense and great area.

[fsujax]

If the umbrella's say Chic-Fil-A on them!

[duvaldude08]

Well I work across the street at prudential, so a good fast food chain in a walking distance is a plus for me. But do wonder about parking though. Between baptist, Aetna and Prudential, they will get some booming business.

[aubureck]

I am excited about the improvements.  Ive watched them slowly make changes inside the parking garage over the past couple of years to address improved movement in/out of the garage itself, it was definitely needed. 

I am also excited to see the Chickfila go in the hospital.  I spent a great deal of time in/out of the hospital when my daughter was an infant and I was never happy with the cafeterias available.  I hope another hospital visit is not in our future but if it is the Chickfila will DEFINITELY be appreciated by me

[exnewsman]

That's what - only a block from the San Marco Skyway? So even folks downtown could get over there during the daytime hours with no parking required.

[urbanlibertarian]

"No public funds will be used for the public realm projects described above."

How cool is that!

[Fallen Buckeye]

To alleviate traffic congestion around the medical campus, an off-site 200 space employee parking lot will be located at the existing Kings Avenue Parking Garage. Baptist Medical will provide shuttle service at its expense to transport employees from the Kings Avenue garage to the medical center. Estimated annual operating cost for the parking lot is $69,600 and for the provision of the shuttle service is $25,000.

I'm not sure how close this garage is to the Kings Ave Skyway station, but it would be great if they could have a spur in the skyway that would take you right to Baptist instead of a block or two away and have employees use  the Skyway rather than a shuttle bus. Also, you'd probably have to make the skyway free for Baptist employees somehow. Perhaps Baptist pays a small yearly fee (i.e.; less than the cost of operating a shuttle service) and their employees could get some sort of card that give them free skyway access at the Kings Ave station. This would dramatically boost skyway usage just counting employee usage, but it could be a way to market the skyway as a practical way to get around downtown for everyday people. Make it a nice experience for a core group of everyday people, and they will spread the word themselves to family, friends, patients, etc.

Or you could even build in skywalks that connected to the existing stations and probably do the same thing, but I figure people are lazy so it would be best to actually bring them to the heart of the campus.

[Non-RedNeck Westsider]

This, as most of Baptist's projects, are all that's keeping some of the local industries viable.  So far this year, they have pumped close to 10 mil into projects from downtown to the beaches.  If I'm not mistaken, they are using their own money to finance these projects, and they only rely on contractors that are local - another boon for the local economy.  I say all of this out of contempt for the 350 mil courthouse project that has been constructing using an out of state contractor, (mostly) out of state sub-contractors, etc....  Instead of recycling money in our own community, it's being outsourced to somewhere else (sorry for the vagueness, but I don't know who it is, and it's a little too late to care).
Back to my point - Baptist's newest project, the Wolfson Tower, will be an outstanding addition to the southbank, and a lot of us really appreciate their efforts.