Metro Jacksonville

I have been reading these blogs for the three years that I have been living in Jacksonville, and plan to start trying to get more involved in the conversations. But I wanted to sit back and learn for a bit first. Here I go.

A Central Business District??

One thing that I'd like to hear some feedback on, I think that for the most part people have an interesting view of what constitutes “Downtown” Jacksonville. I am from Louisiana, so New Orleans is my big city frame of reference, but I have also visited many other similar sized cities. One thing I think is missing from the conversation in Jacksonville is the idea of a Central Business District (CBD). I've never heard of this part of Jacksonville (where all the tall buildings are) referred to as the CBD, or the 9 to 5 place that people work. People seem to insist that this relatively small area is our “Downtown”

Thriving Adjacent Communities

People in Jacksonville seem like the only way Downtown will succeed is if tons of residential complexes sprout up next to the Modis Building and a movie theatre moves in next to the BOA Building. Or if thousands of people are walking the streets of the very center of Downtown 24/7. But that is not what a CBD is!  I think many Jacksonvillians focus to transform this PART of downtown is wrongheaded and leads to a depressed view of what downtown currently has to offer.
New Orleans is hardly a city known for a weak downtown, but the CBD at night is as dead as “downtown” (really our CBD) Jax. Its where people work, of course it slows down at night! It is the adjacent communities, most notably the French Quarter in New Orleans, that provide the 24/7 activity. Jacksonville is closer to this than we may feel, simply because we have confused our CBD with our Downtown.

A Need for ConnectivityT
The problem with Downtown, as I see it, is one of definition and connectivity.
First, people define downtown as what I would define as the Central Business District. If when we mentioned “Downtown” it included Brooklyn, Five Points, Springfield, San Marco and the areas directly connected to the CBD then our view of Jacksonville’s “downtown” would be different.
Now I understand that the reason we tend to not think this way is because Brooklyn and Five Points are separated from the CBD by an urban forest and grasslands, Springfield is disconnected by a fortress style Community College, and San Marco is on the other side of the River. But that doesn’t mean they cannot be considered part of “Downtown.” We get to choose how we define these regions.

First we need to make Downtown a reference to ALL of downtown (From 5 points to the stadium, from Springfield to San Marco) and start naming what we currently consider to be Downtown the Central Business District. If nothing else this will help us feel psychologically better about “Downtown.”
Then our focus should not be on building up the CBD and hoping it spreads outward, but the focus should be on building the surrounding communities, promoting connectivity, and meeting in the center.

There's a lot of wisdom in that post.

One quick thing I would add to reinforce my New Orleans comparison, when me and my buddies would go out to the French Quarter at night (which we would interchangably say "We're heading Downtown") a local trick is to park in the CBD and walk next door to the Quarter because there is tons of free parking on the curbs, just like Jax at night, you wouldn't know the difference. The one thing you have to worry about (for folks planing to try and avoid the 10 dollar parking fees in the Quarter) is your car getting broken in to, but usually people traveling to Bourbon Street are willing to take on some risk...

Hard to imagine parking on Forsyth Street and walking to the clubs in Riverside.  But I get your point.

Though I've done the very same thing when going out in the Quarter...

Yeah, thats that connectivity problem that I think has led to the false view of what constitutes "Downtown" Jax. I am encouraged by the new development in Brooklyn though. To me, that is one of the major areas to build up for success. Once Five Points is truly connected to the CBD, synergy happens. These neighborhoods need to stop living in isolation.

I love the post and ideas.  Please keep them coming.  I agree that the problem is one of connectivity.  Not only does the CBD need to be linked to the urban neighborhoods (or should we start saying "downtown neighborhoods"?), those neighborhoods need to be linked to each other.  But it is important that these connections be done in a way that promotes pedestrian movement.

Imagine how much more density we can get downtown without the parking lots?  Imagine how much healthier we would be if we walked a few more blocks each day?  Imagine how much nicer we would be to each other if we weren't separated by glass and steel all the time?

some folks have been promoting the idea that downtown and its surrounding neighborhoods will thrive (or die) together....as such, we need to start thinking about the whole intown area as one...while at the same time focusing downtown improvements on the northbank core.

Yeah, I don't think my suggestions are necessarily revolutionary and certainly parts of it are common topics on this site. However, I do disagree with the need to focus on "the core" (or what I would call the CBD). I think the focus should be simply on building up the surrounding neighborhoods and finding ways to connect them with the CBD, and then they will naturally all connect to eachother.

I really think this is the key, divert focus and energy away from adding residents or late night things to do in the CBD and focus on multiplying those things in the surrounding communities.

I woulod be interested, and there very well could be some, to see if there are many examples of cities that revitalized their downtown by starting first with building up the CBD and then it spilling into the surrounding communities and not vice versa.

The things mentioned in this thread are what sold me on the concept of using the streetcar to strengthen connectivity between our urban core neighborhoods.  Not only will it provide the long lost connectivity, it's also a proven economic engine with the power to stimulate walkable infill development in long demolished neighborhoods such as Brooklyn, LaVilla, Sugar Hill and the Cathedral District (these are places where market rate housing makes most sense). As has been mentioned here, the area most consider as downtown will only be as successful as the urban neighborhoods that surround it.

As far as the CBD, i'd cool it on the big ticket gimmicks and focus on modifying public policy and regulations to make it more attractive to the private sector.  To this day, I believe we make this DT development stuff much more complicated and expensive than it has to be. In most cases, simple is best.

My eyes normally glaze over when you guys start talking about streetcars and trains.  I just don't see it in our future; not in the mid-term.

Is the trolley workable to provide this connectivity?  It seems to be a boon between the CBD and Riverside/Five Points.  More trolleys; better "stations" for TOD; spread throughout and between the downtown neighborhoods.  And expanded service hours.  That one is important.

(Yes, I know it's a glorified bus.  But it's working now.)

Jimmy, believe me a fixed transit system such as streetcar would do wonders for not only Dowtown, but all the neighborhoods connecting it to Downtown.

yeah and I totally agree, but we have so much dead areas between the cen buis dist and the outer intown neighborhoods.  This is where transit is vital.  I also think it is vital to populate La Villa and Brooklyn, which are not part of the cbd, but old neighborhoods that have been razed. 

+1 JCJ...  Exactly what I would have posted... Brooklyn and LaVilla were vital "downtown" elements, that , had developers with grand ideas that never materialized, not demolished almost entirely, there would still be points of interests ,at least remaining in both areas.

That's where a streetcar would provide the best benefit. Fixed transit spurs walkable development in the same way highways spur autocentric sprawl. Faux trolleys don't spur infill development (just look at how much TOD has developed since the Riverside Trolley started up....zero). A streetcar connecting Riverside to downtown would provide the same economic boost to Brooklyn and LaVilla that Portland's streetcar did for the Pearl District. It's also a lot cheaper than building a courthouse, arena, main library or convention center while still providing a much higher ROI.

Well, you don't build a courthouse or library or other civic building because you expect a ROI.  At least, not in my estimation.  Or roads for that matter.  So, it's not even a question of returns.  I noticed a new sidewalk section for the faux trolley in Avondale.  Hardly the kind of TOD I would be hoping for.

I need to get a clearer understanding of how we get from zero streetcars to a thriving streetcar line in Jacksonville.  I know the research is all right here.  I'll dig into it.

Going back to what geauxtigers31 said, I think part of the perception of downtown in Florida is twisted by South Beach, Ybor, Fort Lauderdale, Duval Street, and Orange Avenue... These are all CBD locations but none of them sleep.

By the way, the original boundaries of downtown were listed in an old directory that Lakelander, Stephendare and I found in the Library. MYRTLE on the west, FLORIDA on the east (A.P.Randolph) the river and Hogans Creek on the north and south. If I recall this was about 1920, when indeed business and commerce (including the Bordello Row) roared into the new decade...Everywhere in the period papers is boosterism, spirit, pride and expansion, growth and optimism. Then we dianimited Fairfield and the thriving Florida Avenue, the Negro Trade Academy and the great circular park.

Next the geniuses of City Hall took out LaVilla, the entire Davis Street, and Bay Street corridors which were lined with stately historical red brick buildings and blue glazed brick streets, down came the great Atlantic and East Coast Railroad Station and one by one the grand old homes on Houston Street.

Closer to the CBD, were the "parlor houses" where courtesans, beautiful women in their teens and twenty's worked in lavish comfort. The houses were the most modern in the city and featured a piano player, and servants, as well as a bouncer. The "boarders" were high class and the madame discreet. Out of respect, we didn't dynamite these homes, we bulldozed them right down to the last brick. Further out Houston and Bay were "Bawdy Houses," common brothels or our very own red light district, where women a bit older and perhaps a bit more spent, could work out their room and board on their backs. These large old buildings got no mercy either, as a sinister joke took them down with "wrecking balls." Finally out by the current JTA yard, were the "cribs," and "hog farms" otherwise known as the last stop on the road to perdition, of all of the houses in our city, guess which ones we left a few examples of? It's that exact backward stupidity that I think our old time residents are bitching about.

Oh, and when we finished taking out LaVilla, trashing not one but two railroad stations, we tore down the worlds largest Railway Express Terminal and a huge Railway Post Office building, ironically about the same size as the one JTA now wants to build across the street. Next we moved on to Brooklyn, and as you can plainly see today, everything from the streetcar barn, power house and academy, to the buzzing bustle of Riverside Avenue was plowed under, the nonsense coming to a halt after marking most of the businesses on Park Street for removal. At least they haven't gotten to the all of the historic buildings on Myrtle, and there are still a couple of shotgun houses in the neighborhood. Really though, this IS the BOLD NEW CITY OF THE SOUTH, so if you want photographs get them today before these too become lifeless slabs, litter heaps, rubble and weeds.

Honestly if Jacksonville were New Orleans, we wouldn't have done a damn thing after that tragic storm because hey, it looks like home.

OCKLAWAHA

Quote from: geauxtigers31 on April 08, 2011, 07:23:39 PM
Jacksonville is closer to this than we may feel, simply because we have confused our CBD with our Downtown.

The problem with Downtown, as I see it, is one of definition and connectivity.
First, people define downtown as what I would define as the Central Business District.

The only problem I'm seeing is that you're using a different city as your reference point, when every city defines neighborhoods and uses names in their own way. In New Orleans, the words Downtown and Uptown have different connotations than they do in most cities, referring to large areas, several neighborhoods each, down-river and up-river. In NO, Downtown historically means the neighborhoods downriver from Canal Street, which of course doesn't include the CBD. Thus, the word "Downtown" could not be used to describe the CBD as it often is in other cities, and they simply call their CBD something else. This Wikipedia article explains it better than I can (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Downtown_New_Orleans).

In many large American cities, Downtown is pretty much synonymous with CBD, or even just a subset (think Atlanta, where Downtown is really just part of a string of 3 CBDs.) Jacksonville is pretty average in that respect.

With any geographical label, if people know what you're talking about, that's all that really matters.

Charlotte calls its CBD "Uptown". It has been my experience that a lot of out-of-towners mistakenly call New Orleans' CBD "Downtown" because of what they're used to in other cities, and I would guess that happens with Charlotte, too. It's also been my experience that the farther out a person lives in the suburbs, the more inclusive they are with the word "Downtown". I've heard suburbanites refer to all of St. Louis city proper as Downtown and I just have to roll my eyes.

I think Ocks pictorial of the other cities , Jax , and Nagasaki are pretty much on the mark. I think we lead the world in demolition of buildings and  surface parking where they once stood.  Here is hoping the next administration can think outside this derelict box.

These responses have been helpful.
Ultimately my point was just that it seemed to me that there is this fixation, almost an obsession on turning the CBD into a 24 hour hot spot, and people seem to think that downtown will just be a failure until that happens. And we get down about it. "Downtown Jax is dead after 6 PM, Bummer Man". If we could just be content to let the area around the Modis building, Hemming Plaza, etc. be a 9-5 work zone we would start feeling better about Downtown Jax and realize there is more to Downtown then just the CBD.
I think the connectivity issue really should be THE focus. Pour energy into improving the outer neighborhoods (Five Points, Springfield, San Marco) then push that energy into the inner neighborhoods (La Villa, Brooklyn, Cathedral District, Stadium) and then focus on connecting them all in the center. I would throw San Marco in there too because really the area around Prudential is part of the CBD (we should be content that it is a 9-5 area) and San Marco is the southern front of this push inward.
The "feeling better" part sounds simple, but I really feel like the psychology and negative perception Jacksonvillians have about Downtown is a big obstacle.

@ rainfrog

I realize that the naming of areas is usually an organic/historic sort of thing, but there is something about it being called the Central Business District that makes it "okay" to slow down in the evenings. It is a psychological type thing. Obviously none of us are really in a position to just start renaming things, but everything starts with an idea. Also I think if we referred to it as the CBD instead of downtown we wouldn't have as strong a desire to try and make it into something it doesn't need to be, at least not at this stage.

Regarding the Charlotte comment, Uptown is actually a series of neighborhoods that includes a CBD style area. It's really no different than the New Orleans example. Also, Ybor, Las Olas and South Beach aren't within any CBD areas. Ybor is a mile away from DT Tampa and South Beach is on the other side of Biscayne Bay from Miami. All of these places just happen to be walkable areas that were not completely taken out by the wrecking ball. They are what LaVilla, Brooklyn, Sugar Hill and Springfield's Main Street should have been.

Quote from: Jimmy on April 08, 2011, 10:24:26 PM
Well, you don't build a courthouse or library or other civic building because you expect a ROI.  At least, not in my estimation.  Or roads for that matter.  So, it's not even a question of returns.

Its just in your estimation.  All of those are projects that were/are sold to this community as economic development stimulators.  Here are a few old links to articles describing some of them as just that:

http://jacksonville.com/news/metro/2010-12-05/story/will-jacksonvilles-shiny-new-courthouse-lure-developers-jurys-still-out

http://jacksonville.com/opinion/editorials/2011-02-11/story/outer-beltway-look-future

All also cost a hell of a lot more money than a simple fixed rail transit line that would reconnect urban walkable districts would.  In addition, like the rest of the items mentioned above, reliable mass transit in a city the size of Jacksonville is a quality of life offering to its residents as well.

QuoteI noticed a new sidewalk section for the faux trolley in Avondale.  Hardly the kind of TOD I would be hoping for.

Yes, faux trolleys and rubber wheeled transit simply don't spur permanent private sector development.  Fixed transit does and would do more for the urban core than a DDA or something like a convention center ever would.  Here are a couple of quotes from a story on the Delmar Loop streetcar project, I came across during a brief stop in St. Louis last year.

QuoteOn busy Market Street in downtown San Francisco, people avoid nearly empty buses but pack restored streetcars, many of which were built in St. Louis in the 1940s.

Across the nation â€" in cities such as Memphis, Tenn., Little Rock, Ark., and New Orleans â€" plans are under way to restore or extend downtown streetcar lines, which are popular with tourists and residents.

As many as a half-dozen modern or vintage trolley lines might soon join the nearly 30 such systems operating in U.S. cities â€" and St. Louis hopes to be one of those getting on board.

"Streetcars are making a comeback because cities across America are recognizing that they can restore economic development downtown â€" giving citizens the choice to move between home, shopping and entertainment without ever looking for a parking space," said Peter Rogoff, administrator of the Federal Transit Administration. "These streetcar … projects will not only create construction jobs now, they will aid our recovery by creating communities with the potential to be more prosperous and less congested."

QuoteSan Francisco's streetcar line is an integral part of the Bay Area's transit system.

Ford said daily ridership peaks at 24,000 during the summer tourist season but added that the line also gets heavy use by daily commuters connecting to light rail and the city's subway system.

He said streetcars do more for economic development than buses.

"Rail projects are very expensive," Ford said. "But rail projects tend to be permanent. And you get the economic development around stops that you normally don't see with bus operations."

full article: http://www.stltoday.com/business/article_19a93293-77db-570c-b3ac-a720bea8bf14.html

QuoteI need to get a clearer understanding of how we get from zero streetcars to a thriving streetcar line in Jacksonville.  I know the research is all right here.  I'll dig into it.

Its easy.  You simply connect urban pockets of density and activity with reliable and attractive fixed transit and integrate that fixed transit spine into your existing mass transit system.  

When you do this, you already start off with a ridership base from the consolidation of previous bus lines and by providing direct reliable service to places with high residential, employment and commercial density (areas that typically have parking constraints, such as Five Points, our medical centers and historic districts like Riverside).  Since fixed transit historically spurs TOD, as time goes on, it builds up its own ridership base and gives off the feeling to the casual user that it takes you where ever you want to go.  Sort of like the feel you get with a DC metro.  People tend to forget that it took it over 30 years of expansions and spurring adjacent TOD to get to the point of where it is now.

In Miami, Metrorail and Metromover were looked at as great failures when they opened in the 1980s.  In the 1990s, that community realized the benefit for integrating mass transit with land use to spur TOD and jobs in areas where public infrastructure already existed.  Now ridership has peaked on both systems and downtown Miami continues to pack in residents, new jobs and businesses, despite the real estate bust.

We have tons of good examples across the country to follow.  Phoenix, Houston, Charlotte, Salt Lake City, Dallas and Memphis are a couple of great examples of sunbelt sprawlers that have had success with their initial LRT/Streetcar lines to learn from.

That's a lot of good information.  I realize that some sold those projects as economic development opportunities.  And for some construction firms, they might have been.  However, we needed a new court house.  We needed a new library, stadium, etc.  These were civic needs for quality of life of our residents.  Which, perhaps, is a type of ROI, but not so easily quantified in dollars.

Transit, I know, can be different.  It addresses a need (connectivity and transit) and also becomes part and parcel to the sense of place.  It has the potential to return a lot of value in ways that are easy to quantify and also more difficult.  Maybe you have a formula that translates civic pride and utility into a dollar figure.  Those of us on the periphery of these topics aren't highly concerned about ROI, TOD, or other factors that are required to "sell" the ideas.  We just want a way to move between Avondale and the CBD and Springfield without the need of cars, oil, and gasoline.   

Quote from: Jimmy on April 09, 2011, 12:07:34 PM
That's a lot of good information.  I realize that some sold those projects as economic development opportunities.  And for some construction firms, they might have been.  However, we needed a new court house.  We needed a new library, stadium, etc.  These were civic needs for quality of life of our residents.  Which, perhaps, is a type of ROI, but not so easily quantified in dollars.

Fixed transit is exactly the same thing.  If we trace the history of our urban core, we'll find that its been in decline since we started ripping away the connectivity between the walkable neighborhoods.  A look across the country will also show that the cities that have had the most success in bringing back their downtowns and adjacent neighborhoods have used fixed transit as one of the forms of mobility to bring that long lost connectivity back, while stimulating sustainable infill growth, which improves the core's civic quality of life at the same time.  The sooner we embrace this, the easier it will be to not only bring DT back, but the Brooklyns, Durkeevilles, Brentwoods, Moncriefs and LaVillas as well.

QuoteTransit, I know, can be different.  It addresses a need (connectivity and transit) and also becomes part and parcel to the sense of place.  It has the potential to return a lot of value in ways that are easy to quantify and also more difficult.  Maybe you have a formula that translates civic pride and utility into a dollar figure.  Those of us on the periphery of these topics aren't highly concerned about ROI, TOD, or other factors that are required to "sell" the ideas.  We just want a way to move between Avondale and the CBD and Springfield without the need of cars, oil, and gasoline.

Ultimately, there is no exact dollar ROI dollar figure, although the American Public Transportation Association (APTA) states for every public $1 spend on transit, it spurs $5 or $6 in associated adjacent private investment.  You're success will go up or down dependent on your project's ability to effectively serve its desired ridership base and integrate with the surrounding context and land uses.  During the 1980s, this wasn't realized with most projects and it took time for communities to get it right (a few like Jax and its skyway experience, still struggle).  However, in the 1990s and 2000s, just about every project bought to life has been done so with an intention to integrate that mobility investment with transit supportive land use and success has been greatly realized.  All we really have to do is follow the proven path and not make things more difficult and time consuming than it has to be (we really struggle with keeping things simple when it comes to topics like this and DT development).

Also, the key to remember with a project like this, is that multiple problems can be addressed.  These include urban mobility (which you mentioned above), downtown revitalization, economic development in adjacent neighborhoods, job creation in distressed areas, affordable housing (this makes more market rate sense in areas like New Springfield and Brooklyn than it does in the heart of the Northbank CBD) and a reduction of crime in areas where new activity and infill begins to take place.

Here is some information about the economic development benefits of streetcars.

QuoteSteven Polzin, director of mobility policy research at the Center for Urban Transportation Research at the University of South Florida in Tampa, agreed that streetcars create a more stable climate for development and a sense of uniqueness.

"They're very popular urban amenities," he said. "I call them 'transportainment.'"

A 2006 study by Reconnecting America, a nonprofit group that promotes mass transit, claims that Portland, Ore., saw a 1,795 percent private return on the city's 2001 $55 million public investment in a 4.8-mile streetcar line. Portland boasts 12,000 daily riders.

The study also claims Tampa got a 1,970 percent return on the $48 million it spent to install a 2.3-mile line in 2003 - even though its line isn't meant for commuters and has poor ridership.

http://www.bizjournals.com/southflorida/stories/2008/06/30/story14.html

36 Reasons Streetcars Are Better Than Buses
http://www.infrastructurist.com/2009/06/03/36-reasons-that-streetcars-are-better-than-buses/

Modern Streetcar Study Peer Review
http://visioncincinnati.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/streetcar-data-in-other-cities1.pdf

Quote from: thelakelander on April 09, 2011, 07:41:34 AM
Regarding the Charlotte comment, Uptown is actually a series of neighborhoods that includes a CBD style area. It's really no different than the New Orleans example.

It's 4 small districts, but nothing like New Orleans. No part of Uptown Charlotte is even a mile from the center of the CBD, it's dominated by the CBD, the CBD straddles all 4 districts, and Uptown is what the CBD is known as. Very different beast from New Orleans, where most people today don't include the CBD in either of their definitions of Uptown or Downtown, and both terms describe neighborhoods as far as 5+ miles from the CBD.

Uptown Charlotte is more like Downtown Jacksonville, only with more residential in its versions of LaVilla, Brooklyn, Cathedral District, etc. It's a good example of why there's no excuse for our downtown to only be office space, especially considering our popular definition of downtown includes much more land than Uptown Charlotte (with Brooklyn and the stadium district included), and even though Charlotte has WAY more office space crammed into a smaller area, they still pull off having more variety of uses and much more residential and still plenty of room for more. Heck, we could easily fit more residential and accompanying retail/amenities in the shipyards than is currently present in Charlotte's entire First Ward. We have so much space to work with!

Quote from: rainfrog on April 09, 2011, 05:51:44 PM
We have so much space to work with!

And I'm going to say that many of the people that contributed to the sprawling issues that we are contending with now said the same thing. 

What we need is more stuff in less space.

Quote from: Non-RedNeck Westsider on April 09, 2011, 06:41:24 PM

Quote from: rainfrog on April 09, 2011, 05:51:44 PM
We have so much space to work with!

And I'm going to say that many of the people that contributed to the sprawling issues that we are contending with now said the same thing. 

What we need is more stuff in less space.

What we need are less conservative leaders that have thier hands in the pockets of the city sucking it dry..i'm sick of seeing the same conservative right wing nuts leading our city right into the ditch...if you like what jacksonville has done to its downtown...if you like that the city has been allowed to get to big for it's britches...vote for Mr Hogan...if not...vote for the other guy...its not the city...it's the city's leaders that have lead us to where we are today.

Great thread. i guess its my turn. what i want to present here is my own personal experience in trying to take personal action of myself as an individual to develop downtown Jacksonville. Pardon me for indulging on many here at the forum that have heard my story times before. I tried to relocate downtown to buy a building to reside in as an established artist with my wife. I was willing to pay $100s of thousands of dollars to purchase properties accordingly. What we ran into 5 times was property speculators that had bought up these decrepid buildings at the urging of Mayor Maloney after the approval of the courthouse in the late 90s. Since then the values have gone down down down (which allowed me an opportunity to get some affordable land for my wife and me to cultivate an artistic scene in downtown). But those hand full of developers have no concern about the development of DT, which they use a pseudonym of DVI. Until the city, and the citizens, give in to their terms, there will be no further( if you consider the last few years any) development forward. I believe most of the city has realized this once they look closely at the issue and city hall has responded accordingly. Chris Hionedes is NOT our friend. Just recently, Nullspace gallery was removed from their space DT with a months notice. The landlord have every right to do so. But the paradox itself will continue to plague DT development.
But, the big point here is even though we dont have a cultural center in downtown, it is emerging here in the urban communities surrounding it.
This is where sound development is occurring.
And for what its worth. this past weekend, my friend from Manhattan came to visit. We began at Underbelly to see 3 bands, one from NYC. then we went to lomax lounge a walk of less than 100yds to see local band after the bomb baby and two Atlanta Athens GA bands and then went to Jackrabbits and saw several national bands on tour.I didn't even go to the beaches. He was really knocked out and loved it. I tell you here..... THAT IS NOT HAPPENING IN NYC!
While I'm not saying to write off Downtown, urban and cultural development IS happening in the surrounding areas. And i find it competitive with ANY others here in the country.
A point here has to be a new definition for many of "Downtown". As such is a relative term. i'm defining it as those urban communities pointed out here in metrojax itself. I f one does this, you will find that we do have a very viable "downtown".
The biggest and hardest personal tragedy is the failure of the Skyway, a state of the art fixed and rapid mass transit system. But while we can hold on (or out) for its future, if not we, i will continue to do what i can to produce Jacksonvilles young, viable and VERY competent artists to the rest of the community, if not the nation and world. Our art district is coming!!!! Stay tuned!

Quote from: rainfrog on April 09, 2011, 05:51:44 PM

Quote from: thelakelander on April 09, 2011, 07:41:34 AM
Regarding the Charlotte comment, Uptown is actually a series of neighborhoods that includes a CBD style area. It's really no different than the New Orleans example.

It's 4 small districts, but nothing like New Orleans. No part of Uptown Charlotte is even a mile from the center of the CBD, it's dominated by the CBD, the CBD straddles all 4 districts, and Uptown is what the CBD is known as. Very different beast from New Orleans, where most people today don't include the CBD in either of their definitions of Uptown or Downtown, and both terms describe neighborhoods as far as 5+ miles from the CBD.

Other than perception, all are about the same.  The main differences are:

1. Scale - Urban Charlotte has always been significantly smaller than urban Jacksonville and New Orleans.

2. Building Fabric - New Orleans is a pretty preserved city full off old building stock.  Charlotte was a small city that tore down most of its historic stock before having an urban infill boom.  Jacksonville, on the other hand, had density like New Orleans, tore it all down and hasn't done anything worthwhile since.  This gives off the appearance that Jacksonville's actual urban core is much smaller than it really is.  Unlike Charlotte, we have an empty hole that surrounds downtown where density used to exist.  Fill in that hole and you'll have miles of continuous neighborhoods with decent walkability (like a New Orleans).  When that happens, the isolation falls apart and neighborhoods tend to blend together to create one major walkable core.

(http://photos.metrojacksonville.com/photos/481258411_yBHKS-600x10000.jpg)

Here is a set of old aerials of urban Jacksonville during the 1940s, from the Lost Jacksonville: Sugar Hill article a few years back.  Before we went Detroit in the ring around the CBD, our core was every bit as connected at street level, as the feeling one gets when walking in a place like New Orleans or Boston.  Although I agree that we can get more out of the downtown core, I also understand where geauxtigers31 is coming from and agree with what he's stated.

Quote from: hillary supporter on April 09, 2011, 06:53:41 PM
While I'm not saying to write off Downtown, urban and cultural development IS happening in the surrounding areas. And i find it competitive with ANY others here in the country.
A point here has to be a new definition for many of "Downtown". As such is a relative term. i'm defining it as those urban communities pointed out here in metrojax itself. I f one does this, you will find that we do have a very viable "downtown".

+1

I was only arguing word usage, lake, which I admit doesn't mean much. :P I'm glad you've steered to a more meaningful comparison of these cities. I've studied urban history (especially of Jax) for about half my life and I'm never immune to the shock of how much destruction has taken place since WWII. Jax really took a bigger hit than most.

This is a good visualization I stitched together a few years back, comparing the block-by-block population density of Jacksonville to Richmond using 2000 Census data. Check out the difference in the size of their 'impact craters'. Richmond has a much more manageable gap to work with, and they've made good strides the past decade.

Jacksonville:
(http://i.imgur.com/jhPAVl.jpg) (http://i.imgur.com/jhPAV.gif)
(Click for full-size)

Richmond:
(http://i.imgur.com/UnK0Bl.jpg) (http://i.imgur.com/UnK0B.gif)

Key:
(http://i.imgur.com/d3lHm.gif)


I'm hoping Census.gov will have a thematic mapping engine I can use to make comparable maps of 2010 data soon.

Just throwing this out there: of the three in-tact walkable clusters (Riverside, Springfield, San Marco), it almost seems like the worst gap in the landscape is Riverside-Springfield. Brooklyn and LaVilla are decades away from filling in (the right way). On the other hand, the Riverside-San Marco gap is just the river, with only one possible solution: a crossing (of whatever kind). And the Springfield-San Marco gap is where new housing has already been concentrated, with the Parks at the Cathedral, Berkman Plaza, and the Southbank towers, not to mention prime land for more (Shipyards and JEA site). These two gaps seem so much more feasible than Brooklyn and LaVilla at this point. I'm just thinking 'out loud'... obviously all of these should be part of a comprehensive focus.

Rainfrog, thanks for posting those maps. They basically show how a starter urban mass transit and bikeway system should be implemented. Basically, Riverside, San Marco, Springfield and Durkeeville (all have pockets of high residential density) should be connected to each other.  All will benefit from such a short system and so will the no man's land (however, it still is the major employment/cultural center for these neighborhoods) in the middle, which is also known as DT.

@ hillary supporter

You really caught the vision of what I am trying to say. If we redefine "Downtown Jacksonville" to include places like Lomax Lounge and Jack Rabbits, etc. We really are making tremendous progress and should be proud of our Downtown.

Instead, we insist that Downtown Jax is that area of tall buildings that closes down on weeknights and only has energy on the weekends. Its absurd. In alot of ways I think the Landing has some blame because it gives this false identity to that area. I wish the Landing could be moved either close to the stadiums or over to Brooklyn. Supproting those urban neigborhoods. Its comepletely out of place where it is, IMO. Again, trying to make the CBD into something that it shouldn't be.

We are in a great city...better than most. I certainly don't want to imply that we give up on the core, or CBD, or whatever...and definitely lets not be content. But lets finally say that Downtown Jax has some great things to offer because we think of those surrounding neighborhoods when we talk about downtown. Lets stop fueling the unwarranted negativity.

@geauxtigers i'm flattered by your compliment. You remind me of myself when i returned here . In this thread i want to pass along to you my experience of what you are doing in that i did the same thing when i returned in 2005. The city is, was, NOT the "hootersville" that popular(outside) vision implied. The downtown development is being held up by excessively high real estate prices that prevent small individual residential investers from literally homesteading downtown. And with incredibly affordable prices in Springfield, which was in the last two years (national economic meltdown) followed by the great nieghborhood of riverside, i ,at the time reluctantly, moved to riverside. Each day, i cant believe how fortunate that move was. As i descibed yesterday.
In terms of Downtown, in my experience, you can expect NO help from the city. For a multitude of reasons that we at metrojax have gone through constantly.
We do have a GREAT downtown (in a redefinition) thats has the greatest things to offer. I believe thats why i say to myself, "How did i come up with such a great idea of moving to riverside?".

Quote from: thelakelander on April 09, 2011, 09:17:53 PM
Rainfrog, thanks for posting those maps. They basically show how a starter urban mass transit and bikeway system should be implemented. Basically, Riverside, San Marco, Springfield and Durkeeville (all have pockets of high residential density) should be connected to each other.  All will benefit from such a short system and so will the no man's land (however, it still is the major employment/cultural center for these neighborhoods) in the middle, which is also known as DT.

I totally agree with you Lake.  if some kind of transit routes connect the outer neighborhoods to the CBD, then growth will also come along the transit routes leading to more connectivity.  I feel that the time this is the only way that places like La Villa and Brooklyn/ maybe even Springfield are going to get the growth they deserve.  I also agree with Hilary Supporter that we need to get more affordable housing in the core- more than luxury suites. 

Affordable housing is where areas like LaVilla, Brooklyn and New Springfield become viable market rate infill projects become feasible because of transit connectivity.  With a focus only on the CBD, fulfilling the needs of affordable urban infill housing will be significantly more difficult to meet.

What is the project that looks to be under construction across from St. Joe's Corp?  Is that still happening?

Quote from: futurejax on April 10, 2011, 01:36:23 PM
What is the project that looks to be under construction across from St. Joe's Corp?  Is that still happening?

all that is happening is the pond for now...the rest of the project could not get financing

Thanks, what exactly was the rest of the project? Is it on hold or totally dead?

I would say it is dead until the market gets better and they can obtain financing

Are we talking about the "Brooklyn Park"  project that so many buildings were razed to do ?

Brooklyn Park is dead. All those demos happened for nothing. They are talking about the project next door, 200 Riverside.

you know I hear it both ways when somebody says do you live in downtown I say no Riverside and they say that is down town to them. but im in between houses right now so I can say nowhere now!

200 Riverside has not gotten the required tennant interest to move forward with financing.  It is not dead.  Brooklyn Park(the commercial development) is dead and the bank now owns the land. 

The ampitheatre at the corner of Forrest/Riverside should be complete by the end of the summer.

Quote from: geauxtigers31 on April 08, 2011, 07:23:39 PM
I have been reading these blogs for the three years that I have been living in Jacksonville, and plan to start trying to get more involved in the conversations. But I wanted to sit back and learn for a bit first. Here I go.

A Central Business District??

One thing that I'd like to hear some feedback on, I think that for the most part people have an interesting view of what constitutes “Downtown” Jacksonville. I am from Louisiana, so New Orleans is my big city frame of reference, but I have also visited many other similar sized cities. One thing I think is missing from the conversation in Jacksonville is the idea of a Central Business District (CBD). I've never heard of this part of Jacksonville (where all the tall buildings are) referred to as the CBD, or the 9 to 5 place that people work. People seem to insist that this relatively small area is our “Downtown”

Thriving Adjacent Communities

People in Jacksonville seem like the only way Downtown will succeed is if tons of residential complexes sprout up next to the Modis Building and a movie theatre moves in next to the BOA Building. Or if thousands of people are walking the streets of the very center of Downtown 24/7. But that is not what a CBD is!  I think many Jacksonvillians focus to transform this PART of downtown is wrongheaded and leads to a depressed view of what downtown currently has to offer.
New Orleans is hardly a city known for a weak downtown, but the CBD at night is as dead as “downtown” (really our CBD) Jax. Its where people work, of course it slows down at night! It is the adjacent communities, most notably the French Quarter in New Orleans, that provide the 24/7 activity. Jacksonville is closer to this than we may feel, simply because we have confused our CBD with our Downtown.

A Need for ConnectivityT
The problem with Downtown, as I see it, is one of definition and connectivity.
First, people define downtown as what I would define as the Central Business District. If when we mentioned “Downtown” it included Brooklyn, Five Points, Springfield, San Marco and the areas directly connected to the CBD then our view of Jacksonville’s “downtown” would be different.
Now I understand that the reason we tend to not think this way is because Brooklyn and Five Points are separated from the CBD by an urban forest and grasslands, Springfield is disconnected by a fortress style Community College, and San Marco is on the other side of the River. But that doesn’t mean they cannot be considered part of “Downtown.” We get to choose how we define these regions.

First we need to make Downtown a reference to ALL of downtown (From 5 points to the stadium, from Springfield to San Marco) and start naming what we currently consider to be Downtown the Central Business District. If nothing else this will help us feel psychologically better about “Downtown.”
Then our focus should not be on building up the CBD and hoping it spreads outward, but the focus should be on building the surrounding communities, promoting connectivity, and meeting in the center.

Nice post. Makes sense to me.