Walkable Commercial Districts: Lake Shore
(http://photos.metrojacksonville.com/photos/1262744659_NrLrXvJ-L.jpg)
While much of the focus in our city is on downtown revitalization, Jacksonville's Urban Core is home to a series of long-overlooked historic, walkable commercial districts. In our effort to promote better use of existing assets in our communities - which will facilitate sustainable growth and subsequently increase the city's tax base - Metro Jacksonville kicks off a new neighborhood photo series, highlighting these urban gems.
Full Article
http://www.metrojacksonville.com/article/2011-may-walkable-commercial-districts-lake-shore
great opportunities especially with commuter rail potentially running down the CSX line at the eastern edge of this district.
My brother and I used to go to a comic book store at the corner of Blanding/San Juan. It was there forever but last time I drove by the storefront was empty.
The comic book store moved. That space is now a temp office for Alvin Brown's campaign. It was a furniture store for many years before that.
Carribean Star(pictured in the article) has great curry goat and Puerto Plata(also pictured) is a real gem in the city.
I used to live off Cardinal Blvd for many years and would always walk to the Winn Dixie(now a discount grocery), Office Depot(now a church), the Merita bread store(now a storage location for Rollin Sound), Skinners Dairy for milk and ice cream, the Italian deli that Carribean Star now occupies-who had GREAT bread, Lakeshore Produce(still there), the laundry mat in front of Paks Karate who used to have a baseball arcade game I poured tons of quarters in and before every baseball game the Wendys(still there) to 'carb up' at the super bar.
I biked up to Lakeshore Schwinn on Saturday and couldn't help to think that my old neighborhood had gone downhill. San Juan and Lakeshore could use a complete-streets-oriented makeover along the commercial corridors
How's the traffic there? I can't say I've experienced it much during rush hour. The times I have been there, I wasn't convinced it needed all 5 lanes (though as I said I don't know how busy it is at rush).
Quote from: PeeJayEss on May 04, 2011, 09:16:12 AM
How's the traffic there? I can't say I've experienced it much during rush hour. The times I have been there, I wasn't convinced it needed all 5 lanes (though as I said I don't know how busy it is at rush).
25,000 AADT on Blanding just north of San Juan which puts it within an acceptable level of service for a 4 lane road. While it is a 5 lane section, the center turn lane doesn't really add much in the way of capacity, but it does allow for left turning vehicles to be out of the flow of traffic (safety).
That being said, as Ennis mentioned in the article you could easily add medians to the roadway with occasional left turn lanes to access businesses creating a much more pedestrian friendly environment. It was also help improve vehicular safety by getting rid of the current center "suicide lane" that exists now.
Quote from: cline on May 04, 2011, 09:34:46 AM
That being said, as Ennis mentioned in the article you could easily add medians turn the roadway with occasional left turn lanes to access businesses creating a much more pedestrian friendly environment. It was also help improve vehicular safety by getting rid of the current center "suicide lane" that exists now.
So we can't do the ever-popular left turn into the turning lane and wait to merge into traffic move? I will miss it :P
Quote from: PeeJayEss on May 04, 2011, 09:39:25 AM
Quote from: cline on May 04, 2011, 09:34:46 AM
That being said, as Ennis mentioned in the article you could easily add medians turn the roadway with occasional left turn lanes to access businesses creating a much more pedestrian friendly environment. It was also help improve vehicular safety by getting rid of the current center "suicide lane" that exists now.
So we can't do the ever-popular left turn into the turning lane and wait to merge into traffic move? I will miss it :P
I think the idea would be that there would only be medians within the retail district or the true town center area. I know the left turn and merge move is popular (I do it also), its not really considered "safe" for either cars or peds. :)
^Yes, the idea is that potential context sensitive improvements would be done only within the true town center area, not the entire Blanding or San Juan corridors.
Quote from: PeeJayEss on May 04, 2011, 09:39:25 AM
Quote from: cline on May 04, 2011, 09:34:46 AM
That being said, as Ennis mentioned in the article you could easily add medians turn the roadway with occasional left turn lanes to access businesses creating a much more pedestrian friendly environment. It was also help improve vehicular safety by getting rid of the current center "suicide lane" that exists now.
So we can't do the ever-popular left turn into the turning lane and wait to merge into traffic move? I will miss it :P
That's my favorite move! I do that every day when I leave my office.
Nice article ..well remember that entire area.... Denny Moran's Restaurant was also in that area.
I've always been amused at the massage school next door to the strip club for some reason (first pic in the San Juan Avenue section of the article and Flash Dancers below it).
When I was a wee Hunter, the comic book store (grey building across form Boost Mobile in one pic) was a Rexall drug store - then it moved to the building now housing the massage school. In fact, the Caribbean Star site was also a drug store. Spent many an hour perusing 10 cent Superman comic books. The Rexall had a soda fountain, too - fountain cherry coke! The Stock Mild to Wild cycle shop used to be the House of Bargains, before they moved farther out on Blanding to become a flea market. Had all kinds of interesting stuff in there!
Fieldafm, you are correct. Puerto Plata is fantastic. Family-owned Dominican restaurant. Gotta have the Cuban style pulled pork sandwich. There are some very cute and affordable bungalows in this area. Great tudor style brick bungalow on Bayview for $99k. There are also some cool old commercial buildings further south on Blanding before the Cedar river that could make for a nice retail area again one day.
Finally, this is the reason I started coming to this site in the first place, the history and how Jacksonville can improve! Has anyone been down San Juan in the past 2 weeks, lately? There are construction cones starting at Vista and going all the way down to the Cedar Creek bridge, and they've started tearing up the roadway there. Also, on the corner of Retaw & San Juan, anyone notice the BBQ trailer? That dude's been there for almost a year now it seems, he must do pretty good business. They even put in wooden barriers around the property, which used to house excessive traffic from the Foot Doctor.
I drive through this area almost everyday. Good article, but could have mentioned a bit more. Like the fact that it ties into the Herschel district (then Avondale) & Ortega with such fluidity.
And also, if you look close, a lot of the homes on a stretch of San Juan (around Cassat) have businesses inside of them:
(http://i.imgur.com/DXyLa.jpg)
hey i lived there for two years it was a nice place to live
Quote from: letters and numbers on May 08, 2011, 09:46:11 AM
hey i lived there for two years it was a nice place to live
Same here. I enjoyed my time in Lake Shore, on Fremont Street. It was convenient to Riverside/Avondale and not quite as pricey.
I like Lakeshore, nice 'hood...
LOVE the suggested improvements!
preaching to the proverbial choir.
please do not tease.
Glad to see these highly traveled corridors recieve the recognition as urban versus rural/county outpost.
As a longtime resident of the westside and Riverside, the rampant speeding, loss of control, crash data, diminished setbacks, number of cross streets between such busy thoroughfares as Cassat SR111, U.S. 17, Blanding SR21, Herschel Street SR211, San Juan Avenue SR128, LakeShore Blvd east of Blanding, Park Street, Wilson Boulevard, Birkenhead Road to Wabash Avenue coupled with the proximity to our other nearby historic areas
Hamilton to Murray Hill, LakeShore Bv to Herschel St., SanJuan to Ortega, St.Johns Ave through Fairfax and Avondale, Park Street to Riverside and downtown...
... Yes it is true the current condition of SanJuan and Blanding does in fact divide the neighborhood.
Also true that not all is permanently lost.
Since the roadwidth almost fully paved from curb to curb, with sidewalk transitions mostly in place, bulb-outs/curb extensions creating pedestrian refuge with partial restoration of lost parking, street trees and high visibility cross-walks in key areas will work wonders to bring the adjustments needed in order to finally bring a level of safety sorely lacking.
The blight and commercial vacancies delivered decades ago by the decimation of this old district due to such extreme previous widening to accomodate the passing automobile without regard for parking and pedestrians will be a great element to see reversed.
As usual, metjax - Thanks for the post!
Saturday, June 4, 2011 @ 8am
Lake Shore Boulevard @ Hamilton St.
across from Lamb's Yacht Center.
A large scale beautification project NEEDS volunteers.
THis is a result of a coordinated effort with Greenscapes of Jax, JEA Forestry, LakeShoremiddle school, JSO school resource officer, parks and recreation and LAPS initiative (www.lapsjax.org / www.lapsjax.blogspot.com) which is phase 1 of a recently launched long term reforestation of the ballpark in the Marina Mile district.
Please consider coming out to lend a hand!
LakeShore Bv east of Blanding, Bayview elementary.
Thanks in advance!
Very good ideas here. I hadn't thought of this area as being a commercial district before.
Thanks for the helping hands!
Anyone know if the project limits of the restripe will cover SanJuan from Hyde Park Rd, east to Railroad?
on Blanding, could the project limits range from Wilson to SaintJohnsAve?
Lake Shore and San Jose were the first 'bus suburbs' in Jacksonville. In both cases the developers worked with the city to establish a bus line directly into the neighborhood. The Lake Shore Bus was fairly average and the San Jose bordered on what we call BRT today.
OCKLAWAHA
Which section of LakeShore?
1,2,3,4,or5?
When? Before Cassat was so named? When it was Fuller St.?
:o
When speaking of the area south of what was the old Richardson estate ( west of what is now St.Matthews ) and south of Shirley Ave at Blanding,
north and east of the cedar "river"
Original plats and current public records and deeds use the name Lakeside Park and Lakeside Park II.
The original streetcar line from Riverside to Ortega had a two block extension from Herschel Street south of SanJuan Ave
( then named Gulf St. ) to Appleton Ave where the arches were built, as 1907-9 maps show.
Indeed Blanding north of the Cedar Creek was still SAINT JOHNS AVENUE on 1918 maps.
That fact is not debatable as it predates the existence "dot name creation" of state road 211.
See the similarity - Blanding is state road 21.
ONCE upon a time, Cassat/SR 111/ Edgewood Ave. was the loop around town from North Shore to Lake Shore.
Hyde park to Panama park.
This is far before the blanding park street fly over at u s 17 existed.
So to call Lakeshore a bus suburb just because big business tore out our streetcar lines throughout the nation, does not negate the current lay of the land.
To help the entire southwest side of the river in Duval, Seems to make so much more sense to tie- in Cedar Hills and other high density Inner ring neighborhoods and areas like Hyde Park by properly utilizing what structures and tangible resources we have and improving infrastructure along the way.
As I also agree with not paralleling other modes of transit, If commuter rail may oneday exist along u s 17, Tell me why we could not use the existing fly over from f s c j kent campus to carry a streetcar line out from downtown to blanding at wilson?
Plenty of parking exists, plenty of space for a garage to be built exists, police substation is located there, clearly I could go on and on and on.
I don't see a problem with a speedy streetcar using the b r t lanes on blanding to whiz right on out orange park mall , make a left on kingsley and come right back towards town
I'm prepared to argue that in fact LakeShore section number 5 was planned with the density for streetcar.