I've long thought we could most easily convert The Shipyards into a Maritime Walk Aboard Museum that would draw people downtown year round. Place a few vintage ships in two of the slots and rotate the third space for a seasonal or special demonstration ship (anything from a tall masted sailing ship to a modern hovercraft). Then I read that the USS John F Kennedy is available from the Navy for donation to an organization to be used as a Museum. WHAT ARE WE WAITING FOR!!!!!!!!!!!?????????????????
If we could move it into position parallel to the shore over at The Shipyards you would have the beginnings of something important: a catalyst for that area that would draw people from all over the country. We would have something special that The House of Mouse could never have, and foks would actualy have a reason to visit downtown independant of football or the occaisional festival.... I think it would be a perfect stop for some family traveling south on I 95 to spend an afternoon in Jax before continuing southbound.
Is it possible to move that monster that far up the river??
Didn't someone do a rendering of what that would look like? Anyway, the folks trying to bring the USS Charles Adams - a destroyer much smaller than the JFK, and thus less costly to maintain - are (as I understand it) having trouble raising the funds to establish their floating museum on the Southbank Riverwalk (it should be at the Shipyards site).
A comparison in sizes:
Length - Adams 437' JFK 1,050'
Beam (width) - Adams 47' JFK 128'
Draft - Adams 15' JFK 36'
The online sources I checked did not give height above the water line, but I think it is safe to say the JFK is much taller.
Uncle Ockie will tell you the biggest issue of all is the maximum distance between the bottom of the Dames Point Bridge and the conning tower of JFK. This idea has been approached and discussed before somewhere in this website.
Basically, if you really want to cut the conning tower off, good luck trying to bring the whole deck under the Dames Points Bridge. Even at the lowest tides of the day.
-Josh
Even more than the DP are the Mathews and Hart bridges - they are about 20 feet shorter than DP, and the channel is shallower there, too.
and then there's the length issue...if I understand MusicMan correctly, the idea is to use the piers for the ships...at 1000' in length, the Kennedy would stick out into the middle of the river!
Something like the Uss Yorktown at Patriots Point in Charleston?
How wide is the river at the Shipyards? How far is it to the marked river channel - either pulling all the way into the piers, or parallel to the shoreline?
Yes, like the Yorktown in Charelston. Less than 2 miles off I-95, you could seriously pitch that to every person
or family driving north or south on the Interstate.
Two words come to mind, 'Super Sara'. We've been down this ugly bumpy road before. They scuffed at the USS Saratoga before. I, personally, would be all for the USS Kennedy. However, I'll believe it when I see it go under the Matthews Bridge.
Quote from: Charles Hunter on June 19, 2011, 08:06:48 PM
How wide is the river at the Shipyards? How far is it to the marked river channel - either pulling all the way into the piers, or parallel to the shoreline?
At its widest point near the shipyards, the river is a tad more than 2000' wide (and that includes the length of the piers).
Won't work even if we had unlimited funding...
JFK - 192' waterline to mast, HEIGHT
Dames Point Bridge - 175'
Matthews Bridge - 149'
Hart Bridge - 141'
Sorry bout that but JTA/FDOT took care of that long ago.
OCKLAWAHA
Why not put it in mayport (in addition to a cruise terminal ;) ) and smaller ship in downtown
Unlimited......
Just build a few of these badboys at 4x scale.
(http://a2.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc6/184117_112858735456388_100001967861837_99026_6775219_n.jpg)
How about we remove the top 50-60 feet and bring that in on a barge, re-fitted on site?
Honestly, would this be the single best thing we could do to immediately jumpstart a downtown renaissance.
Or maybe a WW II era battleship , destroyer or other large ship of that era. It would look awesome and probably be visible from the Acosta and other downtown bridges.
Quote from: MusicMan on June 20, 2011, 02:01:51 PM
How about we remove the top 50-60 feet and bring that in on a barge, re-fitted on site?
Honestly, would this be the single best thing we could do to immediately jumpstart a downtown renaissance.
Or maybe a WW II era battleship , destroyer or other large ship of that era. It would look awesome and probably be visible from the Acosta and other downtown bridges.
Big John is still structurally intact and may need to be called again in the time of war (I hope we don't go there). I don't think the Navy would allow you to slice the actual hull or the main integrity of the entire hull. The deck can be stripped, the conning tower removed, or else, but not the main hull.
Need to look at Navy's requirements in order to acquire the donation of the Big John.
-Josh
Quote from: MusicMan on June 20, 2011, 02:01:51 PM
Honestly, would this be the single best thing we could do to immediately jumpstart a downtown renaissance.
Not even close, after the 'NEW' wore off it would settle into a 1,000 to 2,000 person a day museum and the sale of a tee shirt, or post card will not a downtown make.
Likewise a heritage streetcar can't do the job either, it will take a whole streetcar line and the typical TOD that follows it around the country. That TOD, banking, retail, restaurants, residences, offices etc... THAT will make a new downtown. This stuff follows streetcars everywhere, but it doesn't touch museums.
OCKLAWAHA
Quote from: Ocklawaha on June 20, 2011, 02:55:36 PM
Quote from: MusicMan on June 20, 2011, 02:01:51 PM
Honestly, would this be the single best thing we could do to immediately jumpstart a downtown renaissance.
Not even close, after the 'NEW' wore off it would settle into a 1,000 to 2,000 person a day museum and the sale of a tee shirt, or post card will not a downtown make.
Likewise a heritage streetcar can't do the job either, it will take a whole streetcar line and the typical TOD that follows it around the country. That TOD, banking, retail, restaurants, residences, offices etc... THAT will make a new downtown. This stuff follows streetcars everywhere, but it doesn't touch museums.
OCKLAWAHA
Well yes. However - that 1K to 2K per day potential visitor count is 1K to 2K more than is going downtown now...
Quote from: Ocklawaha on June 20, 2011, 02:55:36 PM
Quote from: MusicMan on June 20, 2011, 02:01:51 PM
Honestly, would this be the single best thing we could do to immediately jumpstart a downtown renaissance.
Not even close, after the 'NEW' wore off it would settle into a 1,000 to 2,000 person a day museum and the sale of a tee shirt, or post card will not a downtown make.
Likewise a heritage streetcar can't do the job either, it will take a whole streetcar line and the typical TOD that follows it around the country. That TOD, banking, retail, restaurants, residences, offices etc... THAT will make a new downtown. This stuff follows streetcars everywhere, but it doesn't touch museums.
OCKLAWAHA
A great example of actual 500 to 1.5K person per day aircraft carrier museum is the legendary Blue Ghost, the USS Lexington CV-16.
http://www.usslexington.com/ (http://www.usslexington.com/)
-Josh
............... times 365 days equals 300,000 to 400,000 more people downtown.
I'll take that as a catalyst to even bigger and better things....
Like an IMAX Theater............................... (Another 200,000 people)
And a Maxwell House Tour and Cafe ................ (Another 100,000 )
Next thing you know a big hotelier buys the structure next too The Berkman and you have
Wyndam at The Shipyards .................................
Just dawned on me. Art walk is like an extra 2000 people downtown and that is one of the few times downtown Jax seems like a cool, thriving area.
Just plyaing devil's adovocate here. Which would have the greater economic impact? Placing a floating ship museum that would take up nearly all of the shipyard's waterfront, reopening a full blown shipyard or mixing the uses for the wharves as well as the land?
(http://static.travelmuse.com/docs/artwork/charleston/charleston-attractions-patriots-point-full.jpg)
Patriot's Point - Charleston
(http://www.metrojacksonville.com/photos/thumbs/lrg-1526-p1020396.JPG)
Metro Machine Corp's shipyard in downtown Norfolk
(http://photos.metrojacksonville.com/Learning-From/San-Francisco-Aug-2009/DSC0155/625050840_yZXUs-L-1.jpg)
Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco
Here's an interesting comparison:
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=philadelphia,+pa&hl=en&ll=39.888715,-75.182147&spn=0.011723,0.027831&sll=30.334954,-81.655884&sspn=1.687785,3.562317&t=h&z=16
The carrier is the USS JFK, in the basin across the yard there are 3 "skinny" boats, one of those is the USS Charles Adams. Notice the slight size difference.
I don't know why there is even consideration of bringing a supercarrier to downtown. It's either going to stick literally halfway across the river, or take up a quarter mile of waterfront. It just doesn't make sense.
Well it does not have to be a SuperCarrier, but some ship or set of ships that would draw locals (meaning every person who lives within 125 miles) and those traveling through (North or South bound) to come downtown to spend the day (4-6 hours). THAT'S WHATS MISSING DOWNTOWN. SOMETHING TO DRAW PEOPLE THERE 365 DAYS A YEAR. Once you have a steady flow of "tourists" coming downtown all the other things will follow.
if you build it they will come.
There is enough room at The Shipyards for a 3 ship floating museum, a Maxwell House Cafe and Tour, an IMAX Theater, plus a St Johns River Aquarium. The combination of these items would provide enough activity that a typical family of 4 could spend an entire weekend downtown, stay busy, and have a great time. Combine that with the concerts and special events, Jags football, the Suns...... We would have arguably the best downtown in Florida,
all in a 2 mile stretch from the Times Union PAC to Everbank Stadium.
Quote from: MusicMan on June 22, 2011, 03:21:31 PM
There is enough room at The Shipyards for a 3 ship floating museum, a Maxwell House Cafe and Tour, an IMAX Theater, plus a St Johns River Aquarium. The combination of these items would provide enough activity that a typical family of 4 could spend an entire weekend downtown, stay busy, and have a great time. Combine that with the concerts and special events, Jags football, the Suns...... We would have arguably the best downtown in Florida,
all in a 2 mile stretch from the Times Union PAC to Everbank Stadium.
Why don't you suggest that to TransformJax?
-Josh
A supercarrier museum would be a worse idea than a publicly subsidized amusement park at the Shipyards site. BTW, we barked up that tree before with the Saratoga.
It's going to cost the group trying to bring the Adams downtown around $50million, and they just hope and pray they can make enough to keep up with operating and maintenance costs.
I can tell you, the Kennedy would cost more than the Adams.
The Kennedy would also stick out so far you could almost jump on to it from the Bishop Kenny football field.... which would effectively cut off the channel that currently brings small cruise ships downtown.
That's a WHOLE lotta imaginary money for the city to be coughing up at a time when libraries are looking to be shut down to close gaps in the city budget.
Let's be a little realistic here.
QuoteHonestly, would this be the single best thing we could do to immediately jumpstart a downtown renaissance.
The single best thing we can do immediately is to allow small business to open and operate downtown without having to deal with the crippling bureacracy, assinine anit-pedestrian policies and predatory parking monopolies... all while programming more events. All of which cost very little.
An aquarium would cost even more. Atlanta's cost $290 million.
QuoteIn November 2001, Bernard Marcus announced his idea to construct an aquarium as a present to Atlanta, Georgia, that would encourage both education and economic growth. Marcus and his wife Billi visited 56 aquariums in 13 countries to research and design a structure, and finally donated $250 million toward Georgia Aquarium’s construction.[5] Major corporations including the Coca-Cola Company, Turner Broadcasting, Home Depot, UPS, AirTran Airways, AT&T, Georgia-Pacific, Time Warner, SunTrust and Southern Company contributed an additional $40 million.[5] The corporate donations allowed the aquarium to open debt free.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_Aquarium
It's amazing how, in spite of the books being in the red and so many in our governmental structure crying the sky is falling, there always appears to be money flowing for just about anything you can imagine. It's a few thousand here and there, a medium bite for the artificial soccer grass, a bite last year for improvements to another ball field (that got a lot of press here on MJ) and a doubling of costs for a courthouse not even named a Taj Mahal as was the one in Tallahassee, which cost quite a bit less than ours.
We gave away about 4 million to the Jaguars (our share of the naming rights for the stadium). We are willing to give another 2.5 million to Everbank to move their operation downtown and maybe land another 200 jobs. Do they give the money back if projections are not met within a year or some other time frame.
We are willing to give JTA a chunk of land for a bus station which will be a distance from the proposed hub. Look at the map. JTA and FDOT already owns more property around and closer to the Terminal that should be used first and with a better construction plan and then the city will have the adjacent land which will be worth much more for commercial development in proximity to the transportation hub.
The shipyards needs to be a mixed use development like was planned all along. Putting some gimmicky attraction (*cough* landing *cough*) there is not going to solve downtown's problems. We need to put people there. There should be 100ft yachts in that marina not a supercarrier or some 3 other ships. Get real here.
I tend to agree with the school of thought that the area needs to first serve the population that lives here (or would live here if they had XYZ). Florida as a whole, let alone Jacksonville, needs to be about more than just tourism.