Hey all,
I am new to Jax and Happy as heck to be here. Moved here from the Northeast (NJ) this past April and loving it ....
This past weekend I went to Pittsburgh to visit with relatives. We stayed downtown at a nice hotel and went to a stadium concert at Heinz Field and got to see some of the Three Rivers Regatta (an annual three day event).
Articles in the Pittsburgh newspapers reported that between the concert (Kenny Chesney) and the Regatta, there were over 100,000 people in the downtown area for these special events....
I started to wonder could Jacksonville pull something like this off. You need a a stadium complex that could accommodate the craziness of the concert ( think GA-FL game) CHECK and an awesome river CHECK.
Granted I am new to the area but my impressions that there is a reluctance to leverage the St Johns River. Why?
(See threeriversregatta.net for details on the Pittsburgh event.)
Welcome HappyGilmore. Did you catch the Jazz Festival in downtown Jacksonville? It DOES embrace the waterfront and in fact started as 'Mayport and all that Jazz.' Mayport turned out to be a disaster when the predicted 10,000 fans and the few shuttle buses turned out to be well over 100,000 with a need for BRT on 2 minute headways. The whole show was moved to Metropolitan Park but it lost it's eclectic feel and became very controlled, no camera's, no this, no that... Finally some bright star moved it into the streets of downtown and I'd take an oath that something like 100,000 fans were back!
OCKLAWAHA
Quote from: HappyGilmore on July 04, 2011, 01:50:40 PM
Hey all,
I am new to Jax and Happy as heck to be here. Moved here from the Northeast (NJ) this past April and loving it ....
This past weekend I went to Pittsburgh to visit with relatives. We stayed downtown at a nice hotel and went to a stadium concert at Heinz Field and got to see some of the Three Rivers Regatta (an annual three day event).
Articles in the Pittsburgh newspapers reported that between the concert (Kenny Chesney) and the Regatta, there were over 100,000 people in the downtown area for these special events....
I started to wonder could Jacksonville pull something like this off. You need a a stadium complex that could accommodate the craziness of the concert ( think GA-FL game) CHECK and an awesome river CHECK.
Granted I am new to the area but my impressions that there is a reluctance to leverage the St Johns River. Why?
(See threeriversregatta.net for details on the Pittsburgh event.)
Welcome! As QCK stated, the Jazz Festival was great. There is still an recent article on the site about it that includes pictures. We are looking to have more events of this nature.
HappyG I just came here from Pittsburgh, so I know what you are saying. There has been a lot more successful events since I have been here such as Artwalk and the Jazz Festival. These are big hits so we know we can do it, but we need to keep the momentum going. MJ is the stop to talk about these issues. Things are on their way up here it seems.
Or... Perhaps it tis as a hippie friend once stated, "We're so far down that it looks like up..."
OCKLAWAHA
yeah almost a clean slate -not that that is a good thing
So what kind of boating event could we have that wouldn't harm manatees?
Crew. Sailboats of every kind.
Welcome aboard HappyG!
Jacksonville's boating community is far flung,blessed with many destinations and boating areas to chose from,which tends to shift the focus specifically from Downtown.
Downtown waters are subject to strong tides and fickle winds,which precludes much under sail activity.
Perhaps Downtown waters will shine best offering spontaneous,readily accesssable Hogans Creek 'hand launch' facilities for affordable small craft/kayak.
The past Jazz Festival was awesome.Looking forward to future Downtown goings on with confidence and anticipation.
I will be thinking of other water and boating related ideas.
The three rivers regatta power boat races were tried here back in around 1986. It was narrow and the high current gave them plenty of problems. The guy that got killed right in front of the Landing construction site capped off the troubles they were having and the power boat association sponsoring the race decided not to have any more power boat class racing in downtown Jax.
Too narrow and swift current for sailboat racing. See the yacht clubs in the 3 mile wide portions of the river.
THey do have the poker run boats running from the Landing up river. I'm not sure how they handle the speed restrictions. I know from observation they pretty much ignore the 25mph channel restriction between Main Street and Hart bridges.