A New Parking Lot for Downtown
(http://photos.metrojacksonville.com/photos/667259616_6R466-M.jpg)
Many believed that the new Duval County Courthouse would become the economic anchor that would revitalize a section of downtown decimated by building demolitions. Plans are underway for adjacent development but it's not the office buildings and lofts once expected. After spending $350 million on the new Duval County Courthouse, reality strikes. The first spin-off development appears to be a surface parking lot. Here's a look at what's coming to Adams Street.
Full Article
http://www.metrojacksonville.com/article/2013-jul-a-new-parking-lot-for-downtown
Second!!! (I always wanted to inexplicably say that on a MJ thread). Oh boy, this thread isn't gonna be pretty LOL. For me, it's not so much what was there because that's history, but what they're gonna build. Another parking lot DT? I get that they need more parking there, but they should have went with a parking garage.
I'm excited about the rendering.
Three Palm tress.
Visit Jacksonville!
Park here
Permit only
The property is being improved with private money. This is a good thing.
And believe me, it is a temporary use. The owner has way too much invested in the property for a surface parking lot to be the highest and best use. At the first opportunity, he will build something. But the market isn't there yet.
Quote from: I-10east on July 19, 2013, 03:59:35 AM
Another parking lot DT? I get that they need more parking there, but they should have went with a parking garage.
A parking garage can get pretty expensive. As dougskiles says, this is being considered a temporary use. Perhaps after five or ten years, things will be different.
Of course the city would bow down and do anything for Everbank, AGAIN!
Why have stores and office space and eateries that can generate foot traffic, taxes, revenue way above any surface parking lot when the city can just give way to the likes of Everbank.
Everbank is chompin at the bit waiting for the Greyhound Station to move so they dont have look out their windows and see all the homeless and transients in the current building.
Makes one wonder who actually is running the city
QuoteOf course the city would bow down and do anything for Everbank, AGAIN!
Why have stores and office space and eateries that can generate foot traffic, taxes, revenue way above any surface parking lot when the city can just give way to the likes of Everbank.
I don't see how you can force a landowner to build very expensive commercial buildings on a property they own without the market demand to warrant building somethng like that?
As it stands, the property is a blighted mess. Until which time as a viable alternative is available (read: infill), a private property owner using their own money to improve the lot to make it an actual parking facility instead of a grass field and haphazrd building foundation that cars are presently being parked on (read: eyesore) is not a bad thing.
BTW, this is partially being done now b/c of the Surface Parking Improvement Plan the former JEDC enacted several years ago.
http://www.metrojacksonville.com/article/2010-dec-downtowns-blighted-surface-parking-lots-under-fire (http://www.metrojacksonville.com/article/2010-dec-downtowns-blighted-surface-parking-lots-under-fire)
That same legislation was also partially responsible for another surface lot near the Courthouse resurfacing, tearing down blighted fencing and creating an area for food trucks to park, complete with outdoor seating. Which has created the only real foot traffic in the area.
(http://assets.bizjournals.com/jacksonville/print-edition/FoodTrucks.mc.jpg?v=1)
Are the Water Street, Courthouse and Kings Station parking garages at capacity where it warrants this? And does Everbank own it? Or just someone using Everbank as an example? I agree that an improved lot providing temporary parking is better than what is there right now. Just with all the parking downtown already surprised there is enough need to financially justify a design and plan. ESP when the lot opposite it btw Houston and Forsyth is crammed with cars and not nearly this much improvement.
You may want to click the link I posted above for some background info. It's not so much designed to create more surface parking as much as it is designed to improve existing land (it also strips out parking requirements all together for new construction). The legislation was enacted to improve the aesthetics of empty lots that were being deficiently used as unimproved parking contributing to blight. Two of the lots specifically highlighted in JEDC's presentation are the lot in this article and the lot on Jefferson/Adams that has received a makeover that I posted a picture of above (and a use that contributes to walkability, food trucks with outdoor seating).
(http://photos.metrojacksonville.com/photos/1118413584_wnLig-M.jpg)
(http://photos.metrojacksonville.com/photos/1118413580_gMjep-M.jpg)
(http://photos.metrojacksonville.com/photos/1118413746_wbJ9v-M.jpg)
(http://photos.metrojacksonville.com/photos/1118413984_Qv2Ao-M.jpg)
(http://photos.metrojacksonville.com/photos/1118414068_HUzDm-M.jpg)
Quote from: urbanlibertarian on July 19, 2013, 06:21:31 AM
The property is being improved with private money. This is a good thing.
Now, how about the Waterways? Just got back from the meeting of the Commissioner of FIND in Nassau county and shared with them that after five years and my question to them if (private money) was raised for a pocket pier, floating dock at a waterfront Public Access street end would the commissioners of FIND match the other half of the construction cost? The answer is YES! You need a sponsor a city Councilmember.
Shared with them the Jim Love, Kevin Kuzel, Berkman floating dock compromise misrepresented by OGC during the 2013 FIND grant application process. Why is this important because according to Jack Shad the parking rules have changed in this infill node of a spontaneous incubator where organic BOLD Urban Core activity can spill into a vibrant Bay St.
2013-384 active legislation will an amendment be attached for PARKING and access to Hogans Creek?
I was thinking maybe they could use the Kings Avenue garage then build a giant, adult sized sliding board from the Central Skyway Station...
^I liked the human slingshot plan from Elbonian Transit that Dilbert presented to City Council. Too bad there was no funding. Thx Mayor Brown.
;)
Even for a parking lot that is an odd layout.
Temporary parking lot can be a misleading name. I know a "temporary" five story parking garage that has been here at least 27 years. It will likely stay another ten.
^To be honest, this one will probably be around for a while too. The only other option is to keep the property like it is in its current state. Looking around that area, cars are currently parking on weed filled building foundations from demolitions dating as far back as the 1980s/90s. If anything, this goes to show why we should not continue to randomly demolish the existing building stock that remains.
Quote from: thelakelander on July 19, 2013, 11:32:27 AM
^To be honest, this one will probably be around for a while too. The only option is to keep the property like it is in its current state. Looking around that area, cars are currently parking on weed filled building foundations from demolitions dating as far back as the 1980s/90s. If anything, this goes to show why we should not continue to randomly demolish the existing building stock that remains.
100% agreed.
There are very few buildings remaining around the courthouse where small businesses can move in since everything around it has been demolished. By and large small businesses don't have the capacity to build mid rise buildings on the avaiable properties, and it wouldnt make financial sense to build single tenant buildings with small footprints for the type of money existing landowners are going to expect for those available properties. That's why you see places like Pita Pit and even a law office opening in the ground floor of the Courthouse garage.
The type of investors that will sink money into building 10-15 story mixed use buidlings around the courthouse are wisely investing their money in other markets.
Quote from: thelakelander on July 19, 2013, 07:50:15 AM
A parking garage can get pretty expensive. As dougskiles says, this is being considered a temporary use. Perhaps after five or ten years, things will be different.
My bad, I didn't know that it's gonna be a temporary lot.
Seen parents playing with their kids on a couple of the more grassy lots or getting their tan on. By all means, lets pave over everything in sight. I'm not convinced that a paved parking lot is necessarily of better use for the public. Reminds me of the Philadelphia case where a small business owner cleared an adjacent lot for some greenspace and seating but was instructed by the city to return it to its original trash-strewn condition.
It's a better use for the private property owner, who appears to have inked a deal to lease the spaces to the owner of Everbank Center. Hopefully, we'll focus on making the courthouse green space a more valuable public space.
Oh man...here we go again.
(http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-2wwU9m2KmyE/USgtQmeZp0I/AAAAAAAAIiY/VWc7iSswEN4/s1600/U1_DowntownHouston.jpg)
http://archplanbaltimore.blogspot.com/2013/02/parking-bane-of-cities.html
I do get why we're where we're at...I sympathize with the property owner, surface parking in Jax next to a courthouse is surely a mega lucrative operation relative to one's basis invested...and virtually no risk! In the grand scheme of large city DT property owners, land in Jax is so cheap and property taxes so low as a result of the basis and low millage that it "almost" doesn't warrant temporary surface parking to cover some expenses. There's certainly no market for anything higher and better for the sight, and I'd wager that if I stuck my pointer finger in the air...the wind isn't telling me that the demand is coming any time soon.
However, why the hell can't people walk 2 blocks in this town?!? Employment in DT Jax is not really increasing. Some tenants have played musical chairs, a courthouse moved to the other side of DT leaving one ugly waterfront building empty and consuming multiple city blocks elsewhere in an equally ugly building that has become a national laughing stock of both design/planning and city government abuse and inefficiency. We would never be in this predicament had city leaders not failed their city so badly in the period 1948-present in the first place. However, can we start implementing restrictions and proper land use now?
The last thing we need is people willing to sit on land "waiting for a market" while they operate a surface lot (Jax is cheap enough to make this work - hell I'd do the same thing!...temporary parking can be quite lucrative...165 spaces or so at $30/day and 50% expenses for your 3rd party operator, insurance, R&M, etc is net income before debt service of ~$500K-$600K!...very profitable indeed, you can basically make back your purchase price in a short period of time with surface parking alone). I'd rather see such land condemned and held by the city until it gets its act together to create a market, a city that focuses on what it has (better sidewalks and shade trees can make it convenient and pleasant for people to walk 1-3 blocks instead of building more parking when it's not really needed for the overall area).
Nice shot of 1980s Houston!
My only question is how much money does COJ spend annually propping up parking garages in the city?
I will throw out this little morsel.
I was there when the Great Chicago Flood happened. (a retired coal service tunnel was punctured by a new bridge piling).
This created a unique opportunity for the city. They banned street parking in the Loop. At first it was temporary so emergency generators could get access, after 4 months it became permanent. This did some good things in the core. It reduced auto traffic in the Loop as more people used public transit. It allowed private parking garage owners to raise their prices (no public competition with meters), which in turn made it more financially nonviable to drive to the core.
One side effect was when garage prices went up, there was a temporary bump in new permits for garages because the economics were favorable temporarily. Soon, there was no more land in the core that was economic for garage owners to develop. Private tower developers began to include several layers of parking decks between the street level retail and the upper business/residential floors. It is very economic for them to include several floors for parking due to the ability to sell space to the public, lease parking to business executives or rent spaces to residential tenants.
2 years after the flood, no one missed street parking in the Loop.
This was viable because of two important things:
- Available Public Transit
- Scarcity of available land
So what about Jacksonville?
Just the opposite unfortunately.
- Weak/non-existant Public Transit
- High inventory of available land
The path to reducing the "parking garage" abundance is purely economic in nature, but it does require that COJ take some long term approaches.
- Require new multi-use high rise buildings to incorporate their own parking plans into their layouts.
- Do not allow tear downs in the core unless their is a biz plan for a replacement (stops the land squatting)
- Stop subsidizing garages annually and start using that money to help fund transit improvements
- Begin to sell off the publicly held vacant land in the core in large blocks that are ideal for planned use and development. Reduce the inventory.
By spending all this money on acquiring vacant land and propping up parking garages, they are actually making it harder for the core to redevelop.