Revitalizing Urban Riverfronts: Wilmington, DE
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Historically, Downtown Jacksonville's riverfront shares a lot in common with Wilmington's use of the Christina River. Over the last 15 years, Wilmington has successfully transformed its once decaying riverfront with a variety of mixed uses. Perhaps there's a lesson that may be applicable for downtown Jacksonville's future?
Read More: http://www.metrojacksonville.com/article/2014-dec-revitalizing-urban-riverfronts-wilmington-de
The biggest lesson is to open the River. Not just pick the winners and losers.
We have COJ and the Jags working to develop our shipyards. What can we do inexpensively to better utilize the old courthouse parking lot on the riverfront? I'm thinking maybe outdoor Sunday brunch. Maybe a food truck or food stand area on Friday and Saturday nights.
Wish there were more of those old warehouses left. IMO remove the three big lots (CSX, Landing, Old courthouse), convert them to interconnected urban plazas with limited/organic leased private activity (food trucks, market stalls), put in lots of trees, blow Laura St. through Landing of course, open up view corridors whenever possible. Light shows at night - light art by art students? How about floating & (slowly) moving docks & boardwalks? Wonder if that could work. Just create life!
^Tomorrow's article will be a neighborhood tour of downtown Jax's industrial riverfront, highlighting what's left with a little history mixed in.
^Looking forward to it.
Unfortunately, I'm going to have to push this story back. I just spent three hours finishing it, only to have the computer go into an automatic update as I was moving the mouse to save. >:( >:( >:(
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Lost it all and too upset to attempt to start writing over again. Will save for another day when I have the energy.
Take your time Ennis - darn computers! Look forward to it. Hey, isn't Delaware a big financial center due to big state tax breaks or rule exemptions? That would help them. Lots of companies headquartered there I think. Couldn't agree more about future Shipyard Development - small and organic is beautiful, with a coherent master plan in place.
Quote from: Thad Crowe on December 18, 2014, 10:45:05 AM
Hey, isn't Delaware a big financial center due to big state tax breaks or rule exemptions? That would help them. Lots of companies headquartered there I think.
Yep one of the largest if not the largest, mainly for favorable rules and privacy. Good tie-in to Jacksonville with the Duponts as well.
I have frequented Wilmington several times for work.
Eaten at Harry's Seafood Grill on the riverfront as well. Good food, good service.
3 things I like about what they have done.
- The restoration of the riverfront
- Easy access to the rail stations downtown
- Building the corporate offices right uphill from the train stations
I fly into Philly when going to Wilmington and take SEPTA or a cab if late. It's still a work in progress, like the old GM plant and the DuPont factory, but they are trying to revitalize their urban core.
I drove through while heading to Pennsylvania earlier this year, and I can't say that Wilmington left a great impression on me. I'm not a fan of the state of Delaware in general. The two things that comes to mind is the beginning of toll hell, and the place the has no service signs (to let you know where Exxon, Mc Donalds etc) on the highway.
^Did you get a chance to get off the interstate? Both, the revamped Christina riverfront area and Market Street are pretty nice.
this article makes the case that Wilmington is primarily a pass-through city....sound familiar?
http://nextcity.org/features/view/fortune-500-companies-a-central-location-and-low-taxes-cant-fix-wilmington
Hmm. It is but it could be a lot worse. At 10.9 square miles, the City of Wilmington is essentially an "inner city" or "urban core" area of a much larger community. Sort of like the roles Detroit and Miami play for their core counties.
Within those 10.9 square miles, there are +71k residents living there despite a good chunk of that land area being commercial, industrial and brownfield sites. That's a gain of +1k residents since the 1980 census. I can only imagine how virbant DT Jax would be today if the neighbors surrounding it had gained 1,000 people since 1980 as opposed to disappearing completely over the same time frame. Heck, there would probably still be a department store where city hall is today.
The article states that shell companies have created 51,335 jobs in Wilmington and that city residents (people who live in those 10.9 square miles of land area) hold 7,568 of them. In Jax, our 30 square mile preconsolidated city has lost 50% (a little over 100k residents) since 1950. It's just been masked with explosive suburban growth all over the rest of Duval County. I'd suspect that the majority of those 51k jobs require higher education and these workers probably live in Wilmington's suburbs (in Jax, this would mean Baymeadows, Argyle, Oceanway, Southside, etc.).
Wilmington, like all inner cities has several issues and challenges to overcome but it appears to be stable (or stagnant). There's also an economic situation already in place that the community can at least continue to build around and improve. Of course some additional economic diversity would help. Perhaps, the city should get mroe involved in the East Coast port race, if it isn't already?
Anyway, I'm sure the Toledos, Buffalos, Garys, Macons, etc. of the country would love to have a few cards out of Wilmington's deck, to play with.
Yes, the author is correct that a city with less residents than Palm Coast isn't a DC or Philly....but neither is most of America.
Wilmington has alot of crime. What's currently making waves now is a girl was beaten to death inside a Wilmington high school's girls bathroom by a group of girls. I knew that it is very ratchet when I went through there on my trip to Penn. Newsweek dubbed Wilmington as 'Murdertown USA'. Colin Flaherty is from there, and has documented a slew of constant violence. They have a very incompetent city government also, towing the usual 'blacks are constant victims of police' liberal bullshit of course. Wilmington is basically a small more ghetto version of Philly (which is ghetto itself). Don't let any positives on this thread fool you.
http://www.newsweek.com/2014/12/19/wilmington-delaware-murder-crime-290232.html
http://www.phillyvoice.com/high-school-student-beaten-death-school-dismissed/
LOL, the revitalized riverfront, which was the focus of this article, is pretty safe. Center City Philly is also pretty vibrant. I certainly wouldn't label it "ghetto".
Center City maybe gentrified (or whatever) but there's alot of random violence through there (assaults, vandalizing etc). These hipsters/young professionals etc are often convinced that just because something is gentrified that it's safe, and that's often far from the case.
No doubt Lake that you focused within a specific area of Wilmington, my bad. Still Wilmington is mostly a hellhole.
Delaware native, here. Sure, downtown Wilmington has rough places, just like Jax. Still the downtown park system is pretty amazing. Rockford Park is an Olmsted designed space at the highest point. Wooded slopes go down to the Brandywine River and connect Alapocas Woods and Brandywine Park, creating a Greenway from the city limits all the way down to the core. It's pretty much a 3-4 mile uninterrupted green corridor. Next time you're passing through, exit at Route 52, or route 202, and find your way to these parks for a stretch.
Holy crap, Delaware is real? ;)