(https://photos.smugmug.com/Cities/Jacksonville/Development/Hyatt-Place-Downtown/i-k63xQvR/0/2cbe7fd9/L/Presentation1-3-L.jpg)
QuotePlans for a 9-story Hyatt Place hotel were recently submitted to the Downtown Development Review Board (DDRB). Plans for the 128-room hotel include a first floor restaurant and bar, a second floor pool deck and fitness center, and a rooftop patio and event space. The project would use on-street parking along Hogan Street and spaces in an existing adjacent five-year-old parking garage. However, what should not be lost and forgotten in time is the story of how this site was created to allow for 2018's infill hotel development.
Full article: https://www.thejaxsonmag.com/article/hyatt-place-plans-show-power-of-public-persuasion/
This looks great! I'm so glad the city listened to some informed individuals because it is really paying off down the road. I love the murals on the back.
To add to this- if we didn't work hard and advocate for the preservation of the site plan as it stands today... what we would have wound up with was a parking garage built to the street w/ no retail and instead of a hotel, there would have been a drive-thru chain store on the Sisters City plaza. Before Parador Partners became engulfed in a federal indictment for fraud, which they ultimately pled guilty to, they wanted to construct a drive-thru Dunkin Donuts on this prominent corner. Their original development agreement with the City called for them to erect at least a two-story structure. So, they proposed a two-story tall (but not actually a two story building) modular structure w/ a roughly 3,000 sf footprint that included a drive-thru lane fronting Independent Drive. Their intent was to take $3mm in taxpayer money to subsidize the cost to build a parking garage that would have forever killed any semblance of walkability along Hogan Street and also construct a suburban-style fast food restaurant on site.
Does anyone know if they have broken ground yet, on Hyatt Place?
Quote from: MikeG1479 on March 19, 2019, 04:28:00 PM
Does anyone know if they have broken ground yet, on Hyatt Place?
They have not.
Anyone know why this project will have no on-site parking garage, like 1st two or three floors topped by the rest of the structure? That seems to be the way to go with small compact sites such as this.
There's a parking garage already standing next door. More parking would be a waste.
Quote from: thelakelander on April 28, 2019, 05:55:52 PM
There's a parking garage already standing next door. More parking would be a waste.
what is the construction going on in the garage? The plywood windows look is quite nice.
Quote from: tufsu1 on April 28, 2019, 09:17:32 PM
Quote from: thelakelander on April 28, 2019, 05:55:52 PM
There's a parking garage already standing next door. More parking would be a waste.
what is the construction going on in the garage? The plywood windows look is quite nice.
A portion of the first floor of the garage now has generators to support Vystar operations. That portion of the garage retrofit should be completed in the next few weeks. The first (albeit small) wave of Vystar employees moved into the tower today.
When are they going to start this?
Quote from: edjax on April 29, 2019, 04:39:22 PM
When are they going to start this?
With the Landing being torn down it will be interesting to see if that impacts this project.
Tearing down the Landing looks like a foolish thing to do with a Hotel being built right across the street. The Landing would be ideal venue for visitors, in town for the first time. The new patrons would give instant life to the Landing.
Maybe they can be convinced to build a mile east! ;D
Quote from: howfam on April 29, 2019, 08:47:24 PM
Tearing down the Landing looks like a foolish thing to do with a Hotel being built right across the street. The Landing would be ideal venue for visitors, in town for the first time. The new patrons would give instant life to the Landing.
They'll love the (planned) grass, instead!
Quote from: howfam on April 29, 2019, 08:47:24 PM
Tearing down the Landing looks like a foolish thing to do with a Hotel being built right across the street. The Landing would be ideal venue for visitors, in town for the first time. The new patrons would give instant life to the Landing.
agreed, but I think the City shelving the convention center idea (again) will have a larger impact on whether this gets built.
Quote from: tufsu1 on April 30, 2019, 12:39:21 PM
Quote from: howfam on April 29, 2019, 08:47:24 PM
Tearing down the Landing looks like a foolish thing to do with a Hotel being built right across the street. The Landing would be ideal venue for visitors, in town for the first time. The new patrons would give instant life to the Landing.
agreed, but I think the City shelving the convention center idea (again) will have a larger impact on whether this gets built.
No one thought the City was serious about that. That was just a scheme to make Khan's plan seem financially reasonable.
I can't wait to see Kerry's new spring line of tinfoil hats.
Quote from: Captain Zissou on May 01, 2019, 09:13:52 AM
I can't wait to see Kerry's new spring line of tinfoil hats.
Do you think the City was serious about a new convention center with their RFP?
Quote from: Kerry on May 01, 2019, 12:06:20 PM
Quote from: Captain Zissou on May 01, 2019, 09:13:52 AM
I can't wait to see Kerry's new spring line of tinfoil hats.
Do you think the City was serious about a new convention center with their RFP?
I don't think the city has any idea what they are doing. They put out unrealistic parameters for the RFP, didn't like how much it would cost them, and then pulled the plug. They want to make sure Shad Khan gets a good deal, but they don't know how much money is involved in actually building these civic amenities. Due to decades of fiscal mismanagement and poor development efforts, what the city now needs has snowballed to a point that we can't afford it.
That RFP came out like it was intended to serve as documentation for a predetermined position. It's like the city has no real clue of how to successfully redevelop DT but is too stubborn to admit it or seek the creation of a cohesive master and implementation plan for the CBD.
Alternative, more affordable and logical convention center solutions (ex. adding an exhibition hall to the Hyatt's meeting space) still have not been fully vetted and explored in the public eye. Even today, there's no talk of issuing a RFP that allows for that consideration or even working with Hyatt's ownership to explore potential P3 opportunities.
You guys are over-thinking it. Curry was full steam ahead with the whole "Khan will make everything wonderful and I can run Senate/Governor/whatever in 4 years" plan. The City issued the RFP and was going to use the billion dollar price tag to sell the population on Khan's shipyard plan that would cost taxpayers less. Then the whole Shipyards thing blew up and it became just Lot J which is also in the process of blowing up.
The faster the Jags leave town the sooner Jax can recover.
Is this project dead now?
Lot J is not dead nor dying. Where do you get your information?
There are surveyors on site as we speak.
Quote from: Lostwave on October 21, 2019, 09:15:17 AM
Lot J is not dead nor dying. Where do you get your information?
There are surveyors on site as we speak.
Just guessing, but I think edjax was asking about the nominal subject of this thread - Hyatt Place on Hogan Street.
^It's not currently in the mayor's five-year capital spending plan, but he does insist that the complex and prisoners will be relocated from the riverfront by the time he leaves office.
Either waiting on that JEA money or planning to attempt to privatize the jail....
This Hyatt project; now that the Landing is as good as gone, is it dead? I don't really care about Lot J; I do care about the central business district, central core, urban core, downtown center, whatever you want to call it. I hope it (the Hyatt Place) is not dead. So what's going on with it? I heard someone talk about a 5 year capital spending plan and the "Hyatt Place?" is not in it. Is this where we are with the Hyatt Place?
^Sorry, it was a bad joke about the 5-year capital spending plan. Hyatt Place is a private project, so it wouldn't be included.
All jokes aside, seems premature to label this project dead. Legislation to grant aerial easements for Hyatt Place was passed over the summer, which makes the project more recently active than La Quinta, Courtyard Marriott, Berkman II, Lot J, AC by Marriott, etc.
Wouldn't blame them if they decided to pause due to the retreat on a new Convention Center or Landing situation (I'd be less concerned about the loss of retail and more concerned about fronting a property that looks like it's going to be a vacant lawn/construction zone for years to come), but hotels always have a tendency to take longer than expected to break ground.
Personally don't have a clue as to the status, but feels premature to write it off entirely.
Maybe the Hyatt place is pausing until after the demolition of the Landing, and then they will acquire that property and rebuild something even better. (pipe dreams LOL). You just never know.