DIA considering adding additional funding due to "surprising" demand, even amidst the pandemic.
https://www.jaxdailyrecord.com/article/dia-considers-more-money-for-retail-enhancement-and-street-projects"S
In the last housing market, the funding didn't dry up until after the bubble had well popped. There were flippers right up to that bitter end plunging in head first, convinced they were going to do well.
These food folks may turn out just fine. Downtown may finally shift to adding some residential. And maybe - MAYBE - most of the 70K office workers will return. Maybe they'll be fine.
Then again, if you see a downtown where 1/2 the office workers stop coming into the office on a regular basis..... ya.
BTW - If you really want people downtown-downtown, they gotta figure out something do about all the homeless people wandering around. It breaks my heart to have to say this but it's nasty. People won't express that outloud. They just won't come back with their wallets again. Downtown was never good for this and it's extra bad right now.
[quote author=bl8jaxnative
BTW - If you really want people downtown-downtown, they gotta figure out something do about all the homeless people wandering around. It breaks my heart to have to say this but it's nasty. People won't express that outloud. They just won't come back with their wallets again. Downtown was never good for this and it's extra bad right now.
[/quote]
I've said this for years: it's much, much easier & faster to incentivize homeless services to deconsolidate from Downtown, removing the over saturation & negative impact, vs adding 10-20k+ people to Downtown, adding positive vibrancy and watering down negative impact.
One could take a few years, the other a few decades.