Quote(https://photos.moderncities.com/photos/i-XSpmfds/0/L/i-XSpmfds-L.jpg)
A sneak visual preview of Downtown Jacksonville's latest rooftop dining and entertainment venue: Estrella Cocina
Read More: https://www.thejaxsonmag.com/article/estrella-cocina-downtowns-latest-rooftop-attraction/
It truly is amazing what something as simple as a roof top bar can do to generate buzz around the city/downtown.
The interest on social media about this place is crazy. Just hammers home the fact that we don't need all these multi-billion dollar projects to really turn things around.
^If I'm the DIA, I'm looking at how to cluster complementary development on the surrounding blocks, including working with the owners of the Class A office towers to better maximize and increase the access and visibility of their ground floor retail spaces. Downtown may be sleepy as a whole but that doesn't mean you can't quickly create a lively compact zone in the center of it.
FYI that Estrella Cocina is now open for lunch.
Had the fish tacos a few weeks back. Very good!
It's got a pretty bad rating on Google and I've heard some spotty reviews.
What was your personal experience?
Quote from: MusicMan on April 10, 2022, 09:49:22 AM
What was your personal experience?
The first time I went (a few weeks
after it opened), everything was great - food, atmosphere, service, views - each time afterwards, the food and service got progressively worse. It's a shame, the space is awesome! Great views of the city, etc... Not sure what has caused food and service to become lackluster.
Pretty much had the opposite experience. It seems to be staying busy however. I did not particularly enjoy "the wait," being held downstairs in the lobby while waiting for a table to clear. We did call ahead and were told to come right away. I'm trying to recall but it was 10-15 minutes. Not bad, it's just the lobby of that building is cramped....
I haven't see it reported yet, but I have heard from the owners that Estrella has closed. Apparently customer volume wasn't enough to sustain the business. I have yet to see a social media post or anything online acknowledging that they closed, other than Google having it marked as such.
Quote from: Downtown Osprey on April 26, 2021, 12:19:29 PM
It truly is amazing what something as simple as a roof top bar can do to generate buzz around the city/downtown.
The interest on social media about this place is crazy. Just hammers home the fact that we don't need all these multi-billion dollar projects to really turn things around.
The cycle continues. Jax downtown restaurants seem to have a short half life. " Not enough customer volume " Never heard that term used to describe downtown Jax.... Seen this story told wayyyyy too many times.
Quote from: bg904 on March 25, 2025, 03:37:02 PM
I haven't see it reported yet, but I have heard from the owners that Estrella has closed. Apparently customer volume wasn't enough to sustain the business. I have yet to see a social media post or anything online acknowledging that they closed, other than Google having it marked as such.
Or it could be an issue with ownership.
Weren't these the same operators as Bread and Board?
Yes, the same operators. I'm surprised they stayed open this long after Bread and Board closed.
One problem with only a roof top is people at street level can forget you are there. Especially if the food and atmosphere don't create a unique buzz to promote the place via word-of-mouth/social media.
At River and Post and Cowford, the rooftop benefits from having the main attraction below that can send patrons upward. Unless you are the River Club (not a rooftop but above all other roofs ;D ) atop a building with a one-of-a-kind view and a 1,000 or so workers in the floors below you (at least before COVID), being on top of a mostly office-only building seems difficult to overcome.
I was there once right after they opened as an invitee of others but forgot about them being there after that.
Quote from: thelakelander on March 25, 2025, 09:35:13 PM
Yes, the same operators. I'm surprised they stayed open this long after Bread and Board closed.
Exactly. I also didnt know anyone that went to Estrella that was especially impressed.
Quote from: acme54321 on March 26, 2025, 06:28:24 AM
Exactly. I also didnt know anyone that went to Estrella that was especially impressed.
I had multiple experiences where I was meeting up with a group, but the hostess required that she walk me out to the table and she couldn't remember the group I was describing. Both times I had to call someone from the group to come up to the door to escort me back. Other than those times, I went once because I was tired of going to bellwether for happy hour, but that's it. I'm not overly enthusiastic about a place that doesn't trust me to walk and find my friends at a table.
There is too much imbalance on emphasizing residential over office. There should be a heavy emphasis on BOTH.
There were historically 50-60,000 daytime workers downtown in its 1990s prime. The bigger buildings can each hold 5,000+ workers if employers had all of their employees come in and vacancy was lower than it is.
Office workers would do A LOT more to support these restaurants, bars etc than 300-500 new residents per year spread across 4 square miles.
But the city never talks about increasing office use downtown, whether by retaining existing employers or even trying to get new employers into downtown. It's a shame because the cycle will just continue. I never see any marketing/PR to work downtown, but there sure is a lot to live downtown.
After Citizens look for possibly one of the major law firms to leave their downtown digs. While Citizens was reportedly due to employee housing locations (70% on the southside) from a source I know within the company who happens to live on the westside, this law firm relocating (if it does) would be due to "issues" with homeless and safety/security for employees downtown. Apparently a big time partner coming in from a different office in the midwest had his rental car keyed up in the building's adjoining garage and saw some stuff in the elevator of that garage that validated countless previous employee noted and recorded concerns.
The city allowing a greater ratio of "crazy"/homeless/dealer-looking-people to "normal" office worker/visitor along Laura St and into Hemming Plaza really stands out as a deterrent to downtown's success.
The parks under construction cannot get open soon enough because they will become some sort of draw and I would hope would become an attractive amenity for office users.
Quote from: simms3 on March 28, 2025, 01:38:26 PM
There is too much imbalance on emphasizing residential over office. There should be a heavy emphasis on BOTH.
There were historically 50-60,000 daytime workers downtown in its 1990s prime. The bigger buildings can each hold 5,000+ workers if employers had all of their employees come in and vacancy was lower than it is.
Office workers would do A LOT more to support these restaurants, bars etc than 300-500 new residents per year spread across 4 square miles.
But the city never talks about increasing office use downtown, whether by retaining existing employers or even trying to get new employers into downtown. It's a shame because the cycle will just continue. I never see any marketing/PR to work downtown, but there sure is a lot to live downtown.
After Citizens look for possibly one of the major law firms to leave their downtown digs. While Citizens was reportedly due to employee housing locations (70% on the southside) from a source I know within the company who happens to live on the westside, this law firm relocating (if it does) would be due to "issues" with homeless and safety/security for employees downtown. Apparently a big time partner coming in from a different office in the midwest had his rental car keyed up in the building's adjoining garage and saw some stuff in the elevator of that garage that validated countless previous employee noted and recorded concerns.
The city allowing a greater ratio of "crazy"/homeless/dealer-looking-people to "normal" office worker/visitor along Laura St and into Hemming Plaza really stands out as a deterrent to downtown's success.
The parks under construction cannot get open soon enough because they will become some sort of draw and I would hope would become an attractive amenity for office users.
I was also told that Citizen's move had more to do with proximity to senior leadership housing, more so than vagrant activity.
Regarding office space - Downtown Vision's annual report has office space at roughly 30% vacant. But that doesn't include owner occupied buildings (ie, CSX, etc) because they're unavailable to lease. If you include those, the percentage goes down substantially, I believe.
QuoteI was also told that Citizen's move had more to do with proximity to senior leadership housing, more so than vagrant activity.
I remember a study done many years ago that indicated the greatest determinant to where a company located it's HQ was proximity to the CEO's primary golf course.
Quote from: fsu813 on March 28, 2025, 03:15:40 PM
Quote from: simms3 on March 28, 2025, 01:38:26 PM
There is too much imbalance on emphasizing residential over office. There should be a heavy emphasis on BOTH.
There were historically 50-60,000 daytime workers downtown in its 1990s prime. The bigger buildings can each hold 5,000+ workers if employers had all of their employees come in and vacancy was lower than it is.
Office workers would do A LOT more to support these restaurants, bars etc than 300-500 new residents per year spread across 4 square miles.
But the city never talks about increasing office use downtown, whether by retaining existing employers or even trying to get new employers into downtown. It's a shame because the cycle will just continue. I never see any marketing/PR to work downtown, but there sure is a lot to live downtown.
After Citizens look for possibly one of the major law firms to leave their downtown digs. While Citizens was reportedly due to employee housing locations (70% on the southside) from a source I know within the company who happens to live on the westside, this law firm relocating (if it does) would be due to "issues" with homeless and safety/security for employees downtown. Apparently a big time partner coming in from a different office in the midwest had his rental car keyed up in the building's adjoining garage and saw some stuff in the elevator of that garage that validated countless previous employee noted and recorded concerns.
The city allowing a greater ratio of "crazy"/homeless/dealer-looking-people to "normal" office worker/visitor along Laura St and into Hemming Plaza really stands out as a deterrent to downtown's success.
The parks under construction cannot get open soon enough because they will become some sort of draw and I would hope would become an attractive amenity for office users.
I was also told that Citizen's move had more to do with proximity to senior leadership housing, more so than vagrant activity.
Regarding office space - Downtown Vision's annual report has office space at roughly 30% vacant. But that doesn't include owner occupied buildings (ie, CSX, etc) because they're unavailable to lease. If you include those, the percentage goes down substantially, I believe.
The Downtown Vision report misrepresents CBRE numbers and has a lot of holes in many of its facts and figures. I am a fan of the report overall and everything Downtown Vision does, but truth is the truth.
The fact is that DT Jax is one of the worst DT office markets in the country, easily in the bottom 3 of top 50 markets or so. It's got one of the highest vacancies, one of the lowest RTOs, and just about the lowest rental rates in the US of all major and mid-size markets to validate just how bad it is. I work in one of the tallest of the towers and most of the time I am in the elevator by myself.
The top floors of the two tallest towers are barely commanding above $25 gross when they come available (definitely not even keeping up with inflation). No new marketed office towers have been built in literally decades, and the one that is under construction is only 5 floors of office with a little over 100K rentable SF. It's a dire situation on the office side to say the least.
Just taking downtown Tampa as a comparison - its sidewalks feel like NYC compared to DT Jax's and it's not a large downtown relatively speaking. Its buildings are full and there is more of a downtown energy there. My company's equivalent office building there has a real hustle and bustle vibe going on. DT Jax has a really sleepy office environment with a lunch time hour that is more of a whisper than a rush.
If we had all of our buildings full and people having returned to the office, our situation down on the streets and fueling downtown businesses would be considerably different.
Instead of working to promote that situation, it seems the city's energy is entirely spent on increasing residents (over 4 square miles) and on promoting programmatic activities. All of the above is necessary - but I wish the office part was not neglected. It would certainly help all of these businesses! I wish the city would do something big to lure another Fidelity to our downtown area. Dun & Bradstreet should have been a downtown deal with the incentives. Paysafe. ICE. The list goes on... We need to do more to bring employers to downtown; we cannot just rely on the trickle of new residential activity spread across a large area.
And to do something to attract DT employers, we need to do more to clean up the streets and we probably need to consider tying incentives to downtown choices. There's nothing we can do about executives wanting to live at the beach.
This is a little off topic of Estrella Cocina (which honestly I never found it or Bread and Board appealing), but I do wonder about the office market.
Clearly we need to figure out why it's so unappealing. The vagrants don't help, but other cities have them. The traffic is bad (especially leaving downtown at 5pm), but other cities have that. So what is it-why doesn't it work well here?
I think it could be the case where the market has just fallen so much that with the lack of critical mass, and the things above, it's just not appealing. While I'm frustrated about Citizens, some of their reasons are undeniable.
That's the challenge that needs to be fixed, and I do think baby steps are needed. Some small office projects might be what jumpstarts things as the rents would be cheaper than some of the marquee towers.
Not knowing this-what industries are primarily in downtown Tampa..... I have to assume financial and legal-accurate?
In short, this is something worth studying.
And...what industries, etc., are also in Miami, Orlando, Atlanta, Houston, Austin, Charlotte, St. Petersburg, Nashville...that fuels their downtowns and make the mix work for them? Smaller, much smaller cities have "hustle/bustle" downtowns like Sarasota, Tallahassee, Gainesville, etc.; However, in the case of Sarasota, tourism and not industry is the successful "niche" that works.
I see this as chicken and egg. As someone noted, maybe Citizens moved to the suburbs because many of their workers live there.
So, maybe Downtown needs enough housing opportunities for companies to feel enough of their employees would want them to locate Downtown to support their urban lifestyles. Consider that offices were originally concentrated in downtowns/urban cores because that was were the rooftops were before suburbs became a thing.
It is clear that Downtown has crossed a synergistic or symbiotic threshold that means offices are no longer going to attract other offices.
But, maybe housing will attract offices over time.
Again, as noted, maybe smaller offices/professional businesses that appeal more to urban dwellers lead the way. A Citizens likely has a lot of clerical staff that may be younger with school age children or not interested in the urban lifestyle like some higher paid and empty nester/older staff might be.
Another wild card might be the attraction of our educational institutions positioning classes and programs Downtown: UF, UNF, JU and FSCJ. The vibrancy and recruiting of workers from these urban based programs may encourage select companies to want to be in proximity to such institutions.
In the past, I might have pointed out a desire by workers to shorten their commutes but that approach now seems to favor the suburbs where offices are locating closer to those rooftops and Downtown seems so distant by comparison. This could be addressed by robust mass transit but we don't have anything close to that now or on the drawing boards anytime soon. We also don't have good mass transit within the urban core which doesn't exactly support living and working there at the same time.
All this is derived from a lack of coordinated planning between housing, business development and transportation entities. Jax has to be #1 in failing do accomplish this among most any city on the planet.
Quote from: jaxlongtimer on March 31, 2025, 10:11:08 PM
In the past, I might have pointed out a desire by workers to shorten their commutes but that approach now seems to favor the suburbs where offices are locating closer to those rooftops and Downtown seems so distant by comparison. This could be addressed by robust mass transit but we don't have anything close to that now or on the drawing boards anytime soon. We also don't have good mass transit within the urban core which doesn't exactly support living and working there at the same time.
All this is derived from a lack of coordinated planning between housing, business development and transportation entities. Jax has to be #1 in failing do accomplish this among most any city on the planet.
I think it's possible to do
less as many cities have, but probably hard to do
worse for a city of Jacksonville's size. The peaks-and-valleys nature of either chasing fads or doing essentially nothing seems pretty hard to find once there are a million people living in a place.
Most peer cities (and even smaller ones) have already enacted aggressive urban revitalization schemes or big mass/active transit programs that at this point are showing fruit. At best we're finally getting started on the active transportation bit and have become bizarrely antagonistic to the mass transit bit. I was just talking to someone today that brought up the Phoenix Arts District when I mentioned being from here, which might be an (anecdotal) sign that projects like that are finally improving the image of Jacksonville as an urban place.