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Current plans for the Daily's gas station proposed for LaVilla don't match the community's vision for the future of the neighborhood. Here are five simple steps that would allow a mixed-use gas station to coexist with the LaVilla community's desire for equitable revitalization of a historically significant Downtown Jacksonville retail district.
Read More: https://www.thejaxsonmag.com/article/five-simple-steps-to-improve-dailys-lavilla-site-plan/
Great ideas - now how to make it happen?!
A much improved proposal.
@thelakelander with the buffer on Jefferson, could you add parallel parking to the street, which could replace the parking on the north side of the store? Then the Broad St. entrance can be closed and a continuous frontage can be created in future projects.
Quote from: Charles Hunter on August 21, 2023, 11:46:19 PM
Great ideas - now how to make it happen?!
These ideas have already been shared with the Daily's Team, DDRB and the public at the workshop earlier this month. Hopefully, they will be incorporated. Although we have no confirmation at this point, the Daily's team was respectful
and receptive when we met. I do believe that they want to do something that will be good and successful business-wise and for the downtown community. With that said, if anyone wants to help the community lobby for an improved site plan, you can do so by letting the DIA, DDRB and CM Peluso know prior to Thursday.
Quote from: WAJAS on August 22, 2023, 12:12:34 AM
A much improved proposal.
@thelakelander with the buffer on Jefferson, could you add parallel parking to the street, which could replace the parking on the north side of the store? Then the Broad St. entrance can be closed and a continuous frontage can be created in future projects.
There is talk of converting Broad and Forsyth back to two-way streets. Something we are very much in support of. This offers the opportunity to look at different circulation routes for trucks delivering fuel. However, there's no telling when that will happen. There are also opportunities to take the same open space utilization approach on other portions of the site to enhance density and pedestrian interaction. However, at that point, you're really changing the building plan, number of dedicated parking spaces, etc. overall project feasibility altogether. Instead of taking that approach, from the community respective, we focused on solutions that preserved the things claimed to be of utmost importance for the project's success, and shaping them to work better for an urbanized environment with a focus on Broad as the primary corridor for pedestrians.
We'll be serving as a watchdog for quality urban infill and adaptive reuse in LaVilla moving forward. Over time, we believe that developers will get the message and come with the form-based quality expected (use does not matter) or avoid attempting to place pedestrian hostile solutions within LaVilla altogether. We're more than fine with both outcomes. It's better for a lot to remain vacant for a decade to get the right product, than go for something bad that will be there for fifty years.
This might be a different topic, but how would the bridge ramps work in practice if they made Broad/Jefferson 2 two-way. Would they still connect to Broad/Jefferson?
To be clear this is a no brainer in my eyes to do, just curious how.
Good question. Off the top of my head, I think they would still need to be one way south of Bay. That way, there would be no need to touch the ramps. The block of Broad, between Bay and Forsyth, would also need 3 of those four lanes to remain as northbound lanes. The same, opposite direction, would be needed for Jefferson.
Given the way the Acosta exit ramp comes in on the left side of Broad at Bay, I think Broad would have to remain one-way northbound up to Forsyth. Otherwise, you are setting up head-on collisions between southbound Broad Street traffic and traffic coming off that ramp.
You would have to force drivers in the outside lane to make a left turn only at the light. On the other hand, from a safety perspective, you're right. It would be better to maintain the one-way configuration up to Forsyth Street. In that scenario, the two-waying of Jefferson and Broad won't have a real impact on the Daily's site circulation.
I had to leave the DDRB meeting early today, but from what I hear, it passed 4-2 today. I don't think any changes were made to the plan they had previously discussed.
What a pity. So go back, do nothing, and all expectations are reset.
https://www.jaxdailyrecord.com/news/2023/aug/24/city-review-board-approves-final-design-for-dailys-mixed-use-project-in-lavilla/
Started off here in January
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Ended up here by July
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^ Two examples of bad. Not sure which one is worse. Especially disappointed to see 4 entry points. Really? Why do we even have a DDRB if they aren't going to do better than this?
I recently visited 3 "historic" small Southern towns and everyone had stricter standards for maintaining walkable and connected "downtowns." And, they were all packed every day with so many visitors, you had to park blocks away to walk into town... and people were happy to do so. More vibrant in their 2 or 3 block Main Streets than all of downtown Jax.
P.S. Not one gas station in the heart of town, no autonomous vehicles or Skyway, no Four Seasons or NFL teams... just very walkable and active street facings with lots of boutiques, local stores, restaurants and small businesses PLUS preserving their 1800's and early 1900's buildings or matching them if there were gaps.