This would be a big negative economic blow to the Northbank. How the DIA and city leaders address post pandemic changes in the office market and that impact should be a key priority moving forward:
QuoteCitizens Property Insurance Corp., which is one of downtown Jacksonville's biggest employers, is considering a move to the Southside suburbs.
Citizens moved more than 1,000 employees into EverBank Center in 2015 in a major win for bringing more activity into downtown. The organization's time in the downtown office tower could end in 2026.
https://www.jacksonville.com/story/news/local/2024/08/08/citizens-property-insurance-corp-may-move-from-downtown-jacksonville/74682959007/
Leaning into residential conversions seems like a logical next step. Not all buildings designed as modern office space lend themselves well to being redeveloped as residential, but where it can be realistic it should be considered.
This quote will make it hard for Downtown to compete...
Quote"Citizens is seeking to negotiate with vendors for Jacksonville office space that provides greater access in bad local weather conditions and enhances its emergency response capabilities by housing equipment and other response assets at a single site," said Michael Peltier, spokesman for the agency. "Citizens is also seeking a more centralized location for its employees living in the Jacksonville area."
HD Supply just moved to the Avenues for some of the same reasons.
A top reason Downtown is losing office workers is parking garages don't cut it anymore. The lack of robust urban core and suburban mass transit is going to be to the continued detriment of Downtown. Instead of giving tens of millions to developers, if the City channeled that money to infrastructure including mass transit, security, streetscapes and green spaces, Downtown would be a far different place than today. Just plain stupid!
Quote from: UrbanistInExile on August 09, 2024, 11:29:35 AM
Leaning into residential conversions seems like a logical next step. Not all buildings designed as modern office space lend themselves well to being redeveloped as residential, but where it can be realistic it should be considered.
In particular, I feel like the EverBank building would be a REALLY tough conversion. The floor plates on this thing are super big - which normally would be nice for an office tenant competing with a wide, short suburban office building.
Generally, does anyone know if large scale office space is cheaper on the Southside/TownCenter than in Downtown? Seems like demand is higher for the Southside, but there might also be more supply too.
Downtown Jax office seems to be struggling in general and it cannot all be blamed on the pandemic. For comparison, office rents have been rising in South Florida and many new office buildings are coming online. Stephen Ross's new buildings in WPB are leasing for 6-7x what buildings in DT Jax are leasing at. Totally different markets, but just demonstrating that office is not yet dead.
https://therealdeal.com/miami/2024/07/12/office-asking-rents-rose-across-south-florida-in-q2/
The following buildings are all leasing on Loop Net with very reasonable rates (Low to mid 20's per square foot):
225 Water Street has 250k square feet
301 West Bay (Southern Bell) 361k square feet
Old Prudential 389k square feet
815 South Main (Suddath) 105k square feet
Riverplace Tower 62k square feet
1200 Riverplace 86k square feet
200 West Forsyth 86k square feet
841 Prudential (Baptist) 53k square feet
501 Riverside (Everbank) 32k square feet
100 North Laura 38k square feet
There are many more small listings, but those are the bigger ones. Combined those buildings have 1.46 million square feet leasing or about 20% of Downtown's office space. That is more than 2 full Bank of America towers. When you add the smaller vacancies up, I'm sure it is closer to 30%, as CBRE said total downtown vacancy was 26% back in February.
Are DIA and the City in general too focused on residential and parks and not enough on office retention and relocation's?
Quote from: Joey Mackey on August 09, 2024, 02:21:48 PM
Generally, does anyone know if large scale office space is cheaper on the Southside/TownCenter than in Downtown? Seems like demand is higher for the Southside, but there might also be more supply too.
The leasing rates look similar, but the parking costs may differ.
Suddath is leasing at $19, 225 Water Street at $23, Old Southern Bell at $25-$27, Old Prudential at $23, old Stein Mart at $24.
Southside rates seem pretty similar with rates anywhere from $23-$25 looking like the norm for larger buildings.
Quote from: jaxlongtimer on August 09, 2024, 12:45:09 PM
This quote will make it hard for Downtown to compete...
Quote"Citizens is seeking to negotiate with vendors for Jacksonville office space that provides greater access in bad local weather conditions and enhances its emergency response capabilities by housing equipment and other response assets at a single site," said Michael Peltier, spokesman for the agency. "Citizens is also seeking a more centralized location for its employees living in the Jacksonville area."
HD Supply just moved to the Avenues for some of the same reasons.
A top reason Downtown is losing office workers is parking garages don't cut it anymore. The lack of robust urban core and suburban mass transit is going to be to the continued detriment of Downtown. Instead of giving tens of millions to developers, if the City channeled that money to infrastructure including mass transit, security, streetscapes and green spaces, Downtown would be a far different place than today. Just plain stupid!
Yeah, this suggests that they have already decided to leave Downtown and are just choosing which office park to settle in. Real shame.
Boyer has talked about office conversions being something to push for, but from a practicality standpoint that is primarily going to apply to older buildings, the size and shape of towers like the EverBank Center do not lend themselves well to that.
Quote from: CityLife on August 09, 2024, 02:32:27 PM
Downtown Jax office seems to be struggling in general and it cannot all be blamed on the pandemic. For comparison, office rents have been rising in South Florida and many new office buildings are coming online. Stephen Ross's new buildings in WPB are leasing for 6-7x what buildings in DT Jax are leasing at. Totally different markets, but just demonstrating that office is not yet dead.
Are DIA and the City in general too focused on residential and parks and not enough on office retention and relocation's?
We are not South Florida, that's obvious. The question then is what are we?
I think anyone here would agree that it is theoretically possible to leverage our assets as a region to create a desirability that can't be found in Miami or Orlando or Tampa to attract businesses with, but
boy have we struggled to have our crap together enough to actually deliver that without falling prey to nonsense. But that's perhaps besides the point of Citizens leaving Downtown. To that end, we've had a number of cases of putting a great deal of incentives (both directly and indirectly via infrastructure investment) into helping businesses leave or stay away from Downtown. Dunn & Bradstreet comes to mind for me right now. We have to decide what our actual values are in terms of that.
Yeah, they aren't looking anywhere near Downtown.
The Citizens Insurance Invitation to Negotiate has a map of where they want to move. There is a link to the ITN in the article linked in one of the early posts. Since I can't figure out how to post a picture (actually a page of a PDF), here's a description of the target area:
JTB is the north boundary
FECRR is the western boundary
Kernan, extended south, is the eastern boundary
The southern boundary connects the east and west boundaries with a line just south of the I-95/SR9B interchange.
The boundary lines do not exactly follow the highways, perhaps giving some wiggle room in site selection.
Here we are:
(https://i.imgur.com/XiQll9g.png)
Thanks!!
Wait a minute, I never realized that a former Jaguars coach was popular enough to get a neighborhood named after him!! ;)
Quote from: Steve on August 09, 2024, 01:52:00 PM
Quote from: UrbanistInExile on August 09, 2024, 11:29:35 AM
Leaning into residential conversions seems like a logical next step. Not all buildings designed as modern office space lend themselves well to being redeveloped as residential, but where it can be realistic it should be considered.
In particular, I feel like the EverBank building would be a REALLY tough conversion. The floor plates on this thing are super big - which normally would be nice for an office tenant competing with a wide, short suburban office building.
Those floor plates are perfect for..... self storage.... :o
Quote from: thelakelander on August 09, 2024, 07:14:26 PM
Quote from: Steve on August 09, 2024, 01:52:00 PM
Quote from: UrbanistInExile on August 09, 2024, 11:29:35 AM
Leaning into residential conversions seems like a logical next step. Not all buildings designed as modern office space lend themselves well to being redeveloped as residential, but where it can be realistic it should be considered.
In particular, I feel like the EverBank building would be a REALLY tough conversion. The floor plates on this thing are super big - which normally would be nice for an office tenant competing with a wide, short suburban office building.
Those floor plates are perfect for..... self storage.... :o
Or truly Downtown Four Seasons ;D.
Quote from: CityLife on August 09, 2024, 02:32:27 PM
Downtown Jax office seems to be struggling in general and it cannot all be blamed on the pandemic.
It is somewhere between disingenuous, delusional, and completely asinine to try to put the blame on the pandemic for Jacksonville's downtown office vacancy situation in 2024. And it CERTAINLY isn't backed by much empirical data. Yes, COVID-19 hurt urban office occupancy. But in the four years since, we're getting
crushed by just about everyone outside of San Francisco in terms of how our peers have reacted and how office occupancy has bounced back.
Irritates me to no end when the DIA puts the blame solely on changes resulting from WFH. Because it just ain't true. The reason employers have fled downtown (just like restaurant owners have) is because we've absolutely failed them in creating an attractive environment that they want to do business in, or bring clients into. It's a total cop-out when you see how well cities with better urban fabric have rebounded.
Quote from: Ken_FSU on August 12, 2024, 12:34:02 AM
Quote from: CityLife on August 09, 2024, 02:32:27 PM
Downtown Jax office seems to be struggling in general and it cannot all be blamed on the pandemic.
It is somewhere between disingenuous, delusional, and completely asinine to try to put the blame on the pandemic for Jacksonville's downtown office vacancy situation in 2024. And it CERTAINLY isn't backed by much empirical data. Yes, COVID-19 hurt urban office occupancy. But in the four years since, we're getting crushed by just about everyone outside of San Francisco in terms of how our peers have reacted and how office occupancy has bounced back.
Irritates me to no end when the DIA puts the blame solely on changes resulting from WFH. Because it just ain't true. The reason employers have fled downtown (just like restaurant owners have) is because we've absolutely failed them in creating an attractive environment that they want to do business in, or bring clients into. It's a total cop-out when you see how well cities with between urban fabric have rebounded.
Completely agree with you Ken. It is all about supply/demand at the end of the day. Downtown has 16M SF of office space, but the area that Marcus highlighted has close to, if not more than, 30M SF. All of that SF has been built since 1980 or so. The buildup of the Southside/Baymeadows market reflects the migration of wealth. Ponte Vedra, Saint Johns, Mandarin, Beaches... these areas are why the office core is now in the Southside/Baymeadows.
Lease rates may be similar but CAM fees are not. Parking is also an issue with some of the largest buildings DT.
I posted about this before, but got a lot of flak of course... our city made their decision 20+ years ago & today we are seeing the effects of those policies. We chose to create an office submarket that eclipses our downtown & no that isn't "common". Suburban office parks were literally invented in Jacksonville. Retail usually follows... cough cough St. Johns Town Center. SJTC has made the job DT a lot harder.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midtown_Centre
I agree that the best....and really only thing Jax can do, is make downtown a place where people really want to be. Unfortunately, the reality is this will take a while. We've failed to consistently move in the right direction with downtown over the last few decades, the worst being when Hughes was over the DIA. In the meantime, keep building up the public spaces and subsidizing private adaptive reuse and infill development, when necessary.
Quote from: Ken_FSU on August 12, 2024, 12:34:02 AM
Quote from: CityLife on August 09, 2024, 02:32:27 PM
Downtown Jax office seems to be struggling in general and it cannot all be blamed on the pandemic.
It is somewhere between disingenuous, delusional, and completely asinine to try to put the blame on the pandemic for Jacksonville's downtown office vacancy situation in 2024. And it CERTAINLY isn't backed by much empirical data. Yes, COVID-19 hurt urban office occupancy. But in the four years since, we're getting crushed by just about everyone outside of San Francisco in terms of how our peers have reacted and how office occupancy has bounced back.
Irritates me to no end when the DIA puts the blame solely on changes resulting from WFH. Because it just ain't true. The reason employers have fled downtown (just like restaurant owners have) is because we've absolutely failed them in creating an attractive environment that they want to do business in, or bring clients into. It's a total cop-out when you see how well cities with better urban fabric have rebounded.
1,000%. The Downtown leaders don't speak the truth because it reflects poorly on them and the commercial real estate brokers can't either because it's bad for business, but the current office market Downtown is downright scary. If Jax didn't have an absolutely fantastic historic housing stock (where you can still get great bang for your buck), the entire urban core would be at risk of future collapse.
DT Jax has around 7-8 million SF of office, compared to 11.4 million in Tampa and 11 million in Orlando. Both those cities appear to have a much healthier DT office market. Orlando's rates are around $25-$35 sf/year and the three largest available spaces are 239k, 108k, and 92k. Tampa's rates are around $35-$45 sf/year with the three largest spaces available at 138k, 86k, and 81k. As I pointed out earlier, Jax's rates are around $20-$27 and the three largest spaces available are 389k, 361k, and 250k. Jax's three largest spaces are all class A, and in 30, 22, 19 story buildings, with premium views. They are perfect candidates for a major relocation or expansion. The fact that they aren't getting backfilled at those rates is not a good sign.
Quote from: Jax_Developer on August 12, 2024, 07:08:06 AM
Quote from: Ken_FSU on August 12, 2024, 12:34:02 AM
Quote from: CityLife on August 09, 2024, 02:32:27 PM
Downtown Jax office seems to be struggling in general and it cannot all be blamed on the pandemic.
It is somewhere between disingenuous, delusional, and completely asinine to try to put the blame on the pandemic for Jacksonville's downtown office vacancy situation in 2024. And it CERTAINLY isn't backed by much empirical data. Yes, COVID-19 hurt urban office occupancy. But in the four years since, we're getting crushed by just about everyone outside of San Francisco in terms of how our peers have reacted and how office occupancy has bounced back.
Irritates me to no end when the DIA puts the blame solely on changes resulting from WFH. Because it just ain't true. The reason employers have fled downtown (just like restaurant owners have) is because we've absolutely failed them in creating an attractive environment that they want to do business in, or bring clients into. It's a total cop-out when you see how well cities with between urban fabric have rebounded.
I posted about this before, but got a lot of flak of course... our city made their decision 20+ years ago & today we are seeing the effects of those policies. We chose to create an office submarket that eclipses our downtown & no that isn't "common". Suburban office parks were literally invented in Jacksonville. Retail usually follows... cough cough St. Johns Town Center. SJTC has made the job DT a lot harder.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midtown_Centre
I've been saying this on here for I don't know, 10+ years, but the City giving Fidelity Investments, Deutsche Bank, etc major incentives to locate on the Southside has basically opened the door for those employees to move to SJC. I was one of Fidelity Investments (located next to Tinseltown) first hires in their Jax office and virtually all the managers that relocated from elsewhere immediately moved to SJC (or the beaches) and virtually all of the employees that stayed that I know now live in Nocatee or SJC. Same story with people I know from DB. They all say that a large amount of their coworkers live in SJC too. The opposite is true of virtually everyone I know that works at Fidelity National (located downtown), where they all live in the urban core or just outside it. Sure, it's anecdotal, but is also based on their own understanding of where coworkers live. I don't think location of one's employment is the only factor in where one chooses to live, but it definitely plays a role.
That said, would those companies have relocated to Jax at all if forced to move Downtown? Like Lakelander said, the City needs to make Downtown the place to be. But that also means doing more than just making nice parks and subsidizing rental housing.
Quote from: CityLife on August 12, 2024, 10:03:32 AM
Quote from: Jax_Developer on August 12, 2024, 07:08:06 AM
Quote from: Ken_FSU on August 12, 2024, 12:34:02 AM
Quote from: CityLife on August 09, 2024, 02:32:27 PM
Downtown Jax office seems to be struggling in general and it cannot all be blamed on the pandemic.
It is somewhere between disingenuous, delusional, and completely asinine to try to put the blame on the pandemic for Jacksonville's downtown office vacancy situation in 2024. And it CERTAINLY isn't backed by much empirical data. Yes, COVID-19 hurt urban office occupancy. But in the four years since, we're getting crushed by just about everyone outside of San Francisco in terms of how our peers have reacted and how office occupancy has bounced back.
Irritates me to no end when the DIA puts the blame solely on changes resulting from WFH. Because it just ain't true. The reason employers have fled downtown (just like restaurant owners have) is because we've absolutely failed them in creating an attractive environment that they want to do business in, or bring clients into. It's a total cop-out when you see how well cities with between urban fabric have rebounded.
I posted about this before, but got a lot of flak of course... our city made their decision 20+ years ago & today we are seeing the effects of those policies. We chose to create an office submarket that eclipses our downtown & no that isn't "common". Suburban office parks were literally invented in Jacksonville. Retail usually follows... cough cough St. Johns Town Center. SJTC has made the job DT a lot harder.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midtown_Centre
I've been saying this on here for I don't know, 10+ years, but the City giving Fidelity Investments, Deutsche Bank, etc major incentives to locate on the Southside has basically opened the door for those employees to move to SJC. I was one of Fidelity Investments (located next to Tinseltown) first hires in their Jax office and virtually all the managers that relocated from elsewhere immediately moved to SJC (or the beaches) and virtually all of the employees that stayed that I know now live in Nocatee or SJC. Same story with people I know from DB. They all say that a large amount of their coworkers live in SJC too. The opposite is true of virtually everyone I know that works at Fidelity National (located downtown), where they all live in the urban core or just outside it. Sure, it's anecdotal, but is also based on their own understanding of where coworkers live. I don't think location of one's employment is the only factor in where one chooses to live, but it definitely plays a role.
That said, would those companies have relocated to Jax at all if forced to move Downtown? Like Lakelander said, the City needs to make Downtown the place to be. But that also means doing more than just making nice parks and subsidizing rental housing.
Might be anecdotal but it surely is a trend that is hard to counter. JaxUSA does great work, and in no way trying to diminish their efforts. But, that & state grants for select industries are intended to attract businesses and they would rather get the business than no business. That serves as a double edge sword in these scenarios... where businesses don't prefer to locate downtown, but given most companies are contemplating multiple offers, we end up being essentially being required to give incentives anyway.
Is there a way to couple up JaxUSA & the DIA to see how incentives could be tweaked for office users? It's not like we get tons of office work proposals & I think the work force incentives could be more purposeful.
How do we fund more incentives DT? Get rid of the Southbank CRA for crying out loud & focus that $$ on the Northbank!
^ I suspect focusing incentives on the Downtown core will be a recommendation of the city council specifical committee on Downtown.
^Focusing on the Northbank core is a must!
Get rid of the Southbank CRA for crying out loud & focus that $$ on the Northbank!
Southbank CRA is a TIF, right?
Getting rid of the Southbank CRA would mean getting rid of its revenue, would it not?
Quote from: vicupstate on August 13, 2024, 10:19:21 AM
Get rid of the Southbank CRA for crying out loud & focus that $$ on the Northbank!
Southbank CRA is a TIF, right?
Getting rid of the Southbank CRA would mean getting rid of its revenue, would it not?
It would mean redirecting any unencumbered funds to the general fund. If the CRA was eliminated, I suppose the City could project out how much unencumbered Southbank CRA dollars will go into the general fund every year, and then subsequently increase the Northbank CRA funding by that amount. Or simply allocate it towards CIP projects on the Northbank if it can't go directly into the Northbank CRA.
It looks like the Southbank CRA generated $7.2 in revenue (property tax gains/TIF) for the current fiscal year, but $5.5 million of that is already spoken for. So it really could only roll $1.7 million into the general fund.
https://dia.coj.net/about/What-is-the-DIA/Southside-CRA/FY-23-24-SOUTHSIDE-ORD-2023-504-ADOPTED.aspx
The problem is, the Southbank needs help too. Of all of those office vacancies I listed earlier the following are on the Southbank:
Prudential 389k square feet
Suddath 105k square feet
1200 Riverplace (Old Stein Mart) 86k square feet
Riverplace Tower 62k square feet
The real reason why they are leaving is safety concerns not garage problems over 230 calls from citizens employees involving insane people on the streets harassing them and threatening them and they had enough.
Quote from: Skybox111 on August 13, 2024, 11:05:05 AM
The real reason why they are leaving is safety concerns not garage problems over 230 calls from citizens employees involving insane people on the streets harassing them and threatening them and they had enough.
Not the only business that I know of that's considering a move from downtown for these exact reasons.
But, by all means, let's legislate the CBA to death and strip money for affordable housing and homeless support from the mayor's budget.
Quote from: Ken_FSU on August 13, 2024, 12:21:26 PM
Quote from: Skybox111 on August 13, 2024, 11:05:05 AM
The real reason why they are leaving is safety concerns not garage problems over 230 calls from citizens employees involving insane people on the streets harassing them and threatening them and they had enough.
Not the only business that I know of that's considering a move from downtown for these exact reasons.
But, by all means, let's legislate the CBA to death and strip money for affordable housing and homeless support from the mayor's budget.
As I've said for many, many years - if having a positive effect on Downtown is the goal, it would be less expensive and faster for COJ to simply incentivize deconsolidating all the homeless shelters from Downtown, vs create and fund the ecosystem of available mental health, substance abuse, and low barrier housing necessary to have the same impact.
Of course, other metrics besides a positive impact on Downtown are important. But still.
I would guess the Gateway Jax projects will make this issue come to a head sooner than later, as they invest rare significant dollars into a Downtown that desperately needs them, and they'll be in close proximity to some of the problem behavior hot spots in Downtown.
Would the move of Suzbacher from east of Liberty Street out to the Golfair area, west of I-95 and north of MLK, be a step toward decentralizing these services?
But crazy homeless people aren't the problem!
I only point out parking & CAM fees because there is certainly a bottom-line benefit from moving out of DT. It does save companies a small amount of expense, but also our office users & environment is more geared towards smaller spaces.
The buildings on the Southbank are, at the very least, doing a lot better than the Northbank. I know where you are finding the SF figures CityLife, but I think NAI Hallmark is much more accurate for our submarkets.
They list the Southbank at 10% vacancy in comparison to the Northbank being 20%. According to NAI, the Northbank also has 4x the office space as the Southbank. In my opinion, the Southbank office properties are *at least* able to stay afloat. I don't think the same will be true with the Northbank in the next few years (if nothing changes). Of course, 4-story MF does not need incentives in the Southbank. They could just tighten the incentive package available to the Southbank.
We have a homelessness crisis as well as a housing crisis in this city. However, the homeless are not a main let alone sole reason for any company moves away from downtown. There are other issues that are far bigger — wanting to consolidate office space, wanting more parking, to be closer to the suburban employee base, or even just because it's what the bigwigs personally want. It does, however, contribute to negative perceptions of downtown and the urban core among some people.
Just let the Northbank die already. 50 something years trying to revive a portion of a city that simply refuses to live. Time to call a spade a spade and realize Khan's new neighborhood will be the new core in 10 years.
Quote from: Tacachale on August 13, 2024, 05:41:27 PMHowever, the homeless are not a main let alone sole reason for any company moves away from downtown. There are other issues that are far bigger — wanting to consolidate office space, wanting more parking, to be closer to the suburban employee base, or even just because it's what the bigwigs personally want. It does, however, contribute to negative perceptions of downtown and the urban core among some people.
Usually agree with you Bill, and would have agreed with this statement up until maybe two years ago, but I've talked to multiple business owners in the last month alone considering a move from downtown exclusively because of the homeless problem. It has truly gotten that bad.
As a dude on the streets five days a week, homelessness and crime absolutely make Downtown Jacksonville a hostile business environment in 2024. It's not a perception thing when you have to walk young female employees to their car so they're not harassed. Or when you have clients coming from out of town having to witness drug deals from the conference room window. Or when you have to send people in on the weekends multiple times a year to fix windows that have been shattered from bum fights or gunfire. Or when you've got people tweaked out on fentanyl screaming that their going to stab you or shitting on the sidewalk. I tried to come in on the weekend a couple of weeks back to get some work done and couldn't even get into the office because the homeless had set up a massive camp literally in the front awning of our building.
Because of how thin the office population has become, and because of how strangely absentee the police presence seems to be in the CBD unless you literally call in a drug deal, there's a real sense of lawlessness that everyone left downtown feels.
I think we're doing ourselves a disservice if we don't acknowledge how urgent of a problem it is, as evidenced by the Citizens situation that ActionsNewsJax is now reporting from multiple sources is tied to safety (https://www.actionnewsjax.com/news/local/safety-concerns-jacksonville-driving-out-large-local-business/LJ4OZOSSUBE4RGQY2MRWQUJL4U/).
Quote from: WarDamJagFan on August 13, 2024, 07:15:32 PM
Just let the Northbank die already. 50 something years trying to revive a portion of a city that simply refuses to live. Time to call a spade a spade.
Hard disagree. Even the Cubs and Sox won a ring once they finally got the right leadership and strategy in place. There is SO MUCH wasted opportunity on Laura Street alone.
Secret sauce ain't hard, everyone else has figured it out:
1. Partner with someone smarter than you on a true master plan for your urban core, focused on creating the type of clustered, complementing uses that Ennis has been advocating for since like 2005
2. Set aside funds to smartly subsidize strategically important urban initiatives and to build up public infrastructure that makes living and working downtown attractive
3. Execute over time
We've never done this. Just thrown hundreds of millions at demolition, petty grudges, and propping up random projects for the donor class.
Northbank is burning in spite of its bones, not because of them.
But the problem is going to continue to exist in perpetuity if we think the solution is to do everything in a vacuum and turn James Weldon Johnson Park into a hedge maze for the junkies to hide in while the clown cars drive into the river and we save Riverfront Plaza for a 100-story skyscraper that is just one supply chain issue away from being built.
It's just so sad to see the last decade wasted, and a realistic, maybe even aggressive, tentpole for urban success for this mayoral term being returning downtown to its 2018 glory.
Quote from: Charles Hunter on August 13, 2024, 01:45:20 PM
Would the move of Suzbacher from east of Liberty Street out to the Golfair area, west of I-95 and north of MLK, be a step toward decentralizing these services?
Possibly. Depends on which facets leave vs stay. They don't do traditional shelter services there any more; the very visible people hanging out and about there use the free meals and Urban Rest Stop services. Or just aren't bothered by authorities to move their camp as much, vs in the more visible part of Downtown.
I guess we will see what happens when the "no camping" law comes into effect on Oct. 1st
Quote from: Charles Hunter on August 13, 2024, 09:17:18 PM
I guess we will see what happens when the "no camping" law comes into effect on Oct. 1st
My guess is roughly the same thing that happened when the "no panhandling in the medians" law went into effect.
Have never seen more panhandlers in the median.
Just isn't enforceable when JSO can barely field emergency calls these days.
Quote from: Skybox111 on August 13, 2024, 11:05:05 AM
The real reason why they are leaving is safety concerns not garage problems over 230 calls from citizens employees involving insane people on the streets harassing them and threatening them and they had enough.
This Action News story comports with Skybox's post. Whether real or not, it adds to Downtown's negative perception which doesn't help.
QuoteSafety concerns in Downtown Jacksonville driving out large local business
...JSO's calls for service to the Everbank Center address show since 2021 that the area has received more than 230 calls. It's unclear how many are related to the homeless but of those calls, about 25 of them dealt with either a suspicious or insane person.
The city appears to acknowledge safety and security is a problem.
In an emailed statement the city's spokesperson said, "this speaks to the need for full funding of the comprehensive homelessness plan we have presented and proposed in the budget."...
https://www.actionnewsjax.com/news/local/safety-concerns-jacksonville-driving-out-large-local-business/LJ4OZOSSUBE4RGQY2MRWQUJL4U/
What's the plan to address the issue? The majority of talk these days revolve around giving LST a boat load of public incentives.
Quote from: thelakelander on August 14, 2024, 07:49:27 AM
What's the plan to address the issue? The majority of talk these days revolve around giving LST a boat load of public incentives.
Not to cause a ruckus, but I really do believe the concentration of: the jail, the homeless shelters, low-income housing projects & blighted properties is an extremely tough hurdle to overcome without meaningful critical mass downtown. Of course we generally know that, and the DIA has been focused on reaching critical mass. The problem is, we need to separate the Northbank from their stats. I don't care how well the Southbank or Brooklyn are doing if we can't turn the central core around. Yes they are important, but the development issues in the central core are much different in my opinion. The irony is that the potential tax base in our Central Core dwarfs the Southbank or Brooklyn.
I keep saying... the idea that a developer is going to come in and develop a $100M+ property within a few blocks of a DT jail, is really hard to swallow. Maybe if the crime was under control, or if there wasn't as much vagrancy... but the combination of everything leaves a ton of room for doubt for many people. Chicken & Egg scenario.
^It will be really interesting to see how successful the Pearl Street District turns out to be, they plan on building luxury apartments and amenities within a baseball's throw of City Rescue Mission.
I hear ya. It will be interesting to watch. Gateway, to me, is not comparable to every other project downtown (excluding the entertainment district if that happens). Their vision is on a much longer time horizon than one-off projects.
Quote from: Jax_Developer on August 14, 2024, 08:07:54 AMI keep saying... the idea that a developer is going to come in and develop a $100M+ property within a few blocks of a DT jail, is really hard to swallow. Maybe if the crime was under control, or if there wasn't as much vagrancy... but the combination of everything leaves a ton of room for doubt for many people. Chicken & Egg scenario.
Bingo. With the jail, Sulzbacher, homeless services in lavilla, etc who is going to want to risk investing downtown? It's a total shit show at Main and State/Union too, actually make that the entire stretch of State and Union. The other day someone shoed me a video of a crazy homeless guy in a wheelchair jacking it on the side of the road in front of the Four Seasons under construction. Welcome to Jacksonville! ::)
I think Gateway's Pearl Street District is exactly what the Northbank needs. I look forward to seeing their progress.
Quote from: Ken_FSU on August 13, 2024, 09:34:04 PM
Quote from: Charles Hunter on August 13, 2024, 09:17:18 PM
I guess we will see what happens when the "no camping" law comes into effect on Oct. 1st
My guess is roughly the same thing that happened when the "no panhandling in the medians" law went into effect.
Have never seen more panhandlers in the median.
Just isn't enforceable when JSO can barely field emergency calls these days.
I can't speak to median panhandlers, nor the cause, but I know one homeless services program in Downtown has had *double* the number of walk ins year over year. The longer appropriate resources aren't provided to address local homeless issues, the worse the problem will grow.
Quote from: fsu813 on August 14, 2024, 11:32:08 AM
Quote from: Ken_FSU on August 13, 2024, 09:34:04 PM
Quote from: Charles Hunter on August 13, 2024, 09:17:18 PM
I guess we will see what happens when the "no camping" law comes into effect on Oct. 1st
My guess is roughly the same thing that happened when the "no panhandling in the medians" law went into effect.
Have never seen more panhandlers in the median.
Just isn't enforceable when JSO can barely field emergency calls these days.
I can't speak to median panhandlers, nor the cause, but I know one homeless services program in Downtown has had *double* the number of walk ins year over year. The longer appropriate resources aren't provided to address local homeless issues, the worse the problem will grow.
And that was with historically low unemployment.
It's only going to get worse with the labor market rapidly cooling as of late.
Which is why it's imperative to get some of these initiatives aimed at homelessness and affordable housing passed through Council quickly, rather than getting mired in political gamesmanship by bad actors as the city burns.
$56 million in fancy new parks won't move the needle if you don't address the fundamental problems. You see this in San Fran, where even the fanciest of Whole Foods, Nordstrom, and other retailers have fled.
Some of these knuckleheads on City Council are so averse to what they perceive as "handouts" that they fail to recognize the external benefits of tackling this crisis head-on and the opportunity cost of allowing the status quo to carry on.
https://www.jaxdailyrecord.com/news/2024/sep/30/phillips-hunt-moving-to-riverside/
Another firsthand account that the number one problem for business owners in the downtown core is the unsafe condition created by the homeless/vagrants.
There's also this one too.
https://www.jaxdailyrecord.com/news/2024/sep/11/founder-of-dalton-agency-says-he-feels-forced-to-leave-downtown/
Dalton is a big loss. While not huge by sheer numbers of employees, they were in a prime spot and do the type of high profile, creative work that you want Downtown. There have been a lot of misses downtown, but Jax really blew it by not ever creating/subsidizing some sort of creative professional district downtown. In Orlando, a lot of big architecture, engineering, planning, and law firms are on/near Lake Eola. IMO, Jax really should have pushed that near JWJ Park (or anywhere). Converting Snyder Memorial to a space focused on creatives like marketing, design, and architecture firms would have been a nice start.
RS&H, Stellar, and ETM are all huge engineering/design firms that are HQ in Jax, but are located on the Southside/Mandarin. There are several others that are smaller and HQ in Jax or large companies with HQ elsewhere, but with a decent Jax presence. I believe Haskell is the only big design firm with a significant downtown presence (ETM has a small office on Hendricks). Many of the employees in these type of firms want to live Downtown or in the urban core, but almost have to move to the southside, beach, or SJC because of their office location.
One of Downtown Jax's most unknown mistakes, was listening to the grifters that wanted to create a tech hub in Jax, when there was absolutely no infrastructure/pipeline to even make Jax a tech hub, when it actually had the existing firms, location, and pipeline of talent from UF, FSU, FAMU, SCAD, Clemson, and GT to actually succeed.
Dalton hasn't left. They were speaking at that meeting to support the city's plan to address homelessness which was approved at City Council last week and rolls out tomorrow. Other downtown business owners (including Phillips) were apprised of that plan.
Agh! My bad. Glad the City is taking action and they are staying. Still think the City should find a way to create a district downtown that focuses on creative class professions though. Maybe Gateway Jax becomes that.
There was apparently a bad stabbing at Adams & Main this afternoon.
Don't know anything else at the moment.
Action News reporting that a Citizens employee and security guard were attacked by a homeless man last month amid plans to reissue the Invitation to Negotiate a new headquarters outside Downtown.
https://www.actionnewsjax.com/news/local/citizens-insurance-worker-security-guard-attacked-by-downtown-homeless-expanding-moving-search/C2XQ5UCCSFAYHEYZFCL7KXW75E/
I had the fun responsibility this morning of removing a vagrant from our front window who was grinning at the receptionist while fondling his dick.
Homeless aren't the problem though!
heck even last week when a buddy and I were hanging out at Bold City downtown, there was a guy who was clearly having a bad time on drugs who just kept circling the block, occasionally screaming. Then we had a guy try to ask us for money, and then another man ambled over who reeked so badly of urine we had to go back inside.
We walked across the river to Southern Grill for food, then walked back for one more, and passed the odiferous gentleman on the bridge sidewalk, and once we got back to Bold City the unhinged guy who was circling the block was still at it. I feel for them, but I also feel unsafe around the more unhinged people who are living on the streets. There was another time, same location, where a guy was throwing rocks at cars.
Even for a couple of guys who could handle themselves OK, it's uncomfortable because you never know how bad of a day someone hard into drugs or withdrawal is having, and you just can't know if you're dealing with a rational person sometimes until it's too late
Such hate being expressed here!!! Pure, unadulterated HATE!!! You all sound like a squadron of JERRY MORANS!!! Shame on you all!!!
I hate when I walk down the street and it smells like pee. I hate stepping over human turds on the sidewalk. I hate being yelled at by crazy people when I am just trying to walk down the street.
You do you though.
no hate here, just relaying my experience downtown. I notice it in Murray Hill and Riverside, but it's nowhere near as bad there, and there's always more of a crowd in those neighborhoods, too, which helps with the sense of security (until Riverside gets really busy on Friday and Saturday night, then I feel less secure for different reasons)