Recent posts

#41

Downtown / Re: Council Meeting Set for Mo...

Last post by thelakelander - February 07, 2026, 08:24:56 AM

To me, the crux of this whole discussion and disagreement, again, comes down to our 1) lack of alignment on what success looks like, 2) lack of sound, transparent KPIs to accurately gauge health, and 3) lack of master planning & sequential prioritization.

^Bingo! Unfortunately, its the wild west and most of the people in charge of making decisions, while being paid with public money themselves, aren't professionally qualified to make any real decision about downtown, development, incentives, etc. Because there's no coordinated community vetted vision for DT, success is undefined and when everyone has a different definition of success, things just turn into an expensive clown show. Billions burnt but the Northbank (the actual DT) still struggles.

#42

Downtown / Re: Rebuilding RISE Doro

Last post by heights unknown - February 07, 2026, 05:29:35 AM

As we are aware, there's a new Leader at DIA; email, forward, zap these thoughts, opinions, etc. to him (if you haven't already done so). Someone recently stated in a thread and/or post, that "The Jaxson's" voice, nowadays is being MORE heard and considered at City Hall; they cannot do it alone (though they may think so). Use this wonderful medium as a line and voice (and advocacy) between City Hall (and DIA) and the Public (if this is currently not being effectuated).

[Original AT&T American Transtech campus headed for warehouse redevelopment]

#43

Brooklyn / Re: Old Haskell Building

Last post by jaxlongtimer - February 07, 2026, 01:16:37 AM

The Haskell building is sure to be doomed if the American Transtech building goes down.  This was a world class A+ building that many considered as either the first, or close to the first, modern call center in the entire world. It was here that AT&T built, in an amazing single year, a facility that handled the entire breakup of the century-plus old AT&T/Bell System monopoly into multiple companies, the biggest corporate breakup in U.S. history. 

The call center infrastructure eventually became Convergys which provided call center services to its clients.  AT&T leveraged this operation to serve as a demonstration of its emerging call center technologies to sell to the world.

So, aside from its architecture, it should be deemed an historic building in the annals of American business and Jacksonville.  Shame to see it disappear.  It will be looked back upon as a modern day tech version of Henry Ford's Model T factory we recently demolished.

Original AT&T American Transtech campus headed for warehouse redevelopment
The city is reviewing permits for two speculative industrial centers at almost $17 million to replace the 43-year-old Baymeadows property.

A futuristic Baymeadows building developed in 1983 for AT&T American Transtech is in permitting review for redevelopment that includes demolition and new construction.

AT&T American Transtech developed the campus to handle shareholder services for the court-ordered breakup of AT&T, a monopoly that operated the entire U.S. phone system.

Transtech built a three-story, 102,145-square-foot office building and a two-story, 106,275-square-foot computer/telecom data center on 28.29 acres at 8000 Baymeadows Way. It hired 1,300 employees to handle the task of divvying up shares of the seven new companies to AT&T stockholders.

After several ownership transformations through sales, the 43-year-old structure is now in line for demolition to be developed into a warehouse park....

https://www.jaxdailyrecord.com/news/2026/feb/06/original-att-american-transtech-campus-headed-for-warehouse-redevelopment/

#44

Downtown / Re: Council Meeting Set for Mo...

Last post by jaxlongtimer - February 07, 2026, 12:46:26 AM

I just posted the below on the Doro thread but think it applies to other Downtown threads like this one so reposting it for the record here and there.

I revert to investing in infrastructure rather than incentives.  This includes streetscapes, security, green spaces, public art, urban core transit lines that loop the urban core and connect downtown to surrounding neighborhoods, etc.

If we are going to do incentives, instead of handing out tens and hundreds of millions to big projects, give those millions to small business that will employ more people and create granular character, energy and buzz that draws people in.

Do all of the above in a thoughtful, planned way, and Downtown and surroundings might actually take off.

Money for the stadium, Four Seasons, Brooklyn and Southbank developments, more apartments and hotels is a waste.  None of these are going to sustainably bring more people to Downtown or make it more interesting.  And, none would need incentives if there was already existing excitement before they arrived.

Gateway gets this on some level by promoting lots of street level retail and restaurants with a dose of nightlife and not just building apartments, hotels, offices.  These smaller deals are what will drive the success of the bigger ones. 

DIA has it all upside down.  Small leads to big, not the other way around.  You would think after 60 years of Downtown failing by betting on "mega projects" going back to the conversion of the riverfront from shipyards and port docks to mid-century urban renewal projects and massive block-reinvention programs like the River City Renaissance and Better Jacksonville Plan, we would have learned to try a different approach.  Yet, here we are doing more of the same.

You can't force Downtown success.  It needs to be organic.  That requires an uprising by the little guys.

#45

Downtown / Re: Rebuilding RISE Doro

Last post by jaxlongtimer - February 07, 2026, 12:41:24 AM

I revert to investing in infrastructure rather than incentives.  This includes streetscapes, security, green spaces, public art, urban core transit lines that loop the urban core and connect downtown to surrounding neighborhoods, etc.

If we are going to do incentives, instead of handing out tens and hundreds of millions to big projects, give those millions to small business that will employ more people and create granular character, energy and buzz that draws people in.

Do all of the above in a thoughtful, planned way, and Downtown and surroundings might actually take off.

Money for the stadium, Four Seasons, Brooklyn and Southbank developments, more apartments and hotels is a waste.  None of these are going to sustainably bring more people to Downtown or make it more interesting.  And, none would need incentives if there was already existing excitement before they arrived.

Gateway gets this on some level by promoting lots of street level retail and restaurants with a dose of nightlife and not just building apartments, hotels, offices.  These smaller deals are what will drive the success of the bigger ones. 

DIA has it all upside down.  Small leads to big, not the other way around.  You would think after 60 years of Downtown failing by betting on "mega projects" going back to the conversion of the riverfront from shipyards and port docks to mid-century urban renewal projects and massive block-reinvention programs like the River City Renaissance and Better Jacksonville Plan, we would have learned to try a different approach.  Yet, here we are doing more of the same.

You can't force Downtown success.  It needs to be organic.  That requires an uprising by the little guys.

#46

Science and Technology / Re: Wordle?

Last post by jaxlongtimer - February 06, 2026, 11:47:14 PM

Wordle 1,693 3/6

Connections - solved all with no mistakes, purple on line #3

Strands - solved with no hints, Spangram #6.

Pips #173 Easy
0:29
Pips #173 Medium
1:01
Pips #173 Hard
11:10

Daily Quordle 1474 - Total = 22
4️⃣6️⃣
5️⃣7️⃣
m-w.com/games/quordle/

#47

Downtown / Re: Lot J - 5 Years Later

Last post by Jax_Developer - February 06, 2026, 03:03:39 PM

Well the whole point is that these deals happen better together. Sorry but I don't see the City of Jacksonville (or most cities for that matter) out negotiating Shad Khan & his team. Yes we can identify the differences between every stadium deal if we want, but the basics remain the same... the current agreement added items that will benefit the Iguana team in the long run. Other deals take all of this into account up front - primarily with infrastructure. Which, btw, arguably has the biggest impact on localized values.

The state giving up land =/= throwing cash at a deal. Apples & Oranges for a conversation of this depth.

#48

Transportation, Mass Transit & Infrastructure / Re: Is U2C serious? Help me ma...

Last post by Jax_Developer - February 06, 2026, 02:52:43 PM

Both the Ford Vans & HOLON use LIDAR. Tesla is the only camera based system to my knowledge.

#49

Downtown / Re: Rebuilding RISE Doro

Last post by CityLife - February 06, 2026, 02:48:30 PM

n summary, I think Jax's full effort should be focused on bringing more employment downtown and making sure the UF project is fully realized.

It would be challenging to administer, but I do wish their was some "incentive" mechanism we could leverage to protect existing business within the CBD while we wait for all of this new development to come online. 2028 seems to be around the time that a lot of things are going to finish. In the interim, it would be great to offer small retention grants to businesses considering relocation, and forgivable stopgap loans for businesses like Intuition and Bellwether that are just barely getting by.

I had the exact thought when Intuition announced their closure and love it in concept. It's such a slippery slope though where the DIA and/or City Council are forced to pick winners and losers. If you give the grant to Intuition and Bellwether and don't offer one to Dos Gatos or Cowford Chophouse, do they get angry and threaten to close too?

I don't have any inside info, but from reading Ben's closure email, my takeaway was that the decision reflected a lack of long term confidence more than short term cash flow. I think it ultimately comes down to the leaders of Downtown Jax demonstrating that there is light at the end of the tunnel for businesses currently struggling.

Rather than offer the cash grant to individual businesses, maybe a more equitable way to deal with the issue is to invest more money into programming special events in the next few years. With no Jags and concerts at Daily's, this is strongly needed anyways. Imo, DIA/DVI should come out with some kind of special branded events program to instill confidence in existing businesses. One thought is to have a concert series at Vystar Ballpark. If Black Sabbath could play at Wolfson Park back in the 70's, surely some acts could play at Vystar now.

[keeping]

#50

Downtown / Re: Rebuilding RISE Doro

Last post by Ken_FSU - February 06, 2026, 02:20:14 PM

n summary, I think Jax's full effort should be focused on bringing more employment downtown and making sure the UF project is fully realized.

Fully agree.

And would also add that in addition to focusing on bringing more employment downtown, we need to focus on keeping existing jobs downtown as well.

RE: Union Terminal being half-empty while Vista Brooklyn is nearly full. Wonder if that would be any different had JSO not moved 740 employees from the CBD to Brooklyn. Meanwhile, DCPS is pulling 600 jobs from downtown and relocating their headquarters to Baymeadows. 

These are public-sector jobs actively being pulled from the CBD, at the same time we're investing billions into trying to create a more vibrant central core.

It would be challenging to administer, but I do wish their was some "incentive" mechanism we could leverage to protect existing business within the CBD while we wait for all of this new development to come online. 2028 seems to be around the time that a lot of things are going to finish. In the interim, it would be great to offer small retention grants to businesses considering relocation, and forgivable stopgap loans for businesses like Intuition and Bellwether that are just barely getting by.