The Plaza at Town Center Entertainment Complex

[tufsu1]

Tufsu, dude you can take the train from DOWNTOWN NYC to Newark and Laguardia as well as JFK, great transit system in NYC. Not as modern a system, but hey, it works.

really...how?

[DemocraticNole]

Looking at the plans, all I see are parking lots, parking lots, and more parking lots. Get some parking garages in there to save space and get some transit options. I live in Tampa now and while it is not a great city for transit, it is leaps and bounds beyond Jax. We also are at least trying to get light rail. That is the Mayor's #1 priority.

[tufsu1]

Looking at the plans, all I see are parking lots, parking lots, and more parking lots. Get some parking garages in there to save space and get some transit options. I live in Tampa now and while it is not a great city for transit, it is leaps and bounds beyond Jax. We also are at least trying to get light rail. That is the Mayor's #1 priority.

Tampa is trying...but they spun their wheels for 12 years...they had a light rail plan in 1998 and the County Commission refused to put it up for referendum....and Mayo Iorio is a convert, who was not a big transit supporter when she first ran in 2003.

[copperfiend]

Looking at the plans, all I see are parking lots, parking lots, and more parking lots. Get some parking garages in there to save space and get some transit options. I live in Tampa now and while it is not a great city for transit, it is leaps and bounds beyond Jax. We also are at least trying to get light rail. That is the Mayor's #1 priority.

There is no motivation for them to build garages. They are much more expensive and they own so much land, it is unnecessary.

[St. Auggie]

I always love how this board compares itself to cities w/ metro areas 3-4 times the size of Jax.  If Denver is just now getting rail, why on Earth would you think that Jax would have it already.  And connecting DT Jax to the airport? Good lord the airport it heck and gone from anything in Jacksonville.  Should it be connected? Yes.  But NOTHING is on the northside of the city.  When the area does a backflip about getting a cinema, it CANNOT support rail.  Babysteps guys. 

[mtraininjax]

Tufsu - Are you for real? I take the train into Penn Station every time I fly to Newark. Do we really need to add 100 pictures to the blog to prove the point? You can get to the New Jersey Transit site and go from "Newark Airport to New York Penn Station", they run about every 30 minutes every day.

[mtraininjax]

But NOTHING is on the northside of the city.  When the area does a backflip about getting a cinema, it CANNOT support rail.

Nothing was or still is on the southside of Atlanta, but they deemed it important enough to connect to the airport.

[St. Auggie]

Man I hate qouting myself, but again, did you really just compare Jax to Atlanta?  I love this town but come on.  Atlanta's airport is the BUSIEST airport in the world.  Jax threw a party when we hit 6 million passengers in a year.  Atlanta does that montly.  Bad example.  Next.

[thelakelander]

I always love how this board compares itself to cities w/ metro areas 3-4 times the size of Jax.  If Denver is just now getting rail, why on Earth would you think that Jax would have it already.  And connecting DT Jax to the airport? Good lord the airport it heck and gone from anything in Jacksonville.  Should it be connected? Yes.  But NOTHING is on the northside of the city.  When the area does a backflip about getting a cinema, it CANNOT support rail.  Babysteps guys.  

LOL, you have not really followed the front page over the last couple of years.  We routinely compare Jax with our actual peer cities and many smaller than us.  Forget Denver, how about cities with rail like Salt Lake City, Charlotte, Nashville, Memphis, Little Rock, Tacoma, Albuquerque and Buffalo.  From an planning and economic development standpoint, Jax's focus on this issue is long overdue.  It may be time for us to go back to the basics of explaining how transit really works.

When you have some free time, try combing throught the transit section: http://www.metrojacksonville.com/transit/

You'll find a ton of comparisons to smaller places here.

[Captain Zissou]

Concerning the town center, I think they should now focus on adding density to the area.  The plans already have a parking garage proposed for the area between Dillards and Barnes & Noble.  I say put at least a 4 story deck there and then create a trolley line that runs down 'main street' and then along the southern edge up to Bento/Best Buy/Entertainment zone. 

Put condos and some offices on the lake on the other side of Town Center Parkway and encourage more office and residential project to fill in the expansive parking lots.

I think the only way to keep this area vibrant beyond 2025 is to actually create enough density to become a Real town center and be self sustaining.

[comncense]

It would be nice if there was some way to connect Tinseltown, SJTC and that new town center area that's there on Southside and Gate Parkway together.

[Captain Zissou]

^Send my proposed trolley down the gargantuan median on gate parkway with a loop to Tinsletown/ those surrounding restaurants & up through tapestry park......

Put a garage at tapestry park and people would be able to utilize that whole area via trolley.  Merrill Lynch and BCBS could utilize it for lunch and on weekends it would look like one of those Indian trains!!

[copperfiend]

Put condos and some offices on the lake on the other side of Town Center Parkway and encourage more office and residential project to fill in the expansive parking lots.

I am pretty sure that was in the original plan.

[Captain Zissou]

Copperfiend, would you be able to find said plans?? I'd be interested to see what sort of development they had for that area.

[copperfiend]

This is what I have:

http://www.simon.com/mall/LeasingSheet/st%20johns%20town%20center857.pdf

You can see the residential planned between the mall and JTB and in the back of the complex. Also, notice there was a Ruby Tuesday slated to go where Bahama Breeze is being built.