Can Downtown Survive?

[finehoe]

Commuter Rail to the rescue!

What will they be commuting to?  Sounds like in a few more years there won't be any jobs downtown outside of the public sector.

[vicupstate]

It seems hard to believe that 38,000 people(56k-18k) work in the Southbank, Lavilla, and Brooklyn but only 6,000 work on the Northbank.  LaVilla can't be more than 1,000, it that.  Obviously if the 18,000 figure is inflated/exagerated wouldn't the 38,000 figure be too?  Could it be that the entire DT is only 30k or so? 

[dganson]

I do not know the number of people downtown...but in our building The ATT tower there are 1650 currently and it is quite fluid. When you add minimal realistic numbers for CSX, Wachovia, City Hall Annex, Ed Ball, BBT, BOA, The Landing and Modis you have to exceed 6000. Add in Police Memorial,  Fed Courthouse and County Courthouse as well as Maxwellhouse there are easily more than 6000 on Northbank. And that does not include small shops all around downtown

[jacksonvilleconfidential]

Has anyone ever actually seen people coming or going from Maxwell house? I think there's oompa loompas working there, do they count?

[JC]

Has anyone ever actually seen people coming or going from Maxwell house? I think there's oompa loompas working there, do they count?

I actually did some remodel work before the Super Bowl and there werent too many people then.  I think their shifts are a little weird too!

[ChriswUfGator]

I do not know the number of people downtown...but in our building The ATT tower there are 1650 currently and it is quite fluid. When you add minimal realistic numbers for CSX, Wachovia, City Hall Annex, Ed Ball, BBT, BOA, The Landing and Modis you have to exceed 6000. Add in Police Memorial,  Fed Courthouse and County Courthouse as well as Maxwellhouse there are easily more than 6000 on Northbank. And that does not include small shops all around downtown

Actually when you do the math, that's pretty pathetic...

That's a 32-story building with a MILLION leasable sqaure feet. Taking your 1,650 number, that's a whopping 51 people per floor, or 51 people per 19,608 square feet. That means that if you spread all the employees out at relatively equal distances, each and every employee would individually have more room than the average apartment home. Seems like a fantastic use of (allegedly) class-A office space to me!

Come on people, if this doesn't illustrate just how bad things are down there, I don't know what would.

The only thing sadder than that is the fact that this building actually has one of the LOWER vacancy rates. *Sigh*

[ChriswUfGator]

Oh, one more factoid to drive the point home, the AT&T tower isn't Jacksonville's tallest, but it is the largest in terms of leasable square footage, which is the only thing that counts for the purposes of this debate. So our largest leasable building has a whopping 1,650 people in it, and you guys are still finding it hard to believe that there are 6,000 workers in the core? Come on, quit drinking the koolaid folks...

[ChriswUfGator]

Yeah that and the 550 Water building are the "spillover" spaces for their H.Q.

CSX has bought out a bunch of other companies since their headquarters was originally constructed, and they needed extra space. Rather than adding on, they decided to lease additional space in those two adjacent buildings. The only reason it really works for them is that they have their own employee parking. If they had to put up with the same crap as other businesses, they'd probably already have pulled out.

There were plans to expand their H.Q. to consolidate everything, but then they got a new CEO who wanted to move everything up to Virginia and the plans got scrapped. But since then, they've had another management change and brought everything back to Jacksonville. So I wouldn't be surprised if they eventually get around to adding on, at which point the AT&T tower will lose that tenant.

[ChriswUfGator]

most city employees pay to park

No they don't. They get parking access cards that open the employee gates at the City-owned garages.

Even my friend who just did a legal internship at the GC's office for a summer got a City parking card that allowed him to use the City garage, and that was just a silly unpaid internship. COJ doesn't make itself pay to park in its own garages, so no, COJ itself should not be included in the total for the purposes of this discussion, since they have their own parking and don't have to use meters.

And while the City garages as a whole structure may be partially open to the public, whole swaths of them are blocked off and reserved for COJ's needs. They may have some spaces open to the public, but much of it is reserved for COJ.

[fsujax]

some floors in those buildings are mechanical floors....every tower has them. So not all floors are leaseable. This is a very sad discussion and just shows how far our Downtown has fallen....neglected by our elected officials, sure we got fancy public venues, but where the heck is the civic pride from companies! So many lost opportunities. Deutsche Bank just to name one! I do not understand how or why the City can't convince some of these guys to locate Downtown. It seems to me someone isnt doing their job properly. How are we supposed to sell commuter rail to FTA? build it and they will come?

[tufsu1]

well I just looked at the socioeconomic data used in the recent 2035 LRTP Update...as part of that study, the travel demand model was validated/calibrated to the year 2005.

Employment data was obtained from the State of Florida and business data groups....using the downtown core boundaries of the river, Jefferson St, Union St, and Market St, there were just under 20,000 employees in 2005....keep in mind that this does not include the 3000+ employees at the Sheriff's office and the jail.

So, logic tells me that the DVI/JEDC estimate of 18,000 is far closer to being correct than the 6,000

By 'just under', do you mean 18,000?

nope...it means 19,897 to be exact

I also noticed you did some calcs on the Modis building...with 70 people per floor, this would equal 2450 total for 35 stories...that is pretty sparse but let's assume its even worse because only 50% of the floors are occupied....that still equals 1225 employees

Add another 1450 for the BOA Tower (same assumptions)...plus 1700 at A&T + 500 at Life of the South (as Chris has reported)....total of almost 5,000 in just 4 buildings!

[ChriswUfGator]

well I just looked at the socioeconomic data used in the recent 2035 LRTP Update...as part of that study, the travel demand model was validated/calibrated to the year 2005.

Employment data was obtained from the State of Florida and business data groups....using the downtown core boundaries of the river, Jefferson St, Union St, and Market St, there were just under 20,000 employees in 2005....keep in mind that this does not include the 3000+ employees at the Sheriff's office and the jail.

So, logic tells me that the DVI/JEDC estimate of 18,000 is far closer to being correct than the 6,000

By 'just under', do you mean 18,000?

nope...it means 19,897 to be exact

I also noticed you did some calcs on the Modis building...with 70 people per floor, this would equal 2450 total for 35 stories...that is pretty sparse but let's assume its even worse because only 50% of the floors are occupied....that still equals 1225 employees

Add another 1450 for the BOA Tower (same assumptions)...plus 1700 at A&T + 500 at Life of the South (as Chris has reported)....total of almost 5,000 in just 4 buildings!

You missed the gist of my Life of the South comments, Tufsu, since the whole point of mentioning them is that they're pulling out. And so is Modis. So I'm not sure why you're including them in your math, since the only point of bringing them up in the first place is that they're leaving. Between the two of them, that's almost 1,000 people gone right there...

And it's 1650 at AT&T, which worked out to 51 employees per leasable floor. I was never including the equipment floors to begin with, so to whoever said that, I know that's an easy mistake to make but it wasn't made here. 51 employees per 20k square feet, and I was talking leasable square feet. That ratio is tragic.

I think based on what we  have here, it's looking like probably 1,000'ish for Independent Life, 1,300 for the Barnett Bldg., 1,650 for AT&T, another 500'ish for CSX, maybe 400-500 in the BB&T bldg., the SunTrust (formerly Humana) building is almost completely vacant, as is the Wachovia (former First Union) building. I'll take a stab in the dark and say 500 people between the two, although I think that's grossly high. Add in another few hundred people who work in the small shops at the landing, and in other spots around the core, maybe another 1,000 total, and you're still under 6,000 in the core in aggregate.

And again, there is no point in including the City in this since they have their own parking. Actually so does CSX and everyone in the BB&T building, so we probably shouldn't be including them in these calculations to be honest. I didn't include the Blackstone building, the Law Exchange building, or any other building that has its own dedicated parking either, since none of those people would be using metered spaces anyway.

But I can easily see the total amount of private workers in the core as being 6,000 or less. These huge towers everywhere have high vacancy rates, and it's a virtual ghost town even on the floors that are occupied. There just aren't that many people down there. Why do you think even the paid parking businesses are in the dumps? Look how many closed pay lots we have around here, not to mention how many metered spaces where the only thing that parks in them is tumbleweeds.

[CS Foltz]

Once again I would have to ask..........whats wrong with that picture? All of the metered parking in the world won't be used if there is no one to use it! City Hall just doesn't see this evidently! Workers can not sustain downtown by themselves and with a lack of rentable housing space, that is affordable, there is nothing to attract even persons who would like to live in emptiness with no services! The current administration has no plan, other then spending money they don't have and the new courthouse is something that only lawyers and the like will be using, so how is this going to energize downtown?

[Lunican]

There are completely empty floors in AT&T, I'm just not sure how many.

[tufsu1]

If all of the buildings downtown are so empty, why is the vacancy rate less than 25 percent?