Five Drastic Steps To Revive Downtown Jacksonville

[timothyj67]

I have always thought since Ive been here a short time, is turn the Downtown landing into a Farmers market..Take the abandon buildings and refurbish them into storefront properties and inexpensive lofts. The tax break makes so much sense..Now we just have to get a deaf city council to listen!

[Ocklawaha]

ALL PHOTO'S "El Hueco" (pronounced El Waco) in Medellin, Colombia, translates as The Hollow, or Hole.

I'm posting these because El Hueco has got to be one of the coolest shopping experiences in the America's. Basically Medellin took about 6 blocks of old office and retail buildings downtown and started hacking passage ways, tunnels and little bridges between them. The floors were divided into what we would probably call Flea Market size stores, though there are larger stores throughout too. It is actually a maze in which you could spend endless hours just exploring, if not shopping. It is dotted with food courts, old Mezzanine and grand entries or ball rooms, have been converted into a collection of an "architect's delight" of every style, shape and size.
For the safety minded, there ARE fire escapes throughout, but that would really ruin the fun. They also have micro police and medical stations, bank and other services.

The magic of El Hueco, is the apparent utter confusion of floors, levels, passages, tunnels, etc... It has become one of South America's number 1 shopping experiences, and all of this within a couple of miles from 4 massive malls. Imagine JACKSONVILLE? Would this be cool or what? We just have to crawl out of our own hueco. Hell just our tunnels would make a very cool El Hueco.

[Garden guy]

I say we tax any large corporation that does'nt locate downtown. It's their way of helping our city. If you come downtown you don't have to pay the fees..if you locate anywhere other than downtown...you'll get a nice big fine. It only makes sense since so many large corporations actually got city tax breaks to locate somewhere off JTB or some other place. It sounds crazy but times are tough and it's time to think outside of the box that the republican right wing conservatives have got this city in. We are dying and they thinks its funny.

[tufsu1]

I think you know that has zero chance of being implementable.

But try this instead....it will cost x to build/locate elsewhere in town, but fees will be waived for locating downtown.

[Garden guy]

I know but radical ideas are a start to the great ideas. I've seen this city screw those of us that call this home and I'm tired of it. The conservative base that rules this city is "exactly" the reason why we are sooo behind and unevolved. If Wayne Weaver didn't have so much money there's no way someone else would have put an NFL team here. This could be the greatest city of the south and it'll never be if left to the conservative religious of this area.

[Garden guy]

i know several banks in the area get huge breaks on all kinds of stuff. How about charging the NFL a fee just for being here. Lets say 10 million a year...that's just a tip for many of the players..how about the fact that our school board sits on some of the most expensive properly in the city...they should be in a strip mall somewhere. The idea that the city would pay for some company to mow grass is ridiculous with the amount of youth in trouble today. I see kids going to jail and they are out the next day doing the same thing and nothing for them to do. I"m also a supporter of the idea that when a child goes to a public school the parents either do work at each child's school for at least 10 hrs a month. If not they get fined. Why does this city not have a national maritime school here...we have such a beautiful river and it's just ignored...a few tall ships downtown at all times would be beautiful and brings some positive attention to this city..there are lots of ideas out here...some crazy some not...but unless we put it out here...we are doomed to sit and let others determin our history.

[civil42806]

i know several banks in the area get huge breaks on all kinds of stuff. How about charging the NFL a fee just for being here. Lets say 10 million a year...that's just a tip for many of the players..how about the fact that our school board sits on some of the most expensive properly in the city...they should be in a strip mall somewhere. The idea that the city would pay for some company to mow grass is ridiculous with the amount of youth in trouble today. I see kids going to jail and they are out the next day doing the same thing and nothing for them to do. I"m also a supporter of the idea that when a child goes to a public school the parents either do work at each child's school for at least 10 hrs a month. If not they get fined. Why does this city not have a national maritime school here...we have such a beautiful river and it's just ignored...a few tall ships downtown at all times would be beautiful and brings some positive attention to this city..there are lots of ideas out here...some crazy some not...but unless we put it out here...we are doomed to sit and let others determin our history.

indentured servitude is illegal I believe

[fsujax]

oh here we go again! its all FBC fault!

[fieldafm]

How about charging the NFL a fee just for being here. Lets say 10 million a year

Taxing a large business that is struggling to compete financially in this market for the 'priveledge' of struggling in Jacksonville?
Wouldn't a more logical approach involve accurately understanding the challenges and opportunities said business creates, and partner with said business in a way that creates a positive symbiotic relationship for the community as a whole?

I say we tax any large corporation that does'nt locate downtown.

Yes, Fortune 500/1000 companies cannot wait to relocate to a place that wants to tax the hell out of them.
Wouldn't a more logical approach be to make impact fees more accurately the 'impact' of development, and make downtown actually WORTH the cost to be located in?

I see kids going to jail and they are out the next day doing the same thing and nothing for them to do.

So, juvenile chain gains are the solution?
You should go downtown more often.  Inmates currently pick up trash along the riverwalk, maintain flower beds along the riverwalk, and also do set up/break down work for events at the Landing.  Inmates also pick up trash along state roadways as well.  If you haven't noticed in the last year, mowing grass has been an item drastically reduced in the city budget.

I"m also a supporter of the idea that when a child goes to a public school the parents either do work at each child's school for at least 10 hrs a month. If not they get fined.

Penalizing a single mom that works two jobs?
Why not create INCENTIVES for parents to become more actively involved in their schools?  Penalizing single parents, or parents with multiple jobs isn't the answer.

I guess Im the type of person that believes incentives, not necessarily penalties create the results desired.  I mean, those parking meters are working out great for downtown aren't they?

[tayana42]

My hat's off to the Metro Jax team for another inspiring article.  It's hard for the layman like me to judge these suggestions but they do seem compelling.  The hope lies in electing a new Mayor who will consider these ideas.

[fieldafm]

The hope lies in electing a new Mayor who will consider these ideas.

+1

[Garden guy]

Much of our taxes are waisted on the mindless processes that government has put upon itself. A simple decision takes months because everyone needs to have thier ass kissed and validated. Many of our city governments are ran on an 19th century way of running things...aka the good ole boy system that is so prevalent. We have all seen the waist and loss and the ass kissing and back slapping. We've all seen contracts handed out to family memebers and friends of this person or that person in payment for whatever. This is a small town and news spreads like fire here. They all thing they are hiding truthes but that can't happen here. We've probably grown too much too fast..who knows?
     Our urban center is a ghost and unless something really cool happens soon we are all in the shit. I personally would love to live in an area downtown that was pedestrian only...I've seen many cities do this and it seems to creat an area of blossom for many businesses. I also thought about  a new fee!!!!...how about a fee to all large corporations that don't locate downtown..lol..I'm just sick of seeing the income of some of the executives of some of the big corp boys...it really is stupid what they make...if a company can pay them that then they can pay a hefty fee for not locating your company in our downtown...boy that'd piss somebody off..ok..well you guys have a great day..i've got some yard work to get done before the rain..

[ChriswUfGator]

I'm disappointed to see the convention center on this list, when so many other more worthwhile issues need to be addressed first, like getting rid of one-way streets, and skyway connectivity. A convention center would do absolutely nothing for development downtown, and given the state of the rest of downtown, is guaranteed to fail in attracting any new business. This particular pie-in-the-sky is well past its sell-by date, we've been chasing this for 60 years, with only a series of ever-greater failures to show for it. Why, then, are we not learning that the solution cannot be to spend even more money on the same thing this time? If that was the issue, why hasn't it worked so far?

As we debated extensively in the other thread, 3/4th's of all conventions are small enough to fit in our existing convention center, and despite this it is nevertheless a total failure with a whopping 4 small annual events. Why? Because the building doesn't matter, that's not what attracts people. A building isn't why convention-goers travel to Orlando, Las Vegas, San Diego, etc., instead of Jacksonville. The issue that we cannot overcome, regardless of how much we spend on a building, is that people want something to do when they get there.

As I said before, wasting money on a convention center in downtown Jacksonville without spending a decade first addressing the actual problems is like blowing your entire car-repair budget on a $10k stereo without first fixing the engine. Nobody is going to ride in a broken car, no matter how nice the stereo is.

This marks the first time I have ever seen MetroJacksonville susbscribe to one of these pie-in-the-sky city-beautiful / revitalization boondoggles that never work out, and which are only ever floated because professors teaching planning courses continue to claim this type of project is a successful stimulant based on data that stops in the 1980s. And San Diego was actually the exact opposite of what your inclusion of that city as an example would imply, because they got the convention business quite by accident (the founder of ComiCon moved there from Detroit for personal reasons) before they ever built their convention center. That success had nothing whatsoever to do with building a building, and architecture cannot replicate what occurred there. Accordingly, the use of San Diego is a false comparison.

[ChriswUfGator]

And just to follow up on one point, if the real motivation behind this convention center is to free up the Terminal for the return of passenger rail, then that is a worthwhile project. I just lament that we have to grease everyone's palms with another taxpayer-funded boondoggle in order to achieve that relatively simple objective. Why can't we simply restore the terminal to passenger use without wasting a ton of money and valuable riverfront property on a convention center that is an unavoidable failure before the first spade of dirt is turned?

[I-10east]

^^^I've read your other posts on that other thread concerning Jax getting a new Convention Center. I admit, at first I was more in the "pro convention center crowd", but after reading your posts, you actually swayed my thinking against building a Convention Center. You brought up tons of valid points concerning to Convention business, and far as I'm concerned the CONS outweight the PROS. That 'pie in the sky' and 'build it and they will come' mentality concerning every urban problem is what's really gonna sink DT Jax into an oblivion even furthermore; I actually think that there's also alot of false hope with alot of aspects of fixed transit too, but I'm not gonna even go there today.