Courthouse Asphalt or Green Space: The Choice Is Yours?

[fsujax]

^^maybe they are working on that and ArtWalk was just a first step.

[fsujax]

back to the courthouse issue. Who is proposing this six-lane road....is it coming from the design team, Mayor's office, Public works or traffic engineering? Hopefully Ron Barton can squash this insane idea!

[urbaknight]

C'mon now, we all know the city's priority has always been roads for cars; and if they have their way, we will get the street and some grotesque afterthought of a lawn. Pedestrians and their needs will continue to be ignored, unless we demand a quality public square.

I must say that I am against eateries in that space and here's why. In government buildings there is a program which allows blind vendors to operate a snack bar, or in some cases, there are whole cafeterias. Any eatery would take business away from those vendors therefore, I can not support that part of the idea.

And instead of surface parking lots to the south and west, there should be skyscrapers, more skyscrapers, lots more skyscrapers!

[Ocklawaha]

   OCKLAWAHA   

[fsujax]

Ock I like the streetcar one better!

[stjr]

Is it just me or is it silly that we're even having to debate this?  I'm definitely ALL FOR a public plaza, but I would have been somewhat more at ease if there had been an official plan all along, even if it called for closing roads and building new roads etc.  It's so silly, borderline juvenile, that here we are just free floating ideas around when there should have been a more rigid plan.

I also think the whole courthouse situation is so bad that it's funny.  My mom called me the other day and brought this up, saying that they don't know what to do with the front of the courthouse (road or plaza).  She usually is not fully up to speed on these things, so i thought it was cool she even knew there was a debate going on.

What did I have to say about it?  Well, first of all, it's funny that we picked a design that covered 7 city blocks in the first place.  The design was "beautifulish" for its 7 city blocks, but it was surprising we didn't pick the local team.  Then we found out it exceeded the budget by like $50 million, which was about $195 million in the first place.  Then we cancelled it, and didn't go back to any of the other competing designs, one of which was by our local firm.  We waited a million years as real estate and construction prices skyrocketed, then at the worst possible moment we literally had a 4 year old draw the current courthouse, covering 4 city blocks, still, and well over $150 million over the original budget.  No planning there.

This has got to be one of the worst all time city mistakes in the country.  Literally, if we had just stuck with an original plan, city blocks would have been covered, but it would have cost us taxpayers less, would have been much easier on the eyes, and we could have always figured out how to reroute cars and work in public space (oh wait, all the original plans DID call for public space, which is part of the reason they took up so much space).

I can't believe that we are literally "building" this ugly thing as we go along and roads and greenspace have become an afterthought.

Simms, you hit the nail on the head.  As I have stated repeatedly, this courthouse should have been an urban high rise like the Feds built for less than 1/4 the price.  7 blocks is "stupid is as stupid does" Forest Gump planning and our City leaders should be vilified for approving this design that will kill quality urban planning for a big chunk of downtown for generations.  I said before that Peyton will be more remembered for this incredibly poor (and ugly!) choice of designs than for the cost overruns of the building and it will become his biggest folly.  Unfortunately, he follows a long series of City decision makers that manage to make all the wrong choices at the many road forks they are presented with when it comes to downtown projects.  It all adds up to the life-supported downtown we have today.

That we are just now trying to figure out what to do with a major downtown street, once designated as the "gateway" to downtown by another failed City project, La Villa, shows BOTH how little competent thought and planning went into this whole fiasco AND highlights the emptiness of the "justification" for the La Villa project for which, clearly, we see, no one was really committed to over the long haul.  It's more disposable City visions and promises.  And, we wonder why suburbanites are reluctant supporters of downtown investments?

If the grid system was a priority, this courthouse design should not have been chosen.  Plain and simple.  If the grid system is not a priority, then abandoning the Monroe Street connection should not be a problem.  Plain and simple.  Since the design already is done, eliminating the extension is a no-brainer at this point.  Two downtown streets side by side and only a few feet apart, one being a "long way around" is foolish and will just further highlight the idiot designers planning our City projects.  The taxpayers should demand these "professionals"  refund their fees and pay damages to cover the mitigation of their "mistakes" and "professional ineptitude".

[Non-RedNeck Westsider]

I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around this one as well.  Forgetting to choose a wall color in a judge's private quarters is an oversight.  Forgetting/ignoring a road that will define the overall look of the project??  I've done quite a few build/design (yeah, I meant it that way) projects, but can't grasp that they left this 'issue' hangin' out in the wind.

[Ocklawaha]

WANT TO REALLY GET SICK?

Now at least it might be easier for these antediluvian Neanderthal's comprehend a solution that is at least Cro-Magnon in it's cerebrum properties.



Ladies and Gentlemen of the Jury, I give you JAX-THINK.

OCKLAWAHA

[Ocklawaha]

Ock I like the streetcar one better!

Actually it was Mr. Dare that suggested a uranium mine...

OCKLAWAHA

[fieldafm]

In a semi related note, anybody know anything about the 'entrance monuments' that should be on either end of The Shoppes of Avondale?  They were in the plans, but they haven't been put up.  San Marco, for example, has the tower on the north end and the sign on the south.

I've been wondering that same thing, since the 'completion' of the town center improvements.  Also, where is the extra streetside parking along St Johns towards Boone Park?

RAP has a social on Sunday @ Biscottis.  I plan on asking these questions then.

[Lunican]

I think the obvious Jacksonville solution is a Monroe Street Flyover.

[Ocklawaha]

The flyover will go nicely with the LRT line in the back on D U V A L !


OCKLAWAHA

[fsujax]

Lunican dont give them any ideas like that! it might just happen.

[Captain Zissou]

Careful Lunican.  Don't give them any ideas.

[duvaldude08]

It seems as if JEDC has woken up here lately.  Once we get some new leadership in, there may be a dramatic change ahead for the "Bold New City of the South" LOL