Current Courthouse

[tufsu1]

Half of the Downtown Redevelopment Board resigned when the Union Terminal Site was chosen, in fact.  ( Believe that was 1982)

yes...because they believed correctly that the Omni location was far better....that said, we all know that moving the center to the Terminal saved the building.....which now gives us the opportunity to return it to its original use.

[tufsu1]

during the heyday of conventions...in the 1940s....who cares?

we live in a very different world now and the convention industry is totally different.

How about you just show everyone how smart you are and tell us

[ChriswUfGator]

I do not know where the convention center was in 1960....nor for that matter do I really care....a lot has changed in 50 years and we need to be looking forward 50 more.

In the 1960s or 1970s, Philly built a convention center next to UPenn and the existing arena....then the Warriors moved to California, along came the Spectrum, and the Sixers/Flyers moved to the new arena.  

In 1994, the City (with significant cash from the state) built a new convention center downtown....the industry exploded, Philly got lots of new hotels and dining/entertainment establishments, and then the 2000 RNC convention.

Wow...Philly's success sounds an awful lot like Jacksonville in the 1940s and 50s, doesn't it? What happened Tufsu?

[stjr]

I recall most events, conventions and/or associations meeting in Jax taking place in the old exhibit hall attached to the Times Union Center (that wing was torn down and replaced with the Jax Symphony's concert hall which by the way was mostly paid for with private dollars from symphony supporters), the Coliseum, hotel ballrooms (Robert Meyer, George Washington, Thunderbird Hotel in Arlington, Sea Turtle Inn, etc.), and even the armory.

[futurejax]

during the heyday of conventions...in the 1940s....who cares?

we live in a very different world now and the convention industry is totally different.

How about you just show everyone how smart you are and tell us

There wasnt one.

What do you think should be done with the land?

[Wacca Pilatka]

Half of the Downtown Redevelopment Board resigned when the Union Terminal Site was chosen, in fact.  ( Believe that was 1982)

It was 1982.  Isn't that also when the Holiday Inn (former Robert Meyer) closed with the final straw for it having been the convention center decision?

[fieldafm]

Half of the Downtown Redevelopment Board resigned when the Union Terminal Site was chosen, in fact.  ( Believe that was 1982)

It was 1982.  Isn't that also when the Holiday Inn (former Robert Meyer) closed with the final straw for it having been the convention center decision?

Yes, Haskell pulled out of Holiday Inn City Center when he and the DT merchants essentially lost the power struggle.  Mind you, there was considerable community outcry at the time to restore the Jax Terminal.  It's amazing to think the kind of community activism for restoration... when you compare that to the current climate(read apathy/indifference) for restoration of prominent historical structures.

[fieldafm]

Which side?  Haskell and the merchants pushing for a central location for the CC... or the activism engaged in restoring Jax Terminal after the huge fire?

[fieldafm]

Yeah, I'll try to write some more details of it possibly tomorrow.  I'm at work today and all of my literature/notes on the subject are at home... don't want to misquote anything.  And since its my bday today, Im sure that after JU basketball and Dos Gatos I won't be in much shape to write out accurate historical accounts of the great power struggle of the Godbold years tonight, lol.

I've mentioned some names here from time to time, especially in some of the Landing and Convention Center threads.  There were some very key people that brought certain investors into downtown, and ultimately that group won out over Haskell et al.  While preservation of a grand building was accomplished, the merchants and hotelliers of the time got screwed.  It was probably the final nail in the coffin of downtown retail.  The Landing was just as much centerpiece as it was appeasement.

The fact that Mr Haskell is discussing(and will be presenting on soon) this very issue now, 30 some odd years later lends me to believe we should REALLY listen to him finally.  

[fieldafm]

Thanks, one of these years I'll catch up to your stature!

Nice Nietzsche referance btw    You're making my (now)old mind think about philisophy classes again, lol

[Wacca Pilatka]

I'm certain I don't know anywhere near as much as Fieldafm on this, but James Crooks' book on Jacksonville after consolidation has some detail on this situation.  As I understand it, a group of developers, I believe led by a Steve Jordan, bought the terminal, held various one-night festivals there, and then promoted the idea of putting a convention center there.  Meanwhile, public-private partnerships in which Haskell was a player were engaged in developing a plan for the Northbank that involved the Charter/Southern Bell building, a hotel, a festival marketplace, and a convention center.  Godbold sided with the terminal group despite Haskell and the merchants' protests, arguing that development would spread westward through LaVilla toward the terminal.  He amplified his support for the Landing, Metro Park, and the Florida Theatre in an effort to appease them.  After the decision for the terminal site, half the downtown development board resigned as Stephen noted, Haskell decided to close the Holiday Inn, and according to Crooks, the manager of the St. James Building May Cohen's for the first time began considering closing his store.

[Wacca Pilatka]

Happy birthday Fieldafm

[tufsu1]

Chris...it is ok to politely disagree on this site...but really, calling my opinions asinine...how does that help anyone?

Note that I didn't bother to debate your assertion that Daytona is far better than Jax...even though that would likely be seen as a stretch by many people.

[fieldafm]

I'm certain I don't know anywhere near as much as Fieldafm on this, but James Crooks' book on Jacksonville after consolidation has some detail on this situation.  As I understand it, a group of developers, I believe led by a Steve Jordan, bought the terminal, held various one-night festivals there, and then promoted the idea of putting a convention center there.  Meanwhile, public-private partnerships in which Haskell was a player were engaged in developing a plan for the Northbank that involved the Charter/Southern Bell building, a hotel, a festival marketplace, and a convention center.  Godbold sided with the terminal group despite Haskell and the merchants' protests, arguing that development would spread westward through LaVilla toward the terminal.  He amplified his support for the Landing, Metro Park, and the Florida Theatre in an effort to appease them.  After the decision for the terminal site, half the downtown development board resigned as Stephen noted, Haskell decided to close the Holiday Inn, and according to Crooks, the manager of the St. James Building May Cohen's for the first time began considering closing his store.

Pretty good WP... and Crooks' book is very good for those who haven't read it.  There were several key names and investors that brought this all to a forefront(a major player of the Prime Osborn CC was also a major player with Rouse's involvement DT). 

Not only did it signal Cohen's demise DT, but also Sears.  They were furious at the situation.  And, if you were arond back then... the DT Sears store was for quite awhile one of the top performing stores in their nationwide portfolio.  It literally had EVERYTHING you needed for anything in life.  I have some pictures of those old parties I'll have to find(I was too young to attend mind you, but some family members had a racous time at those events) and post.

[ChriswUfGator]

I recall most events, conventions and/or associations meeting in Jax taking place in the old exhibit hall attached to the Times Union Center (that wing was torn down and replaced with the Jax Symphony's concert hall which by the way was mostly paid for with private dollars from symphony supporters), the Coliseum, hotel ballrooms (Robert Meyer, George Washington, Thunderbird Hotel in Arlington, Sea Turtle Inn, etc.), and even the armory.

Thats exactly correct, STJR.

Chris has a fascinating take on the convention center's business history (after some pretty commendable research) that I hope that he will publish shortly on here.

His points and the facts supporting them should be seriously considered by anyone interested in the subject.  I happen to wholly concur with his conclusions, which caused me to rethink the entire subject myself.

Well yes, if you look back it's not hard to see how we went from having a quarter million convention visitors annually to almost zero. Ironically, its because we started building convention centers. We had a booming convention business until our local government started engaging in competition with private business and succeeded in ruining the whole thing. So of course now Tufsu's solution is naturally to build an even bigger one.

From the turn of the 20th century forward, Jacksonville's chamber of commerce and hotel owners had successfully fostered the growth of the convention business, with the events being hosted and marketed to the convention planners as convenient packages that included lodging, food, entertainment, and also the space and staffing. When there was an event large enough to create overflow, the private market handled it through cooperation between the convention booking departments at the downtown hotels, and they would get together to provide whatever amount of space and accommodation was needed. It was a conventioneer's dream, all you had to do was make a phone call and a bunch of 5 star hotels took care of everything for you.

So what happened? Well, first, Jacksonville Beach commissioned a study on how to generate visitor growth, which resulted in the construction of the Jacksonville Beach Convention Center. The game plan, in summary, was that downtown Jacksonville had a booming convention business that brought in 200k+ direct convention visitors and another couple hundred thousand indirect visitors (wives, children, family, friends, etc, of visitors, plus presenters, etc.) and Jacksonville Beach was quite literally going to steal that business.

COJ responded by designing the planned original Memorial Coliseum as "flex space" where half the building's purpose was a performance venue, and the other half (accomplished through removable stages, the incorporation of an underlying convention floor, and retractable seating) of its purpose was that it would serve as the convention center. Both the JAX beach and Coliseum structures were completed, and the two cities began competing ferociously against each other for the business that had formerly belonged to private industry.

The decline of the large downtown hotels, which has been previously covered on this site, really happened because of two factors. The first body blow was Haydon Burns' decision to "beautify" downtown by removing everything ugly, notwithstanding the fact that those things were what actually employed people and provided the economic underpinnings of the city. But the hotels largely survived this, because they had a strong revenue stream from the convention business.

However with the opening of the Jacksonville Beach Convention Center and the Coliseum, and with both respective city governments now directly competing with private business by offering rates lower than what could be profitable privately, the last remaining source of profit for the downtown hotels was taken away.

Now you'd think, at least initially that there would be a natural synergy here, as the hotels would still get paying guests in town for convention, right? Wrong. Our city government brought about the construction of an expressway bridge right from the front door of the Coliseum to newly-constructed low-service or no-service motels in Arlington which, thanks to the taxpayer-subsidized expressway that took people straight from the front door of the coliseum to the Arlington hotels, they were able to significantly undercut the downtown hotels' competitive advantage and take the business. And Jacksonville beach is so far out there that whatever convention business was attracted there necessarily meant the visitors stayed out there too. That was, after all, the whole plan; To steal that business, not to cooperate.

This was phase 2 (and final) of the destruction of the downtown hotels. First we took away most the business travelers by running most of the industries out of downtown and off to other parts of the city. The hotels were still surviving, however, on the convention business, until two local governments got into a battle between themselves over who could steal that last remaining revenue source first.

Ultimately, it put the hotels out of business and this in turn wound up killing the convention business that the city had stolen, because there was no longer enough hotel space for the larger events. Large events were forced to go elsewhere, other cities then became fashionable and took away the smaller events too. The Arlington hotels were demolished, following the double whammy of I-95 and the loss convention visitors, as was the Jacksonville Beach Convention Center (after its operating costs nearly threw the City of Jacksonville Beach into bankruptcy) and the Coliseum was replaced by a building whose purpose is primarily a performance venue.

The whole thing was an epic failure. We were the top convention city in the southeast, and all we had to was LEAVE IT ALONE. Instead, government began building these silly convention centers and competing with private business. Of course, some people apparently still don't recognize what a dumbass idea that is, because if the city government wins the competitive advantage (which isn't hard to do, since they're funded by tax dollars and don't have to make a profit) then...guess what...it still loses when the private go under and leave a desolate downtown with a devastated tax base behind.

Of course, when all this was taking place, the Thundertards (many of which are still in power downtown) determined the best solution was to have an even more expensive dedicated convention center, regardless of the fact that we no longer had any real convention business, nor any hotels for people to stay in if we did, nor anything for them to do downtown once they got here. "Build it and they will come!" my ass. The remote location of this new convention center succeeded in killing off the final remaining original hotel downtown, the Robert Myer.

And of course Tufsu's solution, following this history, is let's build an even bigger one! What, like the problem with the previous disaster was that they simply weren't big and expensive enough? LMAO. The problem is that we never should have gotten into that business to begin with, and we shouldn't be in it now. This isn't just a building we're talking about, it's a business. One in which the least of our competitive problems is the building.