Five Drastic Steps To Revive Downtown Jacksonville

[ChriswUfGator]

Lake, come on, you're completely ignoring the lessons you wrote about in your article in the Urban Issues section;

http://www.metrojacksonville.com/article/2011-jan-downtown-revitalization-a-broken-record

Let's review some of the quotes from your other article, and see if anything sounds eerily familiar...

The convention center is expected to spawn a hotel, perhaps a couple of hotels, restaurants and related development near the now-deserted banks of McCoys Creek.

FTU Downtown: Development plans will expand the city core to several new areas 3/26/83

Hmm, why does that say 1983 on it? Must be a mistake, I thought this was 2011? Oh, and here's a real gem;

Downtown is headed for a "complete turnaround."  Projects like the convention center and the Jacksonville Landing would bring more people to the area and that would bring back the big-name merchants.  In the next two to five years you're going to see downtown just absolutely explode.

Larry Hazouri - Downtown Merchant's Associates President 10/2/86

Wow, I guess downtown did completely explode. In the literal sense. Now we have a lot of great vacant lots.

But, really, let's all read and understand the lessons inherent in those 20 year-old quotes. Fact is, they clearly understood the concepts of clustering complementing uses around the center, but that didn't actually work out did it? Why? Because there is never going to be enough convention business here to stimulate any real development, regardless of how nice our convention center is, until we have enough urban vibrancy to attract visitors. Which, at this point, would take a decade even if we went in TODAY and remedied the items we agree have caused the decline of downtown. Until then, the building is the least of our problems. Nobody wants to hang out in a dead former city with nothing to do.

This building is a waste of money. All of the things being promised now are the very same things that were all promised 20 years ago. And then again 20 years before that. They never materialize. It's easy to say the issue with the Prime Osborn is that it is located in a desolate/deserted area of downtown, but that's 20/20 hindsight, as the area only became that way AFTER the current convention center located there. At the time, it was a fully developed commercial / light industrial area.

Despite the alleged miracle tonic of the convention center, the surrounding areas all eventually failed and/or were demolished for asinine policy reasons or plans for other asinine pies-in-the-sky. It is now surrounded by nothing but vacant lots.

So doesn't it strike you, reading those quotes, that all the same tired old bullshit is being regurgitated again?

I would really recommend that the next time you look into a historical study of events in Jacksonville, also look at the location of where things took place.  Take advantage of the old city directories, sanborn maps and newspaper clippings from the vertical files of the library's special collections department.  We can expose a ton of different issues, events and conclusions to those events but one thing centrally relates to all of them.  No matter how you spin it, downtown flourished because it was a compact pedestrian friendly zone where a number of organic uses feed off of each other.  This connectivity, not the transportation, maritime, convention center, retail, stadiums, aquariums, green space, affordable housing, etc. concepts is the central theme that every individual use must play its role in the ultimate creation of a vibrant urban district.  

Now take a look at the quotes you copied and ask yourself if any attempt to connect these projects with surrounding complementing uses at a pedestrian level scale was considered and implemented.  So moving forward, try to attempt to keep the concept of connectivity as a main design priority for whatever is pushed within the urban environment.  Now, I'll go back and reply in more detail to your earlier comment this morning.

Yeah, you get an A for effort, but no cigar. There's a whole colony of cockroaches in your ointment on that post, because this wasn't some mysterious hypothetical situation that nobody knows about. The convention center they were referencing in those quotes did wind up getting built, in the McCoy's creek area just like the quotes reference, and it's the very same failed existing convention center we still have now. And considering I drive by it about 3 times a week, I guess I must be extra-unfamiliar with where it is.

So, back on earth, this thing was actually built. As of 2011, it has been in operation for a solid 25 years now. So having just reviewed the chatter and quotes from local officials making the same promises of fairy dust and magic development wands that were made about the current convention center, including how it will spawn a clustering develop-splosion, I will ask you a second time; Doesn't this all sound strangely similar?

I'll give you that people in the 80s were severely car-culture oriented, and pedestrian considerations were probably the farthest thing from anyone's mind. But then I don't think that factor by itself would make or break a convention center project anyway. Most of the successful convention centers in the country aren't walkable, look at Orlando's way out off I-Drive. There's a lot more to that business than juzt a building. Or a sidewalk.

[thelakelander]

Well, I'm certainly not trying to put words in anyone's mouth, I was just going based on the front page of MetroJacksonville, which you'll note is presently carrying a headline article written by you and entitled "Five Steps to Revive Downtown Jacksonville." Now, when one reads this article, they will immediately note that one of the 5 main bullet-points is "Build a Riverfront Convention Center."

Well before we go any further, let's actually hold hands and read through the text that follows this title in this particular article to truly comprehend what it states.

Beginning text in article (article text in blue)

Desperate times call for desperate measures. While there is no single silver bullet project that will solve all of downtown's ills, here are five major initiatives worth considering.

This would imply that no one individual project can revive downtown.  However, here is a list of five things worth considering to move us forward in our efforts.  Since you have an issue with the convention center showing up on this list, let's just skip right to it.

5. BUILD A RIVERFRONT CONVENTION CENTER


The San Diego Convention Center anchors the waterfront and the vibrant Gaslamp District.

One thing that every vibrant American downtown has is pedestrian oriented connectivity. That's one of the major things downtown Jacksonville lacks. While it is certainly debatable that a larger convention center will spur growth in the local convention industry, the positive impact of a center anchoring the heart of the Northbank is not. San Diego's experience suggests that a well placed convention center does have the ability to anchor a vibrant urban setting.

This opening statement sets the tone that pedestrian oriented connectivity is the key here.  It even agrees with your view that the true merits of the convention industry are debatable.  Let's move forward to the next set of text written under this topic.



In 1989, the long-awaited San Diego Convention Center opened its doors for business, the first in a series of infrastructure improvements that would transform San Diego's once neglected waterfront into the sophisticated urban mecca it is today.
Source: http://www.sandiego.org/nav/Media/AboutConVis/HistoryofCONVIS

This image illustrates what sits directly across the street from the front door of the San Diego Convention Center.  Like a mall, synergy at the pedestrian level can be created when you place complementing uses directly adjacent to one another.  Let's move to the next line of text in this section of the article.



In addition, getting the convention center out of the LaVilla allows the old terminal to be converted back into its original use. That's a use that could easily rise to the top of this list itself.

This brief statement suggests that getting the center out of the Prime Osborn allows for the old terminal to be used as a transportation center.  It also indicates that a transportation center can be a drastic step to help revive downtown as well.

Now that we have put what was actually said in this article within its context, let's take a look at the rest of your comments in this post.

This entire debate has really flowed forth from that assertion in that article, both explicit and implied, that building a convention center would do anything to revitalize downtown, despite having nothing to do with the factors behind downtown's ongoing decline. Isn't it somewhat counterproductive to prescribe a solution that we know doesn't address the problem? I've never heard of a knee replacement surgery fixing an inner ear problem, have you?

The assertion in the article implies that the relocation of the convention center could help begin to reestablish pedestrian level connectivity and synergy within the core of downtown. Connectivity is the core of what a downtown needs to be vibrant.  This is what it had and had ripped apart.  Its also what has been missing in all the redevelopment gimmicks over the last 30 years.  Connectivity is a central factor and getting better placement out of our existing assets (even a convention center) is a form of helping restore urban vibrancy.

I am not understanding why this money would not be better spent addressing the actual problems downtown, which have nothing to do with a convention center. I think your strongest argument is that freeing up the terminal building for relocating passenger rail back downtown. But then it dawned on me that your article and position have seemingly excluded the option of reopening the rail terminal without being required to build an expensive new convention center somewhere else, which is in reality probably our best option.

At this point its highly debatable if what you suggest (complete abandonment) is the best option in the long run.  Its been asked a couple of times to cite a good example of a major central city without a viable exhibition hall.  To make the argument you're pushing, I think you're going to have to provide at least one logical example that can be evaluated.  With that said, nowhere in this article does it imply that the five things mentioned are the only things worth considering to revitalize downtown.  If you want to write a guest article highlight more, feel free.  We actively encourage this.

If the real concern is that the very same clown circus (Pappas, Diamond, Haskell, etc.) that originally blew up downtown Jacksonville by demanding a neverending series of nest-feathering boondoggles is not going to go along with the rail project unless we sacrifice another several hundred million taxpayers dollars to another boondoggle that's designed, built, and profited upon by them, then we really should take steps to address that problem separately in a logical way.

Wow, I don't know how you've come to this conclusion from the text displayed in this article but I can assure you, this assertion only rest and has been cooked up in your head.  Hopefully, me explaining the reasoning behind what I originally wrote helps shed some light on the intent of the actual article.

[thelakelander]

Yeah, you get an A for effort, but no cigar. There's a whole colony of cockroaches in your ointment on that post, because this wasn't some mysterious hypothetical situation that nobody knows about. The convention center they were referencing in those quotes did wind up getting built, in the McCoy's creek area just like the quotes reference, and it's the very same failed existing convention center we still have now. And considering I drive by it about 3 times a week, I guess I must be extra-unfamiliar with where it is.

You are an attorney, so this idea of connectivity may be hard to grasp (educational differences) but the current center is a mile from everything else.  In what vibrant downtown you know of where pedestrian scale connectivity isn't needed for an active street life?

So, back on earth, this thing was actually built. As of 2011, it has been in operation for a solid 25 years now. So having just reviewed the chatter and quotes from local officials making the same promises of fairy dust and magic development wands that were made about the current convention center, including how it will spawn a clustering develop-splosion, I will ask you a second time; Doesn't this all sound strangely similar?

You're still missing the main concept.  The main concept isn't a convention center box.  Its placing complementing uses immediately adjacent to each other and designing them in a manner that breeds walkability.   A convention center hotel (existing), a dining/retail marketplace (existing), entertainment district (existing) and an exhibition hall (existing but a mile away from everything else) are complementing uses.  If you want these things to organically feed off each other, try actually grouping them together. 

I'll give you that people in the 80s were severely car-culture oriented, and pedestrian considerations were probably the farthest thing from anyone's mind. But then I don't think that factor by itself would make or break a convention center project anyway. Most of the successful convention centers in the country aren't walkable, look at Orlando's way out off I-Drive. There's a lot more to that business than juzt a building. Or a sidewalk.

I-Drive is way more walkable than downtown Jacksonville.  It may have a suburban design, but it does have hotels attached to the convention center and an assortment of retail and dining options in close proximity.

[BridgeTroll]

Were there any Hotels where convention goers might stay?

[ChriswUfGator]

Lake, in response to your posts, Beirut is more walkable than Downtown Jacksonville, you got me there...

But I don't follow how a new convention center is going to fix that? Why exactly would we need to build a new convention center to promote downtown walkability? I still can't figure out why that artificial knee won't fix my ear problem, either. Why would we need a convention center to bring passenger rail back downtown? Why would we need a convention center to promote walkability? These are totally separate initiatives that can be implemented with or without the others.

Your industry, locally, is artificially tying all of these unrelated things together into some pre-determined and unnecessary package, when we could just as easily cherry pick the good and necessary focus points out of the package and decline to spend money on the silly ones. I don't understand why these things are somehow required to be lumped into some package deal to build an expensive convention center to promote walkability or passenger rail?

I think the fact that I'm NOT a planner/architect is probably what makes this so clear for me. These are all really separate issues, that for whatever reason have been pre-packaged for the public into a silly conglomeration that doesn't naturally fit together, when each individual initiative could just as well be considered and implemented separately. What possible reason would there be why we can't start promoting walkability or passenger rail at the terminal without building a new convention center 2 miles away down Bay Street? How are any of those things really requirements for doing any of the others?

These are really totally unconnected things, Lake, that are getting lumped together for no good reason that my layman non-planner mind can get itself around. Of course, I suppose I should listen to the same group or 3 or 4 expert planners, architects, and contractors that are suggesting this new convention center, as after all, haven't the exact same handful of people behind this idea done such a great job with the existing convention center? They also did such a great job with downtown revitalization, didn't they? I can't imagine why anyone would be the least bit hesitant to throw open arms around the latest proposal out of that clown circus.

[thelakelander]

There were none.  To compare the Prime Osborn location in the 1980s and the courthouse site location of today is apples and oranges.  That immediate area of LaVilla had a little building density but the majority of it was industrial.  Thus, by placing a convention center in the middle of an industrial district you're down to hoping that it would spur the complementing development by itself or you're planning to subsidize the rest of it, since there was no viable market at the time.  In other words, such a plan chases after fool's gold because there are too many "what if and when" steps.  

In this particular case, the complementing development is already in place but could use an economic boost.  By simple placing the events that are at the Prime Osborn now, into the core, you immediately add extra thousands of people to those empty sidewalks lining our struggling and vacant retail spaces.  By generating the additional foot traffic, you organically create an environment where the core enjoys more life and energy, which creates additional economic opportunities for small businesses within the heart of downtown.  With that said, will placing a convention center box adjacent to Bay Street and the Landing spur massive infill development (which was foolishly expected at the Prime Osborn site)?  Probably not.  However, it would help support the concept of Bay Street as an entertainment district and the Landing by providing the additional foot traffic that makes it feasible to fill up the existing empty storefronts between our currently open, but struggling ones.

[thelakelander]

Lake, in response to your posts, Beirut is more walkable than Downtown Jacksonville, you got me there...

But I don't follow how a new convention center is going to fix that? Why exactly would we need to build a new convention center to promote downtown walkability?

You don't.  Never claimed that you had too.  But to say that a well placed pedestrian scaled facility in close proximity to complementing uses won't promote walkability just isn't true.

I still can't figure out why that artificial knee won't fix my ear problem, either. Why would we need a convention center to bring passenger rail back downtown?

You don't. You could go with JTA's plan.  It's just not smart investment to spend $170 million on a transportation center that forces a rail rider to walk four blocks to transfer to a bus or the skyway.  That option gets you a failed convention center and transportation center.

Why would we need a convention center to promote walkability? These are totally separate initiatives that can be implemented with or without the others.

You don't.  However, we're already in the game.  We already have a convention center and events taking place in it.  Small businesses in the core don't get the benefit of those attending these events walking past their front door because the site is so isolated.  Assuming we're not outright closing the Prime Osborn, our two realistic choices of moving forward are keeping the CC at the terminal or relocating it.  Keeping it at the terminal hurts the transportation center concept and doesn't solve the CC's connectivity problems.  Relocating offers you a chance to correct several mistakes on multiple levels.

Your industry, locally, is artificially tying all of these unrelated things together into some pre-determined and unnecessary package, when we could just as easily cherry pick the good and necessary focus points out of the package and decline to spend money on the silly ones. I don't understand why these things are somehow required to be lumped into some package deal to build an expensive convention center to promote walkability or passenger rail?

Its not my industry.  Its politics.  There are people from all of our industries involved in why Jacksonville is what it is today.

I think the fact that I'm NOT a planner/architect is probably what makes this so clear for me. These are all really separate issues, that for whatever reason have been pre-packaged for the public into a silly conglomeration that doesn't naturally fit together, when each individual initiative could just as well be considered and implemented separately.

They are separate issues.  However, they all combine to create the environment that we call downtown today.  Thus, we have to plan and look at these issues from a birds eye view as well.

What possible reason would there be why we can't start promoting walkability or passenger rail at the terminal without building a new convention center 2 miles away down Bay Street? How are any of those things really requirements for doing any of the others?

We can bring Amtrak back to the terminal pretty quick, if it we're a higher priority.  However, if we want a workable viable transportation center, the convention center needs to go.  There has been no discussion of getting out the game, so the true choices are stay or relocate.  Out of those, I chose to relocate.  I'd chose this even if we had the option of calling it quits because I don't think that makes sense given the information debated in this thread.

These are really totally unconnected things, Lake, that are getting lumped together for no good reason that my layman non-planner mind can get itself around. Of course, I suppose I should listen to the same group or 3 or 4 expert planners, architects, and contractors that are suggesting this new convention center, as after all, haven't the exact same handful of people behind this idea done such a great job with the existing convention center?

You're still failing to consider the role connectivity plays into this topic and downtown revitalization as a whole.  Until that happens, going back and forth like this is worthless.

They also did such a great job with downtown revitalization, didn't they? I can't imagine why anyone would be the least bit hesitant to throw open arms around the latest proposal out of that clown circus.

Connnectivity.....connectivity.....connectivity.  Once we grasp this concept at a pedestrian scale level and apply it to whatever DT topic is being discussed, we'll struggle.

[Wacca Pilatka]

To be fair, its not accurate to look at what presently surrounds the old Union Terminal building in order to get an idea of density, connectivity or clustering at the time that it was built.

In 1984 that was still an extremely dense area, and it had the added benefit of being a connective corner from LaVilla to Riverside.  

Toward the back of "Old Hickory's Town" there's a picture of the floodlit Union Station, circa 1982 or so, and the amount of density around it is astonishing.  That's a maddening picture to look at today.

Stephen, I'd be fascinated to hear more about the political effects on Clarkson's proposals during the 1980s.  I know I saw as early as 1985 that he had a hotel and office building project on the table near the Prime, and of course he had the late 90s Marriott plan fall through.  Didn't he also propose a downtown Courtyard-type hotel a few years after that?

[BridgeTroll]

Public Arenas, Publicly run concert halls, Stadiums etc are only active part of the time, and while they have great crowds on the days that they are active, they shut down all activity on the days that they arent.  They are like an occasionally turned on 220 outlet into a district without a surge protector.

Designing active use into these buildings is the only real way to make them a continuously sustainable element of a district.

Unless I am mistaken... this is exactly what Lake is proposing.  A convention center that exposes street level merchants along the sidewalks... a walkable full time interactive building with the rest of Bay Street and the Hyatt.

[thelakelander]

Stephen, the Robert Meyer was a mile away from the Prime Osborn.  Its connectivity problems are no different from the one we have today with the Hyatt.  If we really wanted the Prime Osborn to be the convention center site, we should have selected Clarkson's site over the Hyatt.  However, I'm sure politics once again became a higher priority in the site selection process than urban connectivity and clustering.  These things really need to be just as adjacent to each other as they were when we had places like the George Washington.  Litterally, in the same building, next door to each other or within the same block.  

[thelakelander]

Public Arenas, Publicly run concert halls, Stadiums etc are only active part of the time, and while they have great crowds on the days that they are active, they shut down all activity on the days that they arent.  They are like an occasionally turned on 220 outlet into a district without a surge protector.

Designing active use into these buildings is the only real way to make them a continuously sustainable element of a district.

Unless I am mistaken... this is exactly what Lake is proposing.  A convention center that exposes street level merchants along the sidewalks... a walkable full time interactive building with the rest of Bay Street and the Hyatt.

That's exactly what's been discussed since we started this site a few years back, when it comes to this particular issue.  It must be mixed-use if we don't want a huge dead zone in that location when there's no convention in town.  I spoke with Stephen about it last night at Three Layers.  I think we see eye to eye on this particular point of this issue.

[BridgeTroll]

Exactly... No one is looking for a giant square box that simply occupies space 5 days out of the week.

[Lunican]

The convention center discussion really needs to focus on avoiding the most likely course of action for Jacksonville:

The convention center stays where it is (booking 5 shows a year), JTA builds their sprawling transportation ranch around the convention center (adding brand new office space to a market already struggling), then someday a new convention center is built on the JEA southbank site, and then everyone wonders why nothing works. Why aren't people walking from the Hyatt to the Southbank convention center??

[thelakelander]

+1

[pwhitford]

No thanks.  Keep your sprawl on the westside.  We've been bringing it to the core for 40 years now.  People didn't leave for Wal-Mart, Bowling America and Fuddruckers.  Our urban core's decline is much more complex than that.

Let's focus on this issue for a moment.  What was the reason for the exodus of downtown?

[before you answer, my guesses are:  cost of living, cost of visiting, lack of amenities, perception]

And when you answer that (hopefully without a drawn out link) you can answer me, "Why can't we use the same strategies to bring people back downtown?"

1.  The so called 'beautification' of the Haydon Burns Administration.  It ended up destroying the Wharves and closing downtown off to all waterbased commerce, killing off half of the downtown economy. (mid 50s to early 60s)

2.  The illegalization of prostitution in 1953, killed off the bordellos, an important part of the hospitality based hotel economy.

3.  Ed Ball's War on his own Rail Union, ending up in the complete cancellation of Passenger Rail going south.

4.  The closing of the Union Terminal and moving of all passenger trains out of downtown to the Northside.  This destroyed most of the downtown tourism. (1974) This led to the demolition of 13 of the grand hotels downtown.

5 The formation of the DDA which developed a 1979 plan to redevelop Hemming Park as Hemming Plaza which killed off four million square feet of retail in only one year. (1984) This led to the demolition of half of the retail space downtown.

Unfair taxation.  Downtown was taxed like crazy for crazy things.

1  Special Ad Valorem Taxes that taxed the value of everything in a business.  This led to merchants moving all of their expensive merchandise to the suburbs where they wouldnt be taxed, but theoretically could be ordered for customers and driven in for delivery.  This turned all of downtown into a discount and cut rate prices zone.  All of the nice shops ended up transferring out to the suburbs.

2.  Real estate taxes that were levied on all unoccupied floor spaces of the highrise buildings.  This meant that a vacant building generated the same amount of liability no matter how little income was coming in.  The larger the building the greater the tax payment.  With all the area being forced into a discount mentality, this meant that the buildings were worth less than an empty lot, which could at least be turned into a parking lot that generated revenues.  The old guys were financially forced to tear down the structures or go broke.

3. Ad Valorem taxes on office furnishings.  The suburbs didnt have these taxes.  It became increasingly common for downtown businessmen to take any valuable furnishings, art, or decor out of the offices and replace them with shitty second hand furniture in order to avoid being taxed on the higher value.

4.  Free Parking at the regional shopping malls, with no parking enforcement.  This was one of the most cited causes for the dropoffs in downtown retail right up until the disastrous Hemming Park nightmare.

5.  The 1979 redevelopment plan that created structural barriers between downtown and the surrounding black neighborhoods.

6.  The 1992 recession which closed many stores and spaces downtown, which were then filled with homeless and transient service centers, making downtown into a homeless services center.

7.  Mark Rimmers Parking Plan of 2002, which criminalized most parking and heavily fined downtown customers combined with increased enforcement of arcane parking regulations in an attempt to force motorists into his parking garages.

8.  The demolition of La Villa.

This is, without a doubt, the most thoroughly depressing and mystifying catalog of human folly and deprivation I have read related to the life of a city, ever.  I don't know how witnessing it didn't rip the very heart out of those of you who had to live through any part of it.  I've only been here since '03 and I thought I knew what was what.  I didn't know the half of it ...