Surface Parking Lots: A Downtown Vibrancy Killer

[ChriswUfGator]

My comment was based on today's downtown and not an imaginary future Jacksonville. 

Center City Philadelphia couldn't be any more different from Downtown Jacksonville.

I mean, I could take it one step further and say that the way to build an awesome, vibrant downtown is to fill all these parking lots up with skyscrapers and tourist attractions and then build an urban transit system to connect it all.  Done.

My point was that parking right now should not be the enemy, particularly when we have very few people actually living in Downtown Jacksonville and most businesses rely on visitors from other parts of town.  Sure, all these other things would be wonderful - shady tree-lined drives full of busy businesses and full office buildings and a fully-connected transportation system that works.  And maybe someday downtown will evolve into that.  I hope that it does.  But as you well know, transforming an area isn't an overnight process.  The evolution you describe would take years if not decades and cost millions upon millions in public money that we don't have right now...

Being realistic and returning to the point of this article, the problem is that downtown Jacksonville has is too many empty and abandoned lots and not too many parking lots.  That red on the map is mostly made up of wasteland zones that no one would feel safe parking a car on.  Does anyone actually disagree with this point I've been trying to make?

That's all my point has been.  People wag their fingers and roll their eyes about downtown having "too much" parking when the reality is that most of it isn't real parking and isn't even in a place where it could be useful as parking even if the lots weren't covered with rocks, bits of scrap metal and dirty needles.  What's worse is that when so-called downtown advocates complain about excessive parking downtown, they lose people's support who live in the rest of the city and who don't feel like easy in-and-out access to downtown is such a bad thing.  The real point of this article isn't parking - it's vacant, abandoned and junky looking lots.   

Simple question: So why is downtown like it is today, if your views are valid?

The only thing downtown isn't lacking is an overabundance of parking...

[avs]

Having lived in Center City Philly, I can tell you it gets super hot and humid there - even with the tree canapy and shop overhangs.  The density doesn't allow alot of air flow off the water.  That being said however, people there would STILL choose to walk 6 blocks to get a burrito because no one wants the hassel of moving their car and fight for another spot only 6 blocks away only to drive the short 6 blocks back and have to find a new parking space.

Most people living in dense urban centers like that don't even have cars.  They walk, even in the heat because owning a car in the city is a huge hassel.  Dense cities discourage car ownership.  Parking is scarce and expensive and public transportation is more readily available (that includes bicycling and the use of your own two feet).  Dense cities do not have tons of parking - parking and cars are a premium, not what the average city dweller uses or prefers.

Most cities do not depend on surburbanites for their vitality either.  They are dense and can provide the demographics to support their downtown neighborhood.  Jacksonville needs to stop trying to cater to the suburbanite to drive to downtown and visit on a Friday evening.  It should be seen as a neighborhood whose population has dwindled.  Incentives to move downtown and to start local businesses downtown need to be put inot place so that the neighborhood of downtown becomes its own self-sustaining neighborhood.

[AFCassidy]

AVS -  Simple question, why?  Why force downtown Jacksonville to be something that it has not naturally evolved into and that people don't seem to have a burning desire for? 

Why is downtown like it is today?  I think there are a ton of reasons.  Jacksonville's climate doesn't make it ideal for strolling around on the streets most months out of the year.  It's hot, it rains, etc. 

The bigger issue is that "downtown" is probably too large of an area, plus the city itself is huge geographically and our population is too small.

This isn't SimCity, we don't just pop in successful boutique shops, cafes and apartment buildings over these vacant lots to create an instant downtown.  Suddenly and randomly eliminating parking lots in the name of "walkability" would hurt current downtown businesses, many of which are just barely surviving anyway.   

The way I see it, the solution is to focus on planting grass and not pulling weeds.  Pick and choose areas that might be ripe for walkable zones and try to encourage development there and support the businesses that take the risks.

If it's successful, if the shops and cafes take root and the apartment buildings and lofts fill up, the real estate value will increase and the vacant lots will magically begin to vanish.

[thelakelander]

AVS -  Simple question, why?  Why force downtown Jacksonville to be something that it has not naturally evolved into and that people don't seem to have a burning desire for?

It didn't naturally evolve into what it is today.  It was forced against its will through demolitions, kicking people and businesses out of their buildings and short sighted redevelopment schemes by the city over the last few decades.  Before then it and the surrounding neighborhoods were very walkable.  Why continue to force a development model on downtown that has been already shown to be a proven failure time and time again?  Remove the regulations and things that hold it back and you'll see if naturally evolve into a denser place again.

This is Downtown Jacksonville in its natural organic state:

Why is downtown like it is today?  I think there are a ton of reasons.  Jacksonville's climate doesn't make it ideal for strolling around on the streets most months out of the year.  It's hot, it rains, etc.

This wouldn't explain why people are walking in DT Charlotte, Savannah, Orlando, Miami, Winter Park, Deland and a host of other large and small cities with similar climates.  It also wouldn't explain why people walk and hang outside in San Marco, Riverside.  The common thing in all the places where people walk is they have things that actively engage people at pedestrian level.

The bigger issue is that "downtown" is probably too large of an area, plus the city itself is huge geographically and our population is too small.

This wouldn't explain why downtowns in cities like Indianapolis, Oklahoma City, Louisville, Charlotte and Columbus, OH work.  I see this more of being an excuse than actually dealing with the problem.  I also don't see downtown revitalization as having to be difficult.  People here just tend to make it more complicated than it really has to be.  Embrace the fact that it's sick, buy into the idea of clustering complementing uses within a compact setting, easing up regulation and better connectivity with the surrounding districts and you'll see the area start to sprout back to life naturally.

This isn't SimCity, we don't just pop in successful boutique shops, cafes and apartment buildings over these vacant lots to create an instant downtown.  Suddenly and randomly eliminating parking lots in the name of "walkability" would hurt current downtown businesses, many of which are just barely surviving anyway.

You're right, but that's not being advocated here.  You can't just magically make parking lots disappear and new infill appear overnight.  However, you can create a condition where it makes market rate sense to go with historic preservation and infill over time instead of surface parking. Btw, this will help DT businesses.

The way I see it, the solution is to focus on planting grass and not pulling weeds.  Pick and choose areas that might be ripe for walkable zones and try to encourage development there and support the businesses that take the risks.

On the ground level sure.  However, you'll have to do something much more drastic for long term stability.  In rehab, you don't ween someone off drugs by giving them less and less.  You do what it takes to stop the bad habit.  In an urbanistic sense, we need to do the same.

If it's successful, if the shops and cafes take root and the apartment buildings and lofts fill up, the real estate value will increase and the vacant lots will magically begin to vanish.

I see no reason to go with development schemes that end in "ifs."  There are two many successful examples around us to go on ifs.  The model described above works and is pretty affordable to do.  We should apply and run with it.

[avs]

No city "naturally" evolves into anything.  The simple fact is Jacksonville hasn't strategically allowed its downtown to develop.  Jacksonville has allowed its developers to push it's development outward.  Why?  Money of course!

It isn't too "hot and rainy" here to walk.  Again, its hot and muggy in Center City Philly - sometimes I would wonder if it was actually hotter up there in the summer than in Tampa, where I was from.  The summer's are just shorter up there - 3 months instead of our 5-6 months.  I was talking to my sister yesterday, who now lives in Philly; she was walking home from work in the rain.  It is just preferable/easier to walk than have a car in a dense city.  Not to mention the Town Center in Jacksonville is an outside mall.

The bigger issue is that "downtown" is probably too large of an area

Downtown is not too large of an area.  Tons of cities are larger than downtown Jville and are vibrant and lively.  There are also tons of downtowns smaller who are vibrant and lively.  It comes down to public policy - that is what drives and allows/disallows development.

Pick and choose areas that might be ripe for walkable zones and try to encourage development there and support the businesses that take the risks.

I like this idea.  "Encourage" development in small increments.  Those smaller areas can be connected via development of some of these vacant lots.  Long term, downtown really doesn't need them.  Development has to take a long term approach.  Not developing the vacant lots because parking maybe needed now so people can drive into downtown hinders development that could be used for living spaces for downtown residents.  That's not a long term plan for a developed downtown.

Suddenly and randomly eliminating parking lots in the name of "walkability" would hurt current downtown businesses, many of which are just barely surviving anyway.

Who said anything about sudden and random?  Besides, you said yourself many of these lots aren't even usable to park in.  How can developing unusable vacant lots to connect smaller walkable areas hurt business?  Seems like it would connect two areas previously unconnected thus helping business.

[krazeeboi]

While just about any Southern city, with few notable exceptions, has a plethora of surface lots in its downtown that hamper vibrancy, downtown Jacksonville has enough density and urban fabric intact to create some vibrancy and synergy downtown. It just needs to have the right civic and business leadership in place to make it happen.