Is Riverside/Avondale Ready For Mellow Mushroom?

[JHAT76]

What parking problem? I go here for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and fourth meal (getting bombed). I have literally never had a problem finding a parking space. There are always spots in front of Edible Arrangements, so absolute worst-case scenario is a 2 block walk to get your lazy butt from your car to your destination. I also highly doubt that anyone has ever parked past Riverside or Pine.

And who cares if people park on the street in front of your house? Did you move a block from a commercial corridor not realizing there were businesses there? And the person talking about beer cans on their lawn on Richmond Street?!!?!? Unless you live on Richmond Street, just about everybody else doesn't know it exists. You can't legally leave a bar with a beer can, so beer cans on your lawn aren't the bars fault. Its the underage kids that live in your neighbors house that are drinking down by the river. Or its me, driving in from a couple blocks away in Riverside, parking ON your lawn, drinking a 30, and throwing the cans at your house. For that I'm sorry, but I'm just outdoorsy.

Seriously, I can walk there easily, bike even easier still and, though I hate myself for driving unnecessarily, I drive down most of the time when I want to hit up the ""Shoppes." There is no parking problem. Mellow Mushroom will be cool. Its basically the only "chain" in the world that would not knock down the gas station.

I live in the neighborhood and I want more like this, because I want my house to go up in value. I hope the neighborhood is overflowing with cars, so that people actually realize the value in fixed transit (Amen, Ocklawaha! blessings and praise be upon him). The guy on Richmond probably isn't worried about that because his house is, I'm just guessing, quite expensive already.

+1

Well said

[Intuition Ale Works]

I attended the meeting last night and thought it was an embarrassing display.

Made me more of a supporter for Jon and Mellow after witnessing how he was treated.

I was ashamed and I am still very angry.

[Bewler]

And taxis are not the answer?  I know the stupid residents in Ortega wouldn'd dare "stoop so low" from their supposed high and mighty positions of influence and wealth to take a cab to the Shops,

Yeah, take that Oteegans! That'll teach you to uh... live over there.

Wait sorry what I meant to say was, SIIIIIIIIIIIIIMMMS! (Shakes fist)

[cline]

I attended the meeting last night and thought it was an embarrassing display.

Ageed.  It devolved from a "meeting" into a bitch-fest.

[fieldafm]

I attended the meeting last night and thought it was an embarrassing display.

Made me more of a supporter for Jon and Mellow after witnessing how he was treated.

I was ashamed and I am still very angry.

That's exactly how the first Kickbacks meeting went as well. 

[L.P. Hovercraft]

Ock:  What's the cost of this car?

Birney Street Car #636. This is a very historic and unique car. New comparable units are going for $900,000! Beautifully maintained and presently leased and operating in a revenue service. Car is in great mechanical condition and is air conditioned.

Located in Texas

Price: $222,000


Here is another style for sale, the ubiquitous PCC.

There you have it Kay, would that any one of us could actually walk into Mayor Browns office and lay this on his desk. I also know of a double ended PCC car for sale for $60,000. The PCC is a very early attempt at streamlined 'modern' streetcars, something Jacksonville missed out on for selling out to General Motors, oh, I mean 'Motor Transit Company' a division of 'National City Lines.' Instead we got 'modern' buses and the groundwork for our dysfunctional mass transit system was in place.

God, if you're up there, I would love to see a streamlined beauty like that gliding around Riverside/Avondale/Downtown within my lifetime!

[thelakelander]

God, if you're up there, I would love to see a streamlined beauty like that gliding around Riverside/Avondale/Downtown within my lifetime!

I must say, those refurbished PCCs looked good when I saw them test running in San Diego last summer.

[mtraininjax]

I attended the meeting last night and thought it was an embarrassing display. Made me more of a supporter for Jon and Mellow after witnessing how he was treated. I was ashamed and I am still very angry.

Was John in fact there? Can't wait to catch up with him over a beer. He's heard it before, he heard it when he was scouting places on King Street. People hate change.

So the meeting turned into a bitch-session? Can't say I am shocked, I changed a property on Mayflower from single family residence to multi family residence, and people sent nasty calls to Planning, yet for each of the 3 meetings I had to drop everything and attend, not one single person showed up to protest. Lots of hot air and venting. This will soon be forgotten, just as Mojos brew-ha-ha was forgotten.

Cline - I tell those damn Gracers when they try and block my driveway or view as I am pulling out, nicely mind you, to please pull back and allow me room to back out of my driveway. Most are kind, its when the Gracers allow out of towners to rent the hall, that these people with EXPEDITION SUVs, which were never even a dream at the time Avondale was created, are so high and so long, that I have to go into the Church and make a public announcement that some one in the RED EXPEDITION is about to be towed because I cannot get out of my driveway.  But hey, its my right to tow it if it blocks my access to the roadway.

[MissMinda]

I may have missed this earlier, but has anyone suggested that the Riverside Trolley extend its hours, include Avondale in its route and add Sunday? Seems like a good "in-between" plan.

EDIT: Trolley Schedule now: http://www.jtafla.com/Schedules/showPage.aspx?Sel=101

[Anti redneck]

If the streetcar came back in Jacksonville, that means it would finally become alive. And what city leader in Jacksonville wants that!!!???

[Ocklawaha]

If the streetcar came back in Jacksonville, that means it would finally become alive. And what city leader in Jacksonville wants that!!!???

Maybe getting some of our fearless leader's to buy land along the route would gaurintee success? If RAP could just get their heads around the idea that THIS IS A PARKING SOLUTION THAT INCREASES HOME VALUES, the project would surge forward.

[outofhere]

As a resident who will be directly affected by MM consider this: we live here. Yep, we've made large investments to enjoy living 24/7 in this community. MM intends to make virtually no compromises in its suburban business model to reflect the Avondale area. 250 seats (minimum for full bar), music 7 nights a week, happy hour (10 pm to 2 am every night) But the residents are being asked to absorb plenty of changes. Here are their self-indulgent parking proposals: How about we one-way Talbot and another street? How about we pull out your tree-lined median on Ingleside and put in angle parking? How about we reconfigure Boone Park to add parking spaces--move the fence, cut down some trees. All for pizza and beer. MM is in it for the money they don't give a crap about the residents.

[Intuition Ale Works]

As a resident who will be directly affected by MM consider this: we live here. Yep, we've made large investments to enjoy living 24/7 in this community. MM intends to make virtually no compromises in its suburban business model to reflect the Avondale area. 250 seats (minimum for full bar), music 7 nights a week, happy hour (10 pm to 2 am every night) But the residents are being asked to absorb plenty of changes. Here are their self-indulgent parking proposals: How about we one-way Talbot and another street? How about we pull out your tree-lined median on Ingleside and put in angle parking? How about we reconfigure Boone Park to add parking spaces--move the fence, cut down some trees. All for pizza and beer. MM is in it for the money they don't give a crap about the residents.

Then why did they host that community meeting if they do not give a crap about the residents?

[Dashing Dan]

As far as I can see, the purpose of the meeting was to talk the community into accepting a new set of rules that the applicant is not yet ready to present. 

With regard to hours of operation, public safety, security, or basic sanitation, I did not hear anything conciliatory that was said on behalf of the applicant.

[fieldafm]

As a resident who will be directly affected by MM consider this: we live here. Yep, we've made large investments to enjoy living 24/7 in this community. MM intends to make virtually no compromises in its suburban business model to reflect the Avondale area. 250 seats (minimum for full bar), music 7 nights a week, happy hour (10 pm to 2 am every night) But the residents are being asked to absorb plenty of changes. Here are their self-indulgent parking proposals: How about we one-way Talbot and another street? How about we pull out your tree-lined median on Ingleside and put in angle parking? How about we reconfigure Boone Park to add parking spaces--move the fence, cut down some trees. All for pizza and beer. MM is in it for the money they don't give a crap about the residents.

Consider for a moment what Mellow Mushroom could have done:

Move most seats indoors, increasing seating capacity inside(where there would be zero parking requirements b/c the Benham building is a contributing structure), knocked down and rebuilt the existing gas station(non contributing structure) the same size as it is currently and turning the existing service station lot into a large stacked/tandem surface parking lot filled with cars to be used only by Mellow customers via valet services instead of creating 14 net new on street parking spaces for the area. 

What you would wind up with is a development that completely crossed every 'T' and dotted every 'I' of the Overlay... and the community would be stuck with a horrible product.

Instead, a blighted vacant site is being reused/repurposed within the historically defined commercial district (something the Overlay seeks to encourage) and you have a developer that is willing to work with the community and develop such things as a public square and what might very well be the largest bike parking facility in the entire city.

I guess I just have a difference in opinion when people say that this developer is forcing a 'suburban business model' into the neighborhood when you really examine the alternatives.   

How about we one-way Talbot and another street?

I'm sorry to say, that wasn't Mellow that came up with the idea.  It was actually several residents that proposed that a few years ago. 

How about we pull out your tree-lined median on Ingleside and put in angle parking?

Just as residents(not a developer) also once proposed this very idea along King Street as well.