Retail-less parking garage to receive final approval

[Metro Jacksonville]

Retail-less parking garage to receive final approval



The Downtown Development Review Board Staff is recommending final approval of Parador Partners' revised retail-less parking garage project at this afternoon's DDRB meeting.  Here is a look at what will be constructed in the heart of the Northbank.


Full Article
http://www.metrojacksonville.com/article/2012-oct-retail-less-parking-garage-to-receive-final-approval

[simms3]

No renderings from the river side/standard Jax postcard angle?

[thelakelander]

Not surprisingly, no.  Also, no renderings or massing of the proposed future retail/plaza at the high profile intersection of Independent Drive and Hogan Street.  I've always thought that this intersection had the potential to become one of the most vibrant spots in downtown.  Now, I don't know.

[fieldafm]

Parador has been trying to find a hotel to construct on Sisters City Plaza for some time now. 

[Ocklawaha]

So they'll build it, sit on it until Suntrust gets about 50% occupancy then unload it to a 'new' corporation that will not be bound by the legal strings.

That hotel on Sisters City Plaza will have a crazy small footprint! Humm? Maybe 10 rooms wide and 70 floors high? Somehow I doubt it.

[Ocklawaha]

This would be a golden opportunity to bump it up one floor, and dedicate a high ceiling ground floor to our streetcar system, visitors center and maintenance. Okay, I can dream right?

[fsujax]

DDRB will approve this, but give Aetna a hard time about their sign. I really think this group is becoming useless. Except for Flagg. He seems to be the only one really intent on holding these developers to the fire.

[tufsu1]

DDRB will approve this, but give Aetna a hard time about their sign.

maybe they just don't like purple

[fieldafm]

That hotel on Sisters City Plaza will have a crazy small footprint!

When you close off the dead headed street in b/w the plaza and the foot print bleeds over in the area facing Independent Drive on the garage's parcel... you actually get a decent footprint for a hotel with a bottom floor restaurant on the corner of Hogan/Independent.

DDRB will approve this, but give Aetna a hard time about their sign.

Agreed.  The priorities downtown are completely out of whack.

No renderings from the river side/standard Jax postcard angle?

The architect is smart not to include it.  Otherwise, at the garage's current height it sticke out its almost 20 feet above the Landing... so looking at the Northbank from Friendship Fountain, you'd see a beautiful parking garage dotting the skyline. 

I don't have a problem with a parking garage... but subsidizing half the cost to build something that goes below code and thereby creates dead space downtown... while simultaneously using the money that was earmarked to satisfy a parking obligation to the Landing that is more than two decades old, to subsidize it's construction... well, I have a big problem with that.   

[CityLife]

Somebody please make sure the DDRB makes the retail provision stay with the property and carry over to future owners.

[thelakelander]

Btw, Sleiman continues to claim that this won't satisfy the city's Landing parking obligation.

[JaxArchitect]

To build this garage on such a prominent site without meeting the retail requirement is ridiculous. 

And I'll restate my opinion that the building design is horrible.  They changed the colors a bit, added some cornice molding at the top and changed the design of the vehicular entries in an attempt to make it look more "historical" (I guess).  They also appear to have eliminated the outward cant (slope) of the stair towers on the corners; that's a minimal improvement at least. 

This design would get an "F" in any architectural design course.  Why do we have a DDRB if they allow stuff like this to get built downtown.  This would never be approved in the majority of other large comparable cities.

[Tacachale]

This may be the worse publicly funded decision made downtown in years, and that's saying something.

[simms3]

^^^It's not the garage in and of itself that would not be approved in other cities (garages get built all the time in many different permutations/forms), it's the fact that no other city in its right mind would approve a garage with such variances to go on its most prime piece of dirt/premiere postcard site AND/OR essentially subsidize it with City funding sources.

Also, retail in most garages makes no sense, yet cities are strictly enforcing retail's inclusion in walkable areas.  Reason why most garage/retail combinations make little sense?  Most simply because standalone garages today are being built on the peripheries.  I guess mandating retail is "planning for the future."

We can essentially face the fact that the city is making whole a group of like 3 guys invested in SunTrust and trying to eliminate its feud with Toney Sleiman so it can have one less thing to worry about (which it apparently has failed at).  If the City were an attorney or broker and the taxpayer the client, we could sue or break contract for breach of fiduciary responsibility here.  Nothing has proven this "investment" on the city's part will benefit the City and therefore the taxpayer in any way (tangibly or intangibly).

[L.P. Hovercraft]

No renderings from the river side/standard Jax postcard angle?

The architect is smart not to include it.  Otherwise, at the garage's current height it sticke out its almost 20 feet above the Landing... so looking at the Northbank from Friendship Fountain, you'd see a beautiful parking garage dotting the skyline. 

I don't have a problem with a parking garage... but subsidizing half the cost to build something that goes below code and thereby creates dead space downtown... while simultaneously using the money that was earmarked to satisfy a parking obligation to the Landing that is more than two decades old, to subsidize it's construction... well, I have a big problem with that.   

Anyone here with mad Photoshop skills that could quickly knock out what a future beauty shot of Downtown's skyline with a fugly new parking garage hovering over the Landing that could be forwarded to the DDRB with a note opposing this project?