Illuminate JAX proposes to light up the skyline

[Charles Hunter]

What about crowd-source funding for the installations?  Then the building owner would just have the ongoing JEA bill.

[acme54321]

They should start by turning on the lights on some of the buildings that are already there.

[Rocshaboc]

I'm all for it! I showed 2 of my colleagues @ work the project yesterday and they were all for it. 

[fsujax]

They should start by turning on the lights on some of the buildings that are already there.

yeah, I agree. That would be an easy start. What happen to all the green neon lighting Fidelity had on all its buildings, the purple neon lights JEA had on its building, even Riverplace Tower used to have lights around the top of it and of course the BofA tower dark as hell. Again ongoing maintenance is a major issue in this city, not only publicly but private as well it seems.

[duvaldude08]

They should start by turning on the lights on some of the buildings that are already there.

yeah, I agree. That would be an easy start. What happen to all the green neon lighting Fidelity had on all its buildings, the purple neon lights JEA had on its building, even Riverplace Tower used to have lights around the top of it and of course the BofA tower dark as hell. Again ongoing maintenance is a major issue in this city, not only publicly but private as well it seems.

Fidelity still has the lights. They only turn them on when we have Mon and Thurs night football games. I noticed that crap last year. They still have them, they just dont turn them on. Last I heard BOA has to get the lights repaired or something, and have not due to the cost.

[Lunican]

She described the project as "a new vision for Jacksonville" that could "put our city on the world stage."

umm.. I don't think so. Maybe if this were 1910 and we had led lights people would notice...

[duvaldude08]

I love all of the ideas, except for the music. Our city isnt a damn Christmas Tree. I think the coolest thing to see would be our city and fountain lit up for Thursday or Monday Night Football. That would be freakin' awesome

[JaxByDefault]

So other cities are cutting back on urban lighting to be environmentally friendly and JAX wants a light show? I love downtown, but this is one idea I'm not getting behind right now. Solar or LED...maybe.

ETA:Ok, the article says LED would be used. Still neutral on the idea. It looks slick, but it's still light pollution that doesn't really doesn't address JAX downtown street level issues.

[Riverrat]

They should start by turning on the lights on some of the buildings that are already there.

+1 !!!!!! I love the whole project, but for starters, lets turn on the lights that exist that the building operators currently don't use or don't work.

Talking to you:
Bank of America (pyramid at the top)
Fidelity (green neons)
CSX (they only use some of their lighting)
SunTrust (spent all the money to add lighting on the sides and never use it)
Riverplace (used to have lights at the top and the tower itself was twice as lit)
Crowne Plaza Hotel (red neon at the top)
JEA (blue neon at the top)

[KenFSU]

Ongoing maintenance is a major issue in this city, not only publicly but private as well it seems.

Which is what makes me wary of a project like this.

Remember those nice LED displays on the Main Street Bridge towers?

They were beautiful for the six months that they worked, and then moisture got into the fixtures and the city never bothered to get them fixed.

I'd think the money would be better spent finding a way to restore the existing uplighting that has, for one reason or another, been abandoned.

Personally, I like the existing lighting much more than the proposed project.

It's more Gotham, less Pleasure Island.

[Bill Hoff]

How long has Norfolk had their lights?

[Wacca Pilatka]

How long has Norfolk had their lights?

For at least the 10 years that I've lived there.

[CityLife]

I'll play Devil's advocate here...If you were head of the DIA and were told you had $50 million of discretionary money for downtown improvements, how high would this be on your list? The money can go to anything. Park improvements, skyway extensions, streetcar installations, corporate relocation incentives, historic rehabs, residential incentives, Landing improvements, Hemming Plaza events, Metro Park improvements, festivals, Jaguars stadium improvements, creation of a signature monument, cleanups of environmental issues on key development sites, OneSpark...anything you can think of.

Its a cool idea in theory and given an infinite amount of money to spend, would definitely be on my list. Realistically though, looking at the total net benefit to downtown, I think there are better key investments to make. I imagine (and hope) any funding of this would be done privately and not from city coffers, but I still think there are better things we can ask our corporate benefactors to invest in.

[CityLife]

^I meant to put that in there. Lets assume its $5 million total for installation, with upkeep and energy costs paid by the buildings owners.

I purposely made the total amount of money much larger to see if it would even make the cut given a much larger budget and also to see where it would fall in people's total priorities.

[fsujax]

You know if the building owners would just take a little more pride in their structures and do what every other cities downtowns seem to do, we wouldn't even have to be discussing a City initiative to light downtown. I could just imagine driving through Atlanta at night and seeing the BofA tower there all dark. (not).