Florida Blue says Jacksonville not ready

[mtraininjax]

Mayor Brown's vision was to have an NBA team and a Winn Dixie downtown.

Classic!

Yes, Renee Finley is a sharp lady, she used to live down the street from me and I used to see her over at the BCBSF campus from time to time passing from meeting to meeting. She is from Jacksonville and knows Jacksonville, so when she says its not ready, that is a slap to Mayor Brown that he needs to get going to ramp up Jax.

One would think with the presence of Mayo and Shands Jax, there would be more excitement, and with our local economy pulling 20% of its growth out of healthcare, one would think.....

But Orlando is on fire now, real estate has come back in the residential market. It is one of the top 10 thriving markets in the country, jobs are more plentiful there. And its a destination city, like Miami, as compared to Jax. It will always be a destination city, to see them add another feather, medical, to their cap really will be hard to overcome.

Jacksonville has no real game changer, no real draw, this is what the leaders need to work on and build on for the future.

[CityLife]

UF Health/Shands is primarily a teaching hospital, not research focused, though I do think they do some research here. On the other hand UF opened a 100,000 square foot medical research facility at Lake Nona. http://learnlakenona.com/medical-city/uf-research-center/ 

There is also the Sanford-Burnham medical research institute at Lake Nona. That is why Florida Blue choose to open a research facility there. Lots of synergy and opportunities for partnerships there. 

Mayor Brown doesn't know what he's doing, but he's not exactly at fault for this. Like I said earlier, these are the type of things you have to plan and work on years in advance.

[I-10east]

Mayor Brown doesn't know what he's doing, but he's not exactly at fault for this. Like I said earlier, these are the type of things you have to plan and work on years in advance.

Yeah, reading through this thread, it's as if a snap of the fingers instantly bring in a powerhouse hospital research cluster overnight, like voila. I don't necessarily think that Jax has to stand out boldly in that particular field, like it's the last thing on Earth or something. Hopefully Florida Blue will 'be here for us' and do something with the Barnett Building DT though.

[CityLife]

Another factor to consider is that a lot of the land for these projects was either free or heavily reduced as a development strategy for a large master planned community. It would be like Nocatee giving UNF 50 acres of free land for R&D, and saving a few hundred acres for spinoffs.

IMO, there are only a few places where something of this scale could be done in Jax. Downtown with COJ's countless vacant/underutilzed properties or another spot that I don't want to blow up.

[icarus]

I almost mentioned it in my earlier post, but I heard back at that time that UF/Shands did not want FSU stepping on their turf and actively worked against it opening here or forming a strong partnership with Mayo. Another poster alluded to that as well in the article. How true that is we'll never know.

I can believe that.  UF didn't want the proton therapy but once an independent group moved ahead with it, they were eager to be a part of it. I have a lot of respect for UF's medical program but in this case, they may have done our city a disservice.

Another factor to consider is that a lot of the land for these projects was either free or heavily reduced as a development strategy for a large master planned community. It would be like Nocatee giving UNF 50 acres of free land for R&D, and saving a few hundred acres for spinoffs.

IMO, there are only a few places where something of this scale could be done in Jax. Downtown with COJ's countless vacant/underutilzed properties or another spot that I don't want to blow up.

I think Mullaney's idea and many others was to promote a Medical corridor in either Downtown or Brooklyn. But, a lot of people seem to think that developing anything Downtown is such a no-brainer. Yes, there is a lot of vacant land but most if not all of it is broken into smaller parcels with disparate ownership.  A great deal of the owners have rather unrealistic expectations of the value of the real estate as well, i.e. the Bostwick Building and the various parcels and buildings owned by Hionides and others. And, don't even dream about trying to work with COJ to get anything done. While the COJ employees are very helpful and accommodating, no one is capable of making a decision.

Sadly, it is much easier to develop anything meaningful outside of Downtown.  A medical research park would be much easier to develop say at Baptist South or even in the area surrounding WGV.

[thelakelander]

I believe Mullaney was targeting the area around UF Health/Shands.  Parcels are fairly large, considering it's an urban area and there's already a medical presence in the vicinity to build around (ex. UF Health, VA clinic, Duval County Health Department, etc.). With that said, I know some were after locating a medical school in the general area but I doubt you would have been looking at a research park. Instead, it just would have been a heavy concentration of complementing uses/workforce within a compact setting (still an economic coup and anchor for the revitalization of the urban core).

[icarus]

I'm a big proponent of such an endeavor but I don't see it working there.The area is essentially limited to West of Broad Street, South of the S-Line rail/trail and North of 6th and Jefferson.  The only way such a development would work would be to repurpose some existing parcels, namely parking lots. Even if redeveloped, there is no connectivity to the rest of the Urban Core.

[thelakelander]

Connectivity comes in the form of the S-Line (future commuter rail corridor) and existing bike trail. There's also the proposed streetcar and BRT routes that would run through there.  It's actually just about the best place in the urban core such a concept.

[CityLife]

Yea I don't think connectivity is the issue with that site for reasons Lake mentioned. I think the real difficulty would be assembling the land to create a unified development. The only way to do so without adjacent property owners overinflating sales prices of land, is to have a private developer with deep pockets buy the different parcels up on the down low...and even then the developer would need assurances of what would get built and who would be coming. Which of course would be difficult to keep quiet.

That said, like Icarus said, you could repurpose some of the exisiting parcels at and around UF/Shands. There are definitely a lot of surface lots to build up on and older buildings (that aren't architectually significant) to potentially tear down. I'm sure a good design team could make some magic happen there.

[jcjohnpaint]

UCF and FIU should have never even been given med schools a few years ago, as there wasn't much need from a demand perspective. They were complete pork projects pushed for heavily by their local lobbists and legislators. In the same way that Orlando was able to get UCF a med school, they were also able to recruit a pretty ridiculous amount of medical research and services to the Lake Nona Medical Campus. Like Field said, its impressive. With the amount of research going on there, and the creation of the Florida High Tech Corridor from Central Florida to Tampa, we're so far behind, I'm not sure there is a way to compete. Not having a research university makes it even harder.

What Jacksonville/North Florida needs to do is find an economic development niche that isn't already being filled, create a long term strategy, and go all in like Orlando did with the Medical City idea. Military research related to the Navy could be one, creating an entrepeneurial haven for creative, artistic millenials is another, becoming even more of a haven for financial services operations globally could be one, taking the port/logistics/manufacturing to the next level could be one. I don't know what the answers are, but I do know that we need a comprehensive economic development strategy that all local legislators, lobbyists, and officials attempt to implement...and it also needs to be something that transcends terms of politicians. In other words...a mediocre mayor or council shouldn't be able to stop it from happening. To do that, it could be put in the Comp Plan with objective goals and intent.

We couldn't be so lucky.  It would be nice to have politicians actually fight for this city for once, instead of running for office only to be a destructive force.   

[Tacachale]

The main piece we're missing is a medical school. That's the driving force in the research and organization. Even without one there's a lot more that could be done, but it's definitely true that it would take us voting for the leaders who shoot for more than basketball, Macy's and 7/11.

[CityLife]

There are tons of fields of research that don't require a Med School though. So if we know we don't have one, and presumably can't attain a new one, then maybe we should focus on those instead. Chemsitry, materials, engineering, robotics, military...the list goes on. I'm not a science guy by any means, but know that there is a lot more out there than just med and biomed research.

[jcjohnpaint]

It seems like politicians around here got stuck on these bizarre projects and when the next one comes along, they scrap it all for another project that will save the day.  Why not just work to make the city a great place for people to live.   Why not work to make Klutho park nice before we dump money into a park at the shipyards.  When she says we are not ready... We are not.  It really is the simple stuff.  I was going through the area around Shands today, and the whole area looks like shit.  What do we expect. 

[jcjohnpaint]

I guess when comparing our medical district to other cities' medical districts.  You would never think anything important happens in that area. 

[icarus]

It seems like politicians around here got stuck on these bizarre projects and when the next one comes along, they scrap it all for another project that will save the day.  ...

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