Exploring the Westbrook Commercial District

[Metro Jacksonville]

Exploring the Westbrook Commercial District



A few weeks ago, our Forgotten Jacksonville series exposed the beauty of Westside's Westbrook Park. Today, we explore a few blocks Southwest of the park: The Westbrook Commercial District.

Read More: http://www.metrojacksonville.com/article/2014-mar-exploring-the-westbrook-commercial-district

[Noone]

Appreciate the history of Jacksonville.

[mtraininjax]

Great info! The same plague on Murray Hill is plaguing here as well. The shutdown of the Seaboard shops. There is little new job growth in these areas in the original design, manufacturing, repair. There is the Silk plan down the road on Beaver and a few other businesses, but the manufacturing that raised these areas is gone.

Some of the area would be better suited to have the concrete removed and turned into farming land for the communities to share and bring residents together. So many boarded up buildings and houses. Its a shame, and no one has a plan for it!

[02roadking]

The Shrimps at R&R look fantastic.

[Keith-N-Jax]

Love Mary Ann's chicken and seafood

[spuwho]

I always wondered why that business district was there. Good story and research.

However, help me understand how FDOT is the cause of the decline.

Time and the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) have not been good to this district.

When did FDOT eventually widen Beaver? ( I am guessing between 1948 and 1955) I understand the impingement on walkability and streetside parking, but it seems that neighborhood was built on the back of the nearby railroad in the 1920's and probably declined on the back of the same as employment left the area.

JEA (Jacksonville Expressway Authority) built the first E-W expressway to Cassat between 1957 and 1960 which bypassed the Beaver/McDuff district. This moved alot of the traffic flow away from Beaver and moved it to Normandy in 1960. I don't have any supporting information, but I suspect Beaver was very congested post WWII.

The warehouses that used to surround this area all moved to the new warehouse district west of Edgewood in the 1970's which diminished the need for the McDuff Yard even further and sent employment (and the business) further west.

Thanks for the history on the movie theater. I love that stuff.

[IrvAdams]

Excellent presentation, thanks. I remember going to Mary Ann's on many occasions years ago.

I got to see the inside of the Beaver Street Fisheries building complex a couple years ago on a consulting assignment. It looks old and historical also, across the street from the Farmer's market at that busy intersection. It's now a very successful seafood company (Sea Best). I'll bet that building also has an interesting past.

[thelakelander]

^It does. Here's an article about the history of BSF with a photo tour of the inside of that complex:

http://www.metrojacksonville.com/article/2013-jul-made-in-jacksonville-beaver-street-fisheries-inc

[thelakelander]

I always wondered why that business district was there. Good story and research.

However, help me understand how FDOT is the cause of the decline.

Time and the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) have not been good to this district.

When did FDOT eventually widen Beaver? ( I am guessing between 1948 and 1955) I understand the impingement on walkability and streetside parking, but it seems that neighborhood was built on the back of the nearby railroad in the 1920's and probably declined on the back of the same as employment left the area.

Neighborhoods and commercial districts decline for lots of reasons.  The decline in nearby railroad, manufacturing jobs and residential population have negatively impacted the district.  Despite these things, most of the district's buildings are still occupied with tenants, which is pretty impressive compared to several other older commercial districts in the urban core, outside of Riverside/Avondale and San Marco. However, one wouldn't really know this due to the reaction on the built environment by having a narrow, undivided four-lane facility with swift moving traffic cutting through it's heart.

This district and Five Points are/were essentially the same thing/same scale. Park and Beaver are nearly identical in width. However, the streetscapes of the districts create two different atmospheres.

Five Points:


Westbrook:


So how we design our streets for the context (think context sensitive streets) they penetrate also plays an important role that should not be overlooked.

Cause:

Narrow, 4-lane undivided highway

Result:

1. Narrow sidewalks

2. Fast moving traffic

3. Narrow sidewalks + fast moving traffic = storefronts with no awnings because narrow sidewalk conditions create a situation where awnings can be damaged by auto/truck traffic.

4. Narrow sidewalks + fast moving traffic + no protection for Florida weather = less pedestrian foot traffic and more short auto trips.

5. 4-lanes + narrow sidewalks = no on-street parking in streetscape designed for auto/truck travel over pedestrians.

6. No on-street parking + no pedestrian foot traffic = need for off-street parking. To accommodate such a need, 1/2 of the commercial properties in district have been demolished and their slabs are used for parking or remaining buildings. Remaining building entrances have shifted from street to side and rear of properties to align with their new off-street parking lots.  This makes the streetscape appear to be worse than it really is.

The warehouses that used to surround this area all moved to the new warehouse district west of Edgewood in the 1970's which diminished the need for the McDuff Yard even further and sent employment (and the business) further west.

I believe Ock shared the history of the West Jax yard before.  I think he said most of the activity at West Jax was relocated to Waycross.

[mtraininjax]

Beaver Street is a racetrack at times, I think it was widened to handle increased truck traffic and the fact that it is also US 90. Hard to leave a US highway only 2 lanes, especially in Florida.

[thelakelander]

Anothee example is College and Post (once US17). Now that they aren't, they feel completely different.

[Scrub Palmetto]

Thanks for the tour! Seeing inside some of the businesses is a great touch and provides a heightened sense of a district's life. Featuring some of the characters, the people (business owners, residents) even if in passing as part of photos might add a lot to that as well, but I know a lot of extra work. That may sound strange coming from me, a veteran of the ol' Skyscraperpage buildings-n-streetscapes tradition, but I've come to really value the humans of a place in its portrayal and how it threatens the standing perceptions of a place as a dead or dying, faceless no man's land (a favorite example).

[spuwho]

This district and Five Points are/were essentially the same thing/same scale. Park and Beaver are nearly identical in width. However, the streetscapes of the districts create two different atmospheres.

Hmm. Five Points has a robust residential district. Westbrook less so.

Five Points looks like something the evolved over a longer period of time, where Westbrook looks like the tail end of a boom town that came, prospered, then moved on.

There are a lot of oil boom towns in western Pennsylvania that look like Westbrook. Storefronts turned into slabs and no windows.  The telling sign is that their is an inadequacy of residential surrounding it. The area never got past one generation before it went through an economic cycle. Five Points has been through many more.

I agree the road probably contributed in some way, but in this case I would say there were other mitigating factors involved.

Don't seem comparable to me.