south Liberty Street Drama

[Lunican]

http://www.metrojacksonville.com/article/2007-jan-northbank-riverwalk-collapses-under-weight-of-citys-incompetence

[exnewsman]

Ah....just saw this part....

"This is a classic case of not maintaining your infrastructure," said Jacksonville City Councilman Bill Bishop. "The thing is 60 years old and it's falling apart. And the city's known it for years that it's falling apart."

Bishop is also an architect whose firm helped design the Northbank Riverwalk in 2003. He says studies his firm did of the area showed concern and were turned over to the city.

"For years they've been getting these reports. For years they've known this needed to be addressed," Bishop said.

Bishop verifies that he knew about it in 2003 as well.

Who was Mayor back then?

Curious as to why as a city councilman he didn't take some action. By his own words he's know of the issue for the past 12 years. Yet here we are.

[downtownbrown]

Excellent question. Is City Council not "the city"? 

[Steve]

To a degree, yes. With that said, this is (loosely) the equivalent of a member of a corporate board of directors telling the CEO (mayor) that he has an issue and it needs to be addressed. It's the CEO's job to execute this.

The key difference here is the Board of Directors in this case can't throw the CEO out in government.

[mtraininjax]

We already know what Brown will do.

4 more years, maybe Brown's plan is to just let the entire structure fall into the river? I mean, doing nothing, its still a plan. So technically we can't say he does not have a plan, its just that his plan stinks!

[mtraininjax]

It seems to have been both Delany and Peyton's plans as well.

Ancient History my friend. Ancient history!

[downtownbrown]

http://jacksonville.com/news/metro/2015-07-07/story/permanent-fix-liberty-street-could-take-years-mayor-lenny-currys-team

"Permanent fix to Liberty Street could take years but Mayor Curry's team wants quicker action"

Ridiculous.  There is no way those bridges will be repaired and reopened the way they used to be.  Huge waste of time and money.  South Liberty has been closed over 3 years now.  Sam Moussa ought to be thinking bigger than bandaids.

[thelakelander]

Yeah, let's figure out if it's even worth replacing them or rebuilding them in their current configuration. Didn't we just finish a CRA plan?  What does it suggest for the future of this site?

[downtownbrown]

All the winks and nods I have seen seem to suggest they are going to play rope a dope on the area, and wait until they can package something along with the Courthouse.  DIA seems to have no interest in fixing the bridges. Until Moussa came back, it was all crickets.

[Lunican]

It's funny that everyone thought immediate action was going to be taken to fix this.

When the section in front of the Hyatt collapses they will alter their driveway  as a quick fix and that's about it.

The conversation about the next use of the courthouse site hasn't progressed at all for 15 years.

[thelakelander]

^Yeah, that's pretty bad. Same conversation for 15 years, when stuff like this is popping like mushrooms in downtown cores (both big and small) all across the country:


San Francisco


On of several sites in Sarasota from last month

Hopefully, we'll be able to end our 15 year conversation with a yay or nay soon. Then we can proceed with getting something done or moving on to something else.

[downtownbrown]

http://www.bizjournals.com/jacksonville/print-edition/2015/07/10/editorial-liberty-street-should-be-a-key-focus-for.html?ana=e_ph_prem&u=WlI+uS2dnrpUQEXzA1dC/Q0a72b012&t=1436534223

Mayor Lenny Curry's first meeting with City Council touched on many of the new administration's priorities — and one of them might have come as a surprise: That fixes be made to "that damned Liberty Street."

[downtownbrown]

just heard on the news:  Lenny Curry budgeting 65 million for Liberty Street repairs.  Caveat: the mayor isn't sure exactly what direction those repairs will go.  Meaning: the damned bridges may well end up demolished, as they should be.

[fieldafm]

http://www.metrojacksonville.com/forum/index.php/topic,23704.msg419241.html

He already leaked, via Mousa, that "Liberty Street" is a priority.  Problem is, by "Liberty Street" he means Coastline Drive between Newman and Market in order to protect the Hyatt.  I don't think Liberty Street itself is anywhere on anyone's radar.

Under the heading 'Liberty Street, Coastline Drive/Parking Deck Projects' of the Capital Improvement Plan proposed (ordinance 2015-505) $5mm is allocated this year, $9mm the next fiscal year, $6mm the year after that and then $22mm and $23mm in FY18-20.

This year, Coastline Drive would be reopend both ways from Newnan to Market St (its currently limited to one way traffic).  Replacing both the Coastline and Liberty Street Bridges (which requires both a demolition and a construction phase) would take about two years to complete and cost a little over $20mm (which would probably involve a federal match to the local contribution). If the budget gets passed as proposed, both the Coastline work and the engineering plans to permanently replace both bridges would begin in October (Council must pass the budget by Oct 1st)... so clearly fixing the problem has been made a priority.

[icarus]

http://floridapolitics.com/archives/189050-liberty-street-fix-highlights-jax-cip-budget-discussion-finance-backs-2-year-plan

Say what you want ... but this administration is off to a strong start in my opinion.