5 Ideas to Revitalize the Jacksonville Landing

[Metro Jacksonville]

5 Ideas to Revitalize the Jacksonville Landing



Here's five "no-frills" ideas that could add life to the Jacksonville Landing, courtesy of Ennis Davis, AICP at Moderncities.com. They may not be provocative, but downtown could benefit from a slumpbuster.

Read More: https://www.thejaxsonmag.com/article/5-ideas-to-revitalize-the-jacksonville-landing/

[JimInJax]

IMO - here are the main problems with The Landing:

1. Limited onsite parking if you want to go by car.
2. Vagrants / crime - we used to go by boat and sometimes spend the night. Now It doesn't feel safe anymore. Maybe add a JSO substation?
3. Lack of dock space for boats. If something fun is happening, it fills up fast and you can't get in. Add some piers and floating docks. Add power for the boats and allow people to stay up to 72 hours like Metro Park Marina

At this point, it's so broken I think many people have just given up and are waiting for The Shipyards to replace The Landing and do it right. Once The Shipyards open The Landing is doomed anyway. This city does a terrible job of leveraging the waterfront. The river is the lifeblood of this city, and COJ planners all but ignore it.

[thelakelander]

I doubt the Shipyards materializes this decade. I predict we'll see a mall pop up in Northern St. Johns County and tower cranes in downtown's skyline before anything resembling the Landing is built at the Shipyards site.

[FlaBoy]

The food court idea is a no brainer. A restaurant with some event space would do well with the views and business community of DT.

I love the idea of creating cultural attractions in the Landing. Any museums that could move to the Landing or potential museums that have been discussed for Jax other than the USS Adams?

[lowlyplanner]

My crackpot scheme would be to take the doors off and convert the Landing into an indoor version of the Riverside Arts Market, with a wider variety of stuff available for sale at individual booths.  So essentially, a downtown antique mall.

Not a Macy's, but antique malls can generate a lot of foot traffic.  They could even be attractive to downtown office workers.

Having an arts and crafts component could also give local artists and craftspeople a path to go from hobbyist to part-time to full-time.

I totally agree with the permanent front porch idea as well.  They should be doing anything they can just to get people to step foot on the property.  Once they're on the property, entice them inside...

The barren concrete lawn, the landscaping that tries to hide the building from the street, these kind of things make it seem like a big deal to go the Landing.  If we can get people circulating through the building, then retail will have a much better chance to survive there.

[UNFurbanist]

Food court/small eclectic retail tenets and a permanent front porch would be my votes as well. If you focused on that while giving a complete face lift to the interior design (polished concrete floors, new modern paint and signs, ripping out 80's style wood paneling, creating a more open and attractive main entrance from Laura st.) then I think opinions would change immediately. More boating sites would be fine too but I don't think that its's as much of a problem. A mix of San Fran Embarcadero and Detroit Campus Martius would be awesome!

[mtraininjax]

The Jacksonville Landing is dead........

No way to put racing stripes on the broken down bus, no way to fix her. Sleiman has tried, the man who has MANY successful real estate strip malls cannot find a way to fix this broken down retail center. So stop trying to resusitate the old broad, let her die, and rebuild her as residential.

Maybe you missed it, had your head buried in the sand watching Bernillary on TV, http://www.bizjournals.com/jacksonville/news/2016/07/12/breaking-jacksonville-apartment-sale-breaks-local.html The Strand just sold for a record 65 million, for apartments in Jax. This was.....ahem, downtown, across the river from the dead Landing.

Mayor Curry, pull the plug on The Jacksonville Landing and rebuild it as a place for people to live, have their boats and build a solid base from the river, the source of Jacksonville's life, toward places like Hemming Plaza.

There are plenty of spaces for barnyard events for Fl/Ga, including the Old Shipyards, and Lake is right, we are probably a good 10 years from seeing it come to fruition. So why try and fix something that cannot be fixed, The Jacksonville Landing has been dying for 25 years, slowly each year. Put the old girl out of her misery.

[Kerry]

Step 1 - Negotiate with producers of Mars Attacks II to implode The Landing as part of the next Martian invasion.
Step 2 - Build something else.

I have to agree with mtraininjax on this subject.  The money needed to salvage it would be better spent building something else.

[vicupstate]

The Jacksonville Landing is dead........

No way to put racing stripes on the broken down bus, no way to fix her. Sleiman has tried, the man who has MANY successful real estate strip malls cannot find a way to fix this broken down retail center. So stop trying to resusitate the old broad, let her die, and rebuild her as residential.

Maybe you missed it, had your head buried in the sand watching Bernillary on TV, http://www.bizjournals.com/jacksonville/news/2016/07/12/breaking-jacksonville-apartment-sale-breaks-local.html The Strand just sold for a record 65 million, for apartments in Jax. This was.....ahem, downtown, across the river from the dead Landing.

Mayor Curry, pull the plug on The Jacksonville Landing and rebuild it as a place for people to live, have their boats and build a solid base from the river, the source of Jacksonville's life, toward places like Hemming Plaza.

There are plenty of spaces for barnyard events for Fl/Ga, including the Old Shipyards, and Lake is right, we are probably a good 10 years from seeing it come to fruition. So why try and fix something that cannot be fixed, The Jacksonville Landing has been dying for 25 years, slowly each year. Put the old girl out of her misery.

Doing residential ONLY would be a huge mistake and wasted opportunity. There is no demonstrated market for either For Sale or rental units at the price level required to build a NEW high rise residential, so you are talking about something on scale of the Brooklyn projects.  The Strand was built at 10 year ago prices and given the type of construction (high-rise) it should come as no surprise that it's per unit price is at the very top.

Given the current market for office and residential DT currently, renovation is the only option that is viable.         

[vicupstate]

It seems like a Food Hall is essentially the same thing as a Food Court.

[thelakelander]

^A food hall is probably closer to an indoor public market than a traditional mall food court. Here's a few images of Milwaukee's public market:









http://www.moderncities.com/article/2016-jul-these-are-the-newest-food-halls-you-need-to-visit

https://www.zagat.com/b/11-must-visit-food-halls-across-the-u.s#1

[thelakelander]

Union Market in Washington, DC:

[tufsu1]

I have to agree with mtraininjax on this subject.  The money needed to salvage it would be better spent building something else.

I'm pretty sure the ideas thrown out by Ennis would be paid for by the owner/developer.  At this time, the current owner has shown little interest in building something new without a significant public investment.

[JimInJax]

Step 1 - Negotiate with producers of Mars Attacks II to implode The Landing as part of the next Martian invasion.
Step 2 - Build something else.

I have to agree with mtraininjax on this subject.  The money needed to salvage it would be better spent building something else.

OMG - They are making a sequel!?!?

LOL

[FlaBoy]

The Jacksonville Landing is dead........

No way to put racing stripes on the broken down bus, no way to fix her. Sleiman has tried, the man who has MANY successful real estate strip malls cannot find a way to fix this broken down retail center. So stop trying to resusitate the old broad, let her die, and rebuild her as residential.

Maybe you missed it, had your head buried in the sand watching Bernillary on TV, http://www.bizjournals.com/jacksonville/news/2016/07/12/breaking-jacksonville-apartment-sale-breaks-local.html The Strand just sold for a record 65 million, for apartments in Jax. This was.....ahem, downtown, across the river from the dead Landing.

Mayor Curry, pull the plug on The Jacksonville Landing and rebuild it as a place for people to live, have their boats and build a solid base from the river, the source of Jacksonville's life, toward places like Hemming Plaza.

There are plenty of spaces for barnyard events for Fl/Ga, including the Old Shipyards, and Lake is right, we are probably a good 10 years from seeing it come to fruition. So why try and fix something that cannot be fixed, The Jacksonville Landing has been dying for 25 years, slowly each year. Put the old girl out of her misery.

You could probably say the same for DT for the last 40 years, and the folks in the suburbs have been saying this about the entirety of DT. The Landing can easily be re-branded if they wanted to do it...look at all of the public markets,etc. around today that weren't around or struggling 15 years ago. However, that is why we are here. I promise you, if Sleiman gave a damn he could bring the Landing back into the Big Leagues rather than being a gimicky minor league complex.

Also, there are so many areas for residential to go in throughout DT.