Adaptive Reuse: Norfolk's Waterside District

[thelakelander]

Some look at the Jacksonville Landing as a failure that's past its prime and believe that taxpayers should pay to demolish the complex, evicting several businesses from the downtown core without the serious consideration of adaptive reuse. When creativity and vision is allowed to enter the redevelopment discussion, structurally sound buildings from failed concepts can become viable destinations of activity. With this in mind, Norfolk's Waterside District is a festival marketplace concept that failed twice. Despite those failures, it has now become one of the most popular attractions in the downtown core.

Read More: https://www.thejaxsonmag.com/article/adaptive-reuse-norfolks-waterside-district/

[avonjax]

Jacksonville never has and never will have that kind of vision.

[jcjohnpaint]

I always thought the landing would make a great food hall.

[vicupstate]

Jacksonville never has and never will have that kind of vision.

Actually there are some people in JAX with that kind of vision, they just aren't in the positions of power to implement them.

[CityLife]

A food hall is the only viable and realistic use if the Landing is preserved or repurposed in my opinion. There simply isn't enough median income in the trade area (or employees DT) to get the type of national developer interested in a large scale redevelopment of the Landing. I'm working on a significant redevelopment of an older center with design challenges and having a few key anchor tenants and some of the highest median income in Florida is the only thing that makes the redevelopment viable. The only way Khan's project works (Or Landing) is with major subsidies from COJ or Khan himself (or both) and even then I'm still skeptical. A food hall conversion would be relatively cheap in comparison.

I've said on here before that the Landing should be converted to a "Taste of Jax" type of food hall. Get the best restaurants from all around the area to set up stalls. Get Taco Lu or Flying Iguana, Sandollor or Safe Harbor for shrimp/seafood from the Beaches, a good pizza joint, a good BBQ/soul food joint, various ethnic food stalls, sandwhich spot, and so on. Then have a central bar area that serves from local breweries only and enable people to take their beers all over the food hall and the outdoor (waterfront) seating area. Activate the riverfront and spaces around the food hall with programming. This business would ABSOLUTELY kill it and stimulate a ton of visitors. Would just have to be properly curated and managed.

Curry and Khan would never let anything like that happen though...Bow down to your overlords Jaxsons.

[JaxJersey-licious]

Jacksonville never has and never will have that kind of vision.

Actually there are some people in JAX with that kind of vision, they just aren't in the positions of power to implement them.

It always puzzled me why nobody had the impetus to make the Landing much more of a destination but after reading this article it's all too clear. I noticed that Waterside has a PBR Coors Banquet bar there which I also saw at Xfinity Live! in South Philly which was developed by your future Lot J entertainment dark overlords the Cordish company.

I really don't know how a Landing food hall could attract tenants with all the anchors chains a Lot J could have. But with it gone you now need a place for all the events the Landing used to hold. Not just events like FL/GA and New Year's but also the hundreds of smaller events it hosted successfully. Those events alone would be enough of a draw to guarantee the success of a Waterside-like project not to mention drawing from all the goings on from the arena, ballpark, and Dailys Place to boot.

Maybe it's best the city just give in to Cordish, let the develop their frou-frou food Valhalla and just shove JEA's new HQ there for good measure the go halfsies on the bill to clean the site up? All sarcasm aside, I'm still curious why no one has seriously considered a smaller version in the myriad of available old spaces in Jax but I guess we all know by now what the answer is.

[downtownbrown]

https://www.google.com/maps/uv?hl=en&pb=!1s0x89ba9873418937f9:0x9c274a47ca02b90a!2m22!2m2!1i80!2i80!3m1!2i20!16m16!1b1!2m2!1m1!1e1!2m2!1m1!1e3!2m2!1m1!1e5!2m2!1m1!1e4!2m2!1m1!1e6!3m1!7e115!4shttps://lh5.googleusercontent.com/p/AF1QipNy_3eKTqD24IxuM3pdKkWwPRIKSoGfV3CHMRfA%3Dw202-h152-k-no!5suss+wisconsin+bb-64+-+Google+Search&imagekey=!1e10!2sAF1QipNy_3eKTqD24IxuM3pdKkWwPRIKSoGfV3CHMRfA&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjrk-LUoNrgAhWpc98KHTQ1A54QoiowIXoECAIQBg#

this wouldn't hurt

[thelakelander]

Jacksonville never has and never will have that kind of vision.

Actually there are some people in JAX with that kind of vision, they just aren't in the positions of power to implement them.

It always puzzled me why nobody had the impetus to make the Landing much more of a destination but after reading this article it's all too clear. I noticed that Waterside has a PBR Coors Banquet bar there which I also saw at Xfinity Live! in South Philly which was developed by your future Lot J entertainment dark overlords the Cordish company.

I really don't know how a Landing food hall could attract tenants with all the anchors chains a Lot J could have. But with it gone you now need a place for all the events the Landing used to hold. Not just events like FL/GA and New Year's but also the hundreds of smaller events it hosted successfully. Those events alone would be enough of a draw to guarantee the success of a Waterside-like project not to mention drawing from all the goings on from the arena, ballpark, and Dailys Place to boot.

Maybe it's best the city just give in to Cordish, let the develop their frou-frou food Valhalla and just shove JEA's new HQ there for good measure the go halfsies on the bill to clean the site up? All sarcasm aside, I'm still curious why no one has seriously considered a smaller version in the myriad of available old spaces in Jax but I guess we all know by now what the answer is.

The problem with shifting all of this to Lot J is that you end up with a downtown that's less active at nights and on weekends than it is now. Most locally probably don't get it or care now but don't be surprised when people still view DT as a pretty dead place even after the extra millions are spent.

[thelakelander]

A food hall is the only viable and realistic use if the Landing is preserved or repurposed in my opinion.

I don't believe you can fill all of that space with a food hall. You'd need a mix of things. They could include everything from event space, a few anchor restaurants, a cultural destination (Toledo turned Portside Festival Marketplace into their version of MOSH), office, entertainment uses, etc. You could probably fit all of that into the main building and raze the buildings closer to the river to allow for more outdoor space.

[CityLife]

A food hall is the only viable and realistic use if the Landing is preserved or repurposed in my opinion.

I don't believe you can fill all of that space with a food hall. You'd need a mix of things. They could include everything from event space, a few anchor restaurants, a cultural destination (Toledo turned Portside Festival Marketplace into their version of MOSH), office, entertainment uses, etc. You could probably fit all of that into the main building and raze the buildings closer to the river to allow for more outdoor space.

Completely agree. I should have clarified that I meant having a food hall serve as the anchor with a few complementary uses. Chelsea Market only has 40k square feet of food vendors. The Landing has 120k+ square feet, so clearly way too much to fill the whole center. You would probably only need about 15-25k square feet for food vendors and indoor seating, along with a large bar area.

Obviously structural engineers, interior designers, and architects would need to evaluate the feasibility of demoing portions of the building and re-purposing the space, but I think one interesting option is to only preserve the two wings that run north from the river and remove the interior of the horseshoe and the wings that run east/west along the river. If you look at the Landing from the river, the wings I am referring to are the only architecturally redeeming features of the Landing, imo. With a new roof color and glass facade on the south face, this could look very incredibly nice (actually fairly similar to a waterfront fish market/restaurant I'm working on elsewhere). There would still be AMPLE opportunity to provide green space, hardscape, public art, fountains, etc; but the park would have a true anchor instead of being dead space like everywhere else along the riverfront.

[marcuscnelson]

A food hall is the only viable and realistic use if the Landing is preserved or repurposed in my opinion.

I don't believe you can fill all of that space with a food hall. You'd need a mix of things. They could include everything from event space, a few anchor restaurants, a cultural destination (Toledo turned Portside Festival Marketplace into their version of MOSH), office, entertainment uses, etc. You could probably fit all of that into the main building and raze the buildings closer to the river to allow for more outdoor space.

Completely agree. I should have clarified that I meant having a food hall serve as the anchor with a few complementary uses. Chelsea Market only has 40k square feet of food vendors. The Landing has 120k+ square feet, so clearly way too much to fill the whole center. You would probably only need about 15-25k square feet for food vendors and indoor seating, along with a large bar area.

Obviously structural engineers, interior designers, and architects would need to evaluate the feasibility of demoing portions of the building and re-purposing the space, but I think one interesting option is to only preserve the two wings that run north from the river and remove the interior of the horseshoe and the wings that run east/west along the river. If you look at the Landing from the river, the wings I am referring to are the only architecturally redeeming features of the Landing, imo. With a new roof color and glass facade on the south face, this could look very incredibly nice (actually fairly similar to a waterfront fish market/restaurant I'm working on elsewhere). There would still be AMPLE opportunity to provide green space, hardscape, public art, fountains, etc; but the park would have a true anchor instead of being dead space like everywhere else along the riverfront.

Of course the problem with all of this is that unless something happens or someone chooses to intervene very soon, it becomes impossible to do this. And that's probably what Curry is counting on.

[CityLife]

A food hall is the only viable and realistic use if the Landing is preserved or repurposed in my opinion.

I don't believe you can fill all of that space with a food hall. You'd need a mix of things. They could include everything from event space, a few anchor restaurants, a cultural destination (Toledo turned Portside Festival Marketplace into their version of MOSH), office, entertainment uses, etc. You could probably fit all of that into the main building and raze the buildings closer to the river to allow for more outdoor space.

Completely agree. I should have clarified that I meant having a food hall serve as the anchor with a few complementary uses. Chelsea Market only has 40k square feet of food vendors. The Landing has 120k+ square feet, so clearly way too much to fill the whole center. You would probably only need about 15-25k square feet for food vendors and indoor seating, along with a large bar area.

Obviously structural engineers, interior designers, and architects would need to evaluate the feasibility of demoing portions of the building and re-purposing the space, but I think one interesting option is to only preserve the two wings that run north from the river and remove the interior of the horseshoe and the wings that run east/west along the river. If you look at the Landing from the river, the wings I am referring to are the only architecturally redeeming features of the Landing, imo. With a new roof color and glass facade on the south face, this could look very incredibly nice (actually fairly similar to a waterfront fish market/restaurant I'm working on elsewhere). There would still be AMPLE opportunity to provide green space, hardscape, public art, fountains, etc; but the park would have a true anchor instead of being dead space like everywhere else along the riverfront.

Of course the problem with all of this is that unless something happens or someone chooses to intervene very soon, it becomes impossible to do this. And that's probably what Curry is counting on.

100%. Unfortunately, it appears as if all of Jacksonville's organizations that could or should step up here are neutered (DVI, DIA, Planning Department). I don't even live in Jax, so I'm not going to step up and take the lead, but if someone did, would be more than happy to help. I could probably offer discounted or pro-bono design and lobbying services from my firm, which is one of the best waterfront restaurant site and landscape design firms in the state.  Just putting that out there, if anyone wants to take the lead...what do you say Mike Field?