The District sets timeline for infrastructure construction

[thelakelander]

The inability to attract investors is a problem Jax created.  Anyone with enough money to invest in something like The District, isn't going to do it in Jacksonville.  There are too many other proven markets to spend that kind of money.  This is why the City needs to do a housing study so those looking for investors have something to show them.

No need to waste tax money on a housing study. People who invest in urban development don't need COJ to tell them how to invest and make money off their investments. COJ would be better off breaking down the barriers that make urban redevelopment more inclusive locally.

[thelakelander]

There can't another city of significant size that has more vacant riverfront land in its core than Jacksonville right now.

JEA Generating Station/The District
Landing
City Hall Annex/Courthouse
Shipyards
Metro park and Friendship Fountain are essentially vacant as well. 

potentially Berkman 2 will be added at SOME point.

This one was pretty difficult but I tried! Maybe Gary, IN, Wilmington, DE, Detroit or Buffalo. Pretty hard to find anything close outside of these places.

[heights unknown]

Looks like it could be 2024 before the infrastructure work is completed. No timeline mentioned for start or completion of vertical development.

Project planners with The District, a proposed $600 million mixed-use development on the Downtown Southbank, are closer to groundbreaking by starting the permitting phase.

Developer Michael Munz filed a performance schedule Friday with the Downtown Investment Authority.

Bill Schilling, vice president at Kimley-Horn & Associates Inc., said Thursday that The District will begin construction by April 13.

According to Schilling, public amenities supported by The District's Community Redevelopment Agency, such as the project's 3.5-acre riverfront park and multiuse trail, must be complete within three years of the construction start date.

Infrastructure improvements, like water and sewer utilities, roads and streetscape, will be complete by 2024.

Full article: https://www.jaxdailyrecord.com/article/the-district-sets-timeline-for-infrastructure-construction

I'll be dead and gone by the time this is completed. I hope I get to see Jax be the city that it should have been decades ago. It's a shame our city leaders "fart around," and "piddle, twiddle, and resolve, not one damn thing do they solve." I hope those of you 10 to 20 years or more younger than I, will get to see a dense, heavily laden, successful, prosperous, and busy downtown and city of Jacksonville as a whole; don't think I will see it.

[Bill Hoff]

"A homeless guy in Detroit has more mojo than a millionaire in Jacksonville" - Khan, 2014

[MusicMan]

Love it. Notice how he didn't say "Billionaire."

[Kerry]

The inability to attract investors is a problem Jax created.  Anyone with enough money to invest in something like The District, isn't going to do it in Jacksonville.  There are too many other proven markets to spend that kind of money.  This is why the City needs to do a housing study so those looking for investors have something to show them.

No need to waste tax money on a housing study. People who invest in urban development don't need COJ to tell them how to invest and make money off their investments. COJ would be better off breaking down the barriers that make urban redevelopment more inclusive locally.

A housing study isn't a waste, unless it comes back showing there is no demand.  Jax is the only city I can think of that hasn't done one.

Tampa, St Pete, Clearwater recently completed theirs.

[thelakelander]

I doubt a housing study resulted in developers like Post Properties investing in those Central Florida cities 20 years ago. I really don't see any housing study conducted by COJ exposing something that entities already in the business don't already know. The last study (LaVilla) offered very little substance and inaccurate information regarding actual market conditions. It would be good to take that study money and use it on placemaking dead spaces in the core.

[Kerry]

Well, I guess Jax can just keep doing what it has been doing then.

Meanwhile, back at ranch...

https://www.greenvilleonline.com/story/news/2018/12/17/downtown-greenvilles-wealth-apartments-theres-room-more/2080708002/
The housing study in Greenville, SC said they need downtown housing for 6,000 more people so guess where developers are going.

[thelakelander]

Developers have been investing heavily in DT Greenville for well over 25-30 years now. I'll admit that my confidence in COJ may be a bit lower than your's.

[MusicMan]

I've lived in Florida about 40 years, and the strangest thing I find about Jacksonville is how, over the last 20 years, developers have flocked to the featureless "piney woods" such as St Johns Town Center  and Nocatee and avoided the waterfront downtown. As has been noted on TJM many times, waterfront in most Florida cities is way more valuable than pine flats with nothing around it. Not here.

[thelakelander]

^You should hear the horror stories of people who have attempted to open or invest in DT, only to give up and do their projects elsewhere in the city. To a degree, Five Points, CORK, Rail Yard District, 8th & Main, Edgewood Avenue, etc. have all benefited from the difficulty of trying to open a business or make an investment in downtown.

[Kerry]

Developers have been investing heavily in DT Greenville for well over 25-30 years now. I'll admit that my confidence in COJ may be a bit lower than your's.

That was covered in the article I linked to but I was doing it from my phone so I couldn't copy the relevant text.

"That's considered stunning," Mayor Knox White said. "This is not the apartments of 20 years ago. It's a different demographic, and it seems to be more sustainable than years past because people's behaviors are changing."

...

When The Beach Company, based in Charleston, entered the Greenville market in 2014 to build Main + Stone and SouthRidge, the luxury apartment boom had just begun.

Dan Doyle, the company's senior vice president, said that Greenville in particular stands out from a broader investment interest in the Southeast.

If Jacksonville wants to attract investors to make The District and other similar developments possible Jax has to give the investment community something tangible.  While multiple cities are providing real data to attract developers and investors, Jax is using second hand and anecdotal information like "the phones at the Barnett are ringing off the hook".

If The District can't even come up with the $31 million for the CDD how the hell are they going to get the $600 million for the actual project?

[thelakelander]

I agree that Jax needs to give something tangible. I just disagree that COJ making up a housing study is tangible. From my experiences, tangible is investing in yourself, your parks, schools, streets, mass transit system, buildings, etc. A city putting its money where its mouth is with its public infrastructure and properties has historically attracted private investment moreso than doing a study that generally collects dust. While we've largely ignored these types of investments consistently in downtown, we've spent billions along the JTB corridor in the last 25 years. It should be no surprise that private development has followed.

[vicupstate]

Well, I guess Jax can just keep doing what it has been doing then.

Meanwhile, back at ranch...

https://www.greenvilleonline.com/story/news/2018/12/17/downtown-greenvilles-wealth-apartments-theres-room-more/2080708002/
The housing study in Greenville, SC said they need downtown housing for 6,000 more people so guess where developers are going.

If you read the article it lists the 15 most valuable properties in DT Greenville, 8 of which are apartment buildings. Just since that article was published a month ago, two properties sold that have taken over the top two spots. Both are apartments and one was already on the list (Trailside) at $28 million but just sold for $47.3 million. The other property was recently completed and flipped for $72.5 million.   

[Kerry]

I agree that Jax needs to give something tangible. I just disagree that COJ making up a housing study is tangible. From my experiences, tangible is investing in yourself, your parks, schools, streets, mass transit system, buildings, etc. A city putting its money where its mouth is with its public infrastructure and properties has historically attracted private investment moreso than doing a study that generally collects dust. While we've largely ignored these types of investments consistently in downtown, we've spent billions along the JTB corridor in the last 25 years. It should be no surprise that private development has followed.

Yes - Jax needs to be doing those things as well.  It is a failure on many fronts.  Memorial Park still isn't fixed and it has been 3 years.