Laura Street Trio finally headed to DDRB

[Steve]

^ please just give us something (after 10+ years of talk of  this project)

I agree. I'm concerned about WHY they're including this. Money issue and somehow this helps the pro forma?

[Captain Zissou]

The Steve Atkins need to constantly be in the news? He was also pitching on the Ford on Bay today. 

I agree that all of these renderings and additions mean nothing until dirt starts moving.

Money issue and somehow this helps the pro forma?

Based on the low cap rates that apartment complexes are selling for these days, this could help the financials considerably.

[BridgeTroll]

Rofl... the real clownshow...

[Ken_FSU]

^ please just give us something (after 10+ years of talk of  this project)

I agree. I'm concerned about WHY they're including this. Money issue and somehow this helps the pro forma?

Can't speak to the pro forma, but Atkins has wanted to add multifamily to the Trio for at least six months. From Atkins directly, he genuinely believes there's demand for more housing and there will significant economies of scale from building infrastructure for the Trio and adjacent apartments concurrently and developing both projects simultaneously.

All that said, I expected to see work underway by November, and still few signs of life at the property.

[tufsu1]

^ I expected to see work underway in November....of 2015

[thelakelander]

This is a completely different design....

[Zac T]

I like this site plan better since it removes the vehicular driveway on Adams that was in the original plan. This would create 3 continuous blocks of building frontage along Adams Street which may become 4 blocks if the proposal for the Hildebrandt Building parking lot moves forward.

The city should really look into redesigning the Adams Street corridor and expanding the pedestrian space to allow for more outdoor dining opportunities

[acme54321]

Better site plan, worse architecture.  At this point I'm not sure they'll ever turn dirt on this thing so meh.

[fieldafm]

The city should really look into redesigning the Adams Street corridor and expanding the pedestrian space to allow for more outdoor dining opportunities

Agreed.  Two-waying Adams Street, taking out one lane of parking and replacing that on-street parking with an extended sidewalk area for outdoor dining is relatively simple and inexpensive to accomplish.

https://www.thejaxsonmag.com/article/five-development-myths-that-hold-downtown-jax-back-page-2/




Or COJ could dial back some of the requirements for the parklet program that is already in place, in order to reduce the cost.  When we first envisioned this, we penciled out about $2,500-$3,000 in construction costs.  It ballooned to more than double that based on COJ's (then) traffic planner who indicated that parklets had serious safety concerns and were 'too European'.  They made us FAR exceed the NACTO safety standards adopted in cities around the country, and required an 18-inch-high, steel-reinforced concrete jersey wall, as well as curb stops.  The material costs drastically skyrocketed as a result.

The bottom line is, there are very simple, cost-effective ways to transform Adams into a very vibrant corridor... to complement the projects either proposed or already in process/finished.

[jaxoNOLE]

Better site plan, worse architecture.  At this point I'm not sure they'll ever turn dirt on this thing so meh.

Fair point, but still fun to consider  :

The new architecture looks like it could work with some tweaks, but as drawn, is just confusing -- like it is halfway between the modern all-glass original and trying to blend in as a faux-historical structure.

The view from the Bisbee side is not good, IMO. I'm no architect, but it looks like the grid-layout facade is trying to match the Bisbee, but the proportions are all wrong. They either need more glass surface area, to distinguish the modern building from the Bisbee more decisively, or they need to adopt more of the Bisbee's proportions (thicker horizontal and vertical grid look between windows). Some horizontal elements line up with the horizontal features on the Bisbee; others don't, instead appearing to bisect the Bisbee windows (but not with any consistency there, either). And there's zero ornamentation at the top, making it look like they forgot to roof the building. Even the plain, flat overhang (such as rendered on the Independent Life side, horizontally aligned with the IL's roofline) would improve the roofline look without the building pretending to be part of the original Bisbee.

It actually doesn't look bad from the Independent Life side. If we had never seen a rendering of a glass modern building, we'd probably be reasonably happy.

[thelakelander]

The city should really look into redesigning the Adams Street corridor and expanding the pedestrian space to allow for more outdoor dining opportunities

Been saying this for years! It's one of the few remaining streets in the Northbank that still has continuous blocks of urban street edge. It's a no brainer between the county courthouse/LaVilla and Ocean/Elbow District. The two-way street thing the DIA has been talking about is a chance to go that route. However, I'm not sure where that project currently stands and what the timeline is.

[Ken_FSU]

Ho boy.

https://www.jacksonville.com/story/news/local/2022/01/11/jacksonville-housing-authority-and-laura-street-trio-could-team-up/9136683002/

Looks like the idea for the apartment addition is to have the housing authority purchase the land from Southeast for $10 million, lease it back to them, issue bonds to cover construction, and then try to make their $10 million back through bond proceeds.

I believe this would take the apartment building off the tax rolls as well.

Talks with housing authority lawyers are in "early stages."

Have a feeling we're going to be looking at those crumbling buildings for a while.

[thelakelander]

On the surface, it sounds like the 136 market rate units would be taken off the tax rolls if the property is owned by JHA. Overall, that article makes it sound like actual ground breaking may take longer than what was anticipated last last year.

[jaxjags]

For all of you that liked SE Developments Ford On Bay- READ ABOVE

[Ken_FSU]

Atkins claims that the the development will be under construction "within the next three months."

Just can't see that happening if the financing isn't in place for the new addition and the plan is for concurrent construction.

The incentive deal with the city would need to be amended if he's not under construction by July, assuming he gets DDRB approval for the revised plan.

I think it's gonna be closer to the later, unfortunately.