DIA wants the Landing to start with a park

[Ken_FSU]

Curious if they plan to replace the destination play space. If they don't I think that's a pretty big miss IMO.

At a minimum I think they need to designate a space for some sort of destination playground.

Isn't that the part near the top?

Correct, they've essentially just swapped the Civic Building and Destination Play Space's locations with each other, and made the Civic Building restaurant space to be RFP'd at a later date.

[thelakelander]

Amazing how we turned away a successful, motivated partner with a great site plan over a $12 million subsidy, only to spend $23 million to buy him out, $2 million to demolish the property, $25 million to turn it into a park, and $36 million to subsidize residential.

Nobody likes to hear the "we told you so" line but it is what it is and a big reason why I don't waste my time talking Landing talk anymore. It was clear as day that officials have no clue of what they were doing when pushing to raze the building and lose +30 active businesses. It was also clear that once razed, it would be an inactive hole in the middle of downtown for a decade and the public would drop nearly $100 million in tax money for a replacement.

[Florida Power And Light]

Kinda sounds like a place, a City to just skip. Convoluted. Or worse.
And if inclined to open public park space on waterway, even just a tiny sliver...... skip this place.

[vicupstate]

Amazing how we turned away a successful, motivated partner with a great site plan over a $12 million subsidy, only to spend $23 million to buy him out, $2 million to demolish the property, $25 million to turn it into a park, and $36 million to subsidize residential.

Another example of how partisan politics ruins Jacksonville for everyone.  Running a city is rarely an ideological endeavor, certainly not for the vast majority of cities, many of whom don't even have partisan elections. Yet for Jacksonville it is a drag on everything the city does or attempts to do.

All it would take is a citizen initiated charter amendment to put a stop to it.

[heights unknown]

Kinda sounds like a place, a City to just skip. Convoluted. Or worse.
And if inclined to open public park space on waterway, even just a tiny sliver...... skip this place.

If it wasn't for the fact that I was born there, love the place, and have such a history from "back in the day" there, I would agree with you; but I can't. I will continue to root and pull for Jacksonville until my last breath. But the leadership does suck, tremendously. It's one thing to suck, but to suck and not even be good at it and completely worthless.......that's all I'm going to say.

[fsu813]

All it would take is a citizen initiated charter amendment to put a stop to it.

Who's our next Bill Brinton?

[CG7]

I was watching the news this morning and they were interviewing people about their thoughts on the old landing site. One woman said she wishes the city would add more family entertainment options downtown and I laughed so hard I almost fell out of my chair.
Now you may ask why I found that amusing. My company has been trying for 3 years to put one or even multiple entertainment options in the downtown core, but the city is not the least bit interested in any of the options we tried, so we moved our efforts to the most urban area of town we could.
I was truly surprise at the we only want office, restaurants, bars or retail attitude. once you eat or get of work wouldn't be nice to have something fun to do afterwards.....not in downtown Jacksonville unfortunately.

[WarDamJagFan]

I was watching the news this morning and they were interviewing people about their thoughts on the old landing site. One woman said she wishes the city would add more family entertainment options downtown and I laughed so hard I almost fell out of my chair.
Now you may ask why I found that amusing. My company has been trying for 3 years to put one or even multiple entertainment options in the downtown core, but the city is not the least bit interested in any of the options we tried, so we moved our efforts to the most urban area of town we could.
I was truly surprise at the we only want office, restaurants, bars or retail attitude. once you eat or get of work wouldn't be nice to have something fun to do afterwards.....not in downtown Jacksonville unfortunately.

Would be a shame for a city with seemingly 100 miles of waterfront to actually have water front entertainment.

[heights unknown]

I was watching the news this morning and they were interviewing people about their thoughts on the old landing site. One woman said she wishes the city would add more family entertainment options downtown and I laughed so hard I almost fell out of my chair.
Now you may ask why I found that amusing. My company has been trying for 3 years to put one or even multiple entertainment options in the downtown core, but the city is not the least bit interested in any of the options we tried, so we moved our efforts to the most urban area of town we could.
I was truly surprise at the we only want office, restaurants, bars or retail attitude. once you eat or get of work wouldn't be nice to have something fun to do afterwards.....not in downtown Jacksonville unfortunately.

Would be a shame for a city with seemingly 100 miles of waterfront to actually have water front entertainment.

I don't get it either. Only thing I can think of is maybe they're afraid that entertainment venues would attract various types of crime (as if bars won't?). If I'm not mistaken, towards the end, the Landing was kind of getting really crime ridden. That's the only thing I can think of as a reason why they do not want entertainment venues in the downtown core.

[marcuscnelson]

The tower made it through DIA today. Last stop, Council.

According to Boyer, $25 million is enough to "fully fund the work" so I guess the value engineering has been enough.

https://www.jaxdailyrecord.com/article/dia-approves-dollar36-9-million-deal-for-american-lions-proposed-44-story-tower

[heights unknown]

I hope it gets built, and hope that more comes for our city; however, I hate to sound pessimistic, dark, foreboding, or even negative, but the U.S.A. was threatened twice today to be nuked. And this comes from someone, our enemies almost daily. I hate this time in our history. Getting back on subject, beautiful building, park will be nice, I really believe there's more to come for Jax if our nation and this world can just get it together and quit acting like evil wayward brats. I hope we get to enjoy it all before it all goes up into the atmosphere.

[jaxlongtimer]

The tower made it through DIA today. Last stop, Council.

According to Boyer, $25 million is enough to "fully fund the work" so I guess the value engineering has been enough.

https://www.jaxdailyrecord.com/article/dia-approves-dollar36-9-million-deal-for-american-lions-proposed-44-story-tower

Does the $25 million include the JAX sculpture?  Where does that stand?

Other than adding residents downtown, how does the proposed tower help street level activity?  It reminds me of the Landing:  Orientation toward the river with little or no integration with the Downtown grid.  The building looks like a nice addition to the skyline, just like the Four Seasons might.  But, I don't see either of these projects substantially moving the mojo (to quote Khan) of the core forward much. 

Have the Strand and the Peninsula energized the Southbank's night/day life?  I don't see it.  Mortons, the Wine Cellar, Crawdaddy's... have all come and gone and not much growth to replace them.  More is happening going into and toward San Marco than on or near the Southbank's riverfront.  I expect the same for the Northbank the way DIA is proceeding.  Lot's of residences with nothing to do... little retail, restaurant, entertainment, expansive green space...taking advantage of the river....promoting our history and cultural institutions....robust public urban transit....the lack of all these elements assures a diminished core for years to come.

I guess I have seen too many "missing the boat" projects over the years to believe these projects are going to be the savior of the core.  I expect they will be hot properties initially and then the novelty will wear off and we will be back to the past.  Ironically, the most robust urban core areas are the ones not managed by DIA: San Marco, Springfield, Riverside...and, Brooklyn, mostly in spite of DIA.

[JaGoaT]

That building is too tall for that area, hopefully they make it about a dozen floors shorter

[Ken_FSU]

Does the $25 million include the JAX sculpture?  Where does that stand?

Nope, the sculpture will be funded separately, with the hope being that sponsorship/private donation will cover a large chunk of it.

I'm not sure if a final decision has been made on the sculpture - sounds like the DIA was leaning heavily toward a tweaked version of the original Jax sculpture - but DIA is definitely moving forward with the plan to have a major sculpture integrated with the park by the time it opens.

Subsidy is steep, but if nothing else, having expensive residential in this location should ensure better security and upkeep at the park (especially if a portion of incremental tax revenue is reserved for park maintenance as has been discussed in the past), and I really like the integrated retail and rooftop components.

I look forward to imagining the grand vision as I walk through dead sod and tumbleweed in the coming years.

[downtownbrown]

haven't been on the forum for a while.  Has anyone suggested swapping the leadership of Jax with the leadership of Greenville?  Greenville has done an amazing job with central planning, and as I bet most of you know, there is no shortage of entertainment downtown.  Lots of ways to compare the opportunities in both places, but the obvious difference is leadership and vision.  Or as Khan would say, Mojo.