Developer plans residential tower at former River City Brewery site

[Snaketoz]

https://www.jaxdailyrecord.com/news/2023/apr/06/developer-plans-residential-tower-at-former-river-city-brewery-site/

[thelakelander]

[heights unknown]

https://www.jaxdailyrecord.com/news/2023/apr/06/developer-plans-residential-tower-at-former-river-city-brewery-site/

Here we go again with hopes, high hopes, dreams, etc. Regarding these incentives deals; please educate me. Does that deal, or (money?) go into the developers pockets? And if they don't build it, do they get to keep the money from that deal or have to give it back to the City?

[Ken_FSU]

Wait, is the restaurant on the park out for this new plan?

[thelakelander]

The restaurant is included. It's just in a more isolated riverfront location. I get the desire for the river view but it's weird seeing no retail/dining closer to the park or the main roundabout:

[Ken_FSU]

^This is such a bummer.

Having that restaurant right there coming off the Main Street Bridge to activate the park was my favorite feature of the previous project.

Would have been great the area.

I just don't think you get the same effect at all on the back like this.

Also wonder if/hope there's a way to get retail on the ground floor of the garage, at least on the side facing the park.

[jaxlongtimer]

What happened to Boyer's DIA setback rules for heights along the river front?  Looks like this doesn't meet the setbacks for buildings like this.

While the DDRB staff found the building height met city requirements, its setback did not. The building shows a 16-foot-wide Riverwalk when a minimum 25-foot-wide setback is required.

It looks like the rendering below left out a dividing structure between the park area and pool area.  I believe it's called out as a 4 foot aluminum picket fence in one plan.  Doesn't seem that would give much privacy to the residents using the pool.  Wonder if they will have the latitude to replace it with a solid wall.



And, not thrilled with the view approaching the Acosta Bridge from the south.  Don't forget, on the west side of the bridge are the Baptist and One Call garages and ones for the apartments up against the bridge.  Not too pretty to me, especially as a gateway to the river and downtown skyline.  The remaining park also is beginning to look "smallish" in this rendering and will be sitting in the shadow of the building for the second half of a day.  No sunset viewings here. Finally, is the riverwalk intended to wrap around the building, cross the boat ramp and eventually connected under the Acosta Bridge to the Baptist waterfront?  If so, how is that shown here?

[marcuscnelson]

I don't get why one would build an apartment building that size on the river like that while not putting anything on top of the garage. Is there some strange cost prohibition to just stacking the two together like that?

I wonder how much they're going to ask for in incentives.

[Ken_FSU]

On one hand, it's great that a developer potentially sees a market for a 24-story tower on the Southbank.

On the other hand, I just don't see this development as proposed having a positive impact on pedestrian vibrancy on the Southbank.

If anything, it kind of hurts it, casting a shadow across Friendship Park, providing no park-facing activation, and adding narrow setbacks to the Riverwalk.

Which is where, to me, a likely $20+ million incentive package between REV grants and completion grants for luxury upscale residential that doesn't really have a spillover effect to the rest of the Southbank is kind of hard to swallow.

Contrast it with something like the American Lions proposal for the former Landing site (pie in the sky, or not), and at least that project contains 36,000 square feet of restaurant/retail/plaza directly integrated with the park.

Greatly prefer the smaller, original proposal with the park-front restaurant.

[simms3]

Not a fan of this rendition at all.

I also don't like the architectural "theme" they chose for the conceptual rendering.  I don't see how a real product could be much better from this.  Screams cheap cheap cheap.  If it's going to look kind of cheap, don't make it tall and prominent!

I agree with virtually everyone else's comments here, as well.  We don't need to sacrifice Friendship Park for a project like this.  As much as I want a better skyline with more high-rises, we have to be a bit more forward thinking.  It's not about demanding Bjork Ingels to design something striking for every project, it's just about including some sensible and reasonable design standards.

We should demand at least a podium parked project, at the very least, if they want to go up and include more units.  Wasting space like that, AND having terrible overall design, IMO, is just unacceptable.

[Steve]

My take is I'm honestly indifferent to how it looks in the sky, so to speak.

I definitely think putting the garage under the tower would be better - you can still wrap the garage in apartments that way. I realize that likely increases the construction costs, and had we done this right from the start then we could sell the other half of the property (or convert to public use or something). Related owns this so I'm not sure the motivation they'd have unless we "force" the motivation.

Forcing isn't really a big quality of DDRB or DIA.

[vicupstate]

If I were the city I would try to talk the developer into building a high-rise on  the MOSH site instead.  It will be awhile before it is available though.

[Steve]

If I were the city I would try to talk the developer into building a high-rise on  the MOSH site instead.  It will be awhile before it is available though.

Maybe they can work out a land swap because Related owns the dirt now.

[thelakelander]

I hope the MOSH building could be repurchased into a different museum. This city won't have the money to build one from the ground up. So it's a good opportunity to add or upgrade another cultural project, museum or organization.

[acme54321]

I think overal this is better.  The pool is in a weird place.  I'm surprised it's not on top of the garage or something.  No one wants to be sitting by the pool being ogled by hobos.