So, Jax May Be The Only City To Demolish Its Landing

[Josh]

Baltimore is looking to follow our "lead".......

https://www.baltimoresun.com/business/bs-bz-new-harborplace-designs-20231030-ydloudlljzd2hdmklkvhiaghxa-story.html

[Steve]

There's a big difference:

- Baltimore is looking to replace their building and have a plan on that replacement.
- Jacksonville demolished theirs, then said, "Ok, what do we want to do now?"

[Ken_FSU]

There's a big difference:

- Baltimore is looking to replace their building and have a plan on that replacement.
- Jacksonville demolished theirs, then said, "Ok, what do we want to do now?"

What they said 56 months ago as the demolition plans were being made.

Lenny Curry:



Lori Boyer:



Four years after the Landing was demolished, here we are.



Gotta get this guy fully funded and built quickly in a way that allows for private development on the southern pad while not being beholden to it happening before Phase 2 construction can begin. Will not succeed as half a park anymore than the Skyway succeeded as half a transit system, anymore than the original Landing succeeded as a mall without the promised dedicated parking for the landlord.

[thelakelander]

Honestly, a park will never attract the amount of people consistently that the Landing did during its heyday. Hopefully, we'll get this thing fully funded and built. Nevertheless, additional work will need to be invested in properties fronting the park to make it a true 24/7 activity center. Hopefully, there's a plan for how to do just that.

[heights unknown]

There's a big difference:

- Baltimore is looking to replace their building and have a plan on that replacement.
- Jacksonville demolished theirs, then said, "Ok, what do we want to do now?"

No, I think they said: "what do we do now?" They NEVER really had a clue IMO.

[pierre]

There's a big difference:

- Baltimore is looking to replace their building and have a plan on that replacement.
- Jacksonville demolished theirs, then said, "Ok, what do we want to do now?"

One other big difference is Harborplace is owned by an experienced, local, known Baltimore developer who is leading the project.

The Landing was one of Lenny's many follies

[marcuscnelson]

To get wistful for a moment, I can't help but wonder what, even if we'd decided to go down this path of replacing the Landing with a park, it'd have looked like if there was any sense of urgency to everything after the demolition. It seems in hindsight that most of the pieces being considered now were things that would have been on the table then anyway. Like Sister Cities Plaza, or the Music Heritage Garden. If we'd at least said "okay we're demolishing the Landing but at the same time we're going to commit to one big project to set up the replacement park for a design to go on top of it" maybe it wouldn't have been such a ridiculous slog to get anything out of it. Instead it's just been one plodding step after another.

I guess that's the issue of city capacity to actually handle all that work at once.

[CityLife]

^Yeah, I disagreed with taking The Landing down, as I thought it still had some decent bones and could have been modified and updated; but I think the worst part of the deal was taking it down with absolutely no replacement plan.

COJ sent letters to the last remaining tenants to vacate by June 1, 2019. So here we are nearly 3.5 years later with absolutely nothing in place yet. Given how the City has worked in the past and the piecemeal approach to design and funding, when will the City even have anything in place? The City said 18-24 months from July 2023 for Phase 1, so what does that actually mean? July 2026 at the earliest?

The City had a blank slate to activate the space and maintain some level of vibrancy during the design/funding/construction period. There are so many different types of pop up concepts that could have worked at the site, many of which are relatively cheap and could have given park designers some guidance as to what does and doesn't work on the site.

https://www.metrojacksonville.com/forum/index.php/topic,37072.msg514618.html#msg514618

I started the above thread two years ago about two waterfront pop-up concepts in Miami that were being used as temporary placeholders for future developments. One of them was open from 2020-2022 and the other closed this year after being open for five years. Neither closed because of a lack of success, but because they were always just a temporary concept. It's a shame that Jax's leaders do not have that kind of foresight or is it just laziness?

[thelakelander]

We've put ourselves in a very predictable outcome that was mentioned here in the months prior to its demolition.

We're going to eventually end up with a more expensive version of everything Alvin Brown's redevelopment plan would have accomplished a decade ago. Some buildings may look different and the green space is shaped differently, but the goal of mixed use green space is what the old plan was as well. Except, we've lost a development entity that could actually pull it off (yes, I'm talking about Sleiman himself) and a base of 30 restaurants and retail shops, regularly programmed events to build upon.  Some may not like them, but they are very successful in landing retail tenants and development.

All the peaches and cream hopes and visions that people were thinking could happen were not going to because the people leading the charge did not have the professional experience to pull it off. Also much of the stuff in the flashy renderings aren't going to happen anytime soon, if ever, because there was never committed funding (we mentioned this years ago) for it or financial feasibility (the tower was never practical in a city that hasn't had a skyscraper built in the Northbank since 1990).

So a tough, but very predictable outcome to arrive at. Hate to be brunt because I really do believe in downtown's potential and the ability to progress rapidly, but we have to acknowledge and accept the things that did not work, in order to do better and not repeat the mistakes of the past.

[Jax_Developer]

Another thing that can be said is it feels like the DT leadership is trying run before walking. Why did we opt to go with a 20+ story tower for the Ford on Bay? Completely unrealistic for quite some time. Meanwhile, some of the other options, still being a reach, are so much more practical. (Minus Southeast but I like the vision lol).

https://www.jaxdailyrecord.com/news/2022/jan/06/gallery-renderings-of-the-six-projects-proposed-for-the-ford-on-bay/

--

Same can be said for the Landing Skyscraper, the RFP was basically like "hey, build a 30 story tower of whatever" which is just odd to request... If we want to be building tall, the coast line is where to go... citizens want density in different areas than the market and vice-versa.

[thelakelander]

Or if you don't have a need for 15-story building, you make it available for adaptive reuse instead of blowing up something built at a density and height the market obviously can't support at this point.

[Skybox111]

I'm seeing a big collapse coming maybe next year or 2025 and it's bad with china spending wildly on infrastructure and transit that sucks alot and a bunch of there high speed trains are fake in their ads they building towers all over and no one can afford to buy an apartment and now the economy is blowing up over there and japan said china is going be alot worse outcome like japan did back in the 90s when they were in a recession . Now we may face that same problem when they go down we and the world goes down too big market crash. So far it is already happening with developers all over halting or not getting banks to lend money for projects just like this one developer from chicago working multiple projects. His projects in tampa and Houston phoenix are being halted for months. https://www.bizjournals.com/phoenix/news/2023/10/30/more-x-projects-shutting-down-construction.html?cx_testId=39&cx_testVariant=cx_1&cx_artPos=0#cxrecs_s and our laura and trio still will probably suffer reading from times union that place had been under several developers and mayors for decades and still can't be saved most went bankrupt or just couldn't handle the costs. And look at this vidfrom b1m about saving old buildings like the woolworth how much trouble it's been to save it. https://youtu.be/sp3tK8Vqv9w?si=EKs9WtQ-mBagsbQC  And look at these https://youtu.be/G9VZf4ISG-o?si=r78OWylp2GHLJkT2 https://youtu.be/cEtvrHLc174?si=N1-KXPOmX1xCwjS4 and this what they do to food over there. https://youtu.be/iJO4jOkF64I?si=Csyu0zREB2I_F7IJ Look at their channel what happens over there will shock you. https://youtu.be/B0JjcOAJzWs?si=2675nKHZIDQMcerM

[Jax_Developer]

I'm seeing a big collapse coming maybe next year or 2025 and it's bad with china spending wildly on infrastructure and transit that sucks alot and a bunch of there high speed trains are fake in their ads they building towers all over and no one can afford to buy an apartment and now the economy is blowing up over there and japan said china is going be alot worse outcome like japan did back in the 90s when they were in a recession . Now we may face that same problem when they go down we and the world goes down too big market crash. So far it is already happening with developers all over halting or not getting banks to lend money for projects just like this one developer from chicago working multiple projects. His projects in tampa and Houston phoenix are being halted for months. https://www.bizjournals.com/phoenix/news/2023/10/30/more-x-projects-shutting-down-construction.html?cx_testId=39&cx_testVariant=cx_1&cx_artPos=0#cxrecs_s and our laura and trio still will probably suffer reading from times union that place had been under several developers and mayors for decades and still can't be saved most went bankrupt or just couldn't handle the costs. And look at this vidfrom b1m about saving old buildings like the woolworth how much trouble it's been to save it. https://youtu.be/sp3tK8Vqv9w?si=EKs9WtQ-mBagsbQC  And look at these https://youtu.be/G9VZf4ISG-o?si=r78OWylp2GHLJkT2 https://youtu.be/cEtvrHLc174?si=N1-KXPOmX1xCwjS4 and this what they do to food over there. https://youtu.be/iJO4jOkF64I?si=Csyu0zREB2I_F7IJ Look at their channel what happens over there will shock you. https://youtu.be/B0JjcOAJzWs?si=2675nKHZIDQMcerM

Although I recognize we live in global economy, the economic collapse in China has certainly already been going on for quite some time. The system that they engineered for how developers were allowed to operate makes 2008 look regulated beyond comprehension. They are, for the first time really, facing those consequences because they aren't urbanizing like a few decades ago. Secondly, China's building code is a joke.. and they build skyscrapers in urban areas with usable lives as short as 30-40 years. Their real estate market was going to collapse, it was just a matter of time.. and it actually began before the credit crisis.

As for the B1M video, he was demonstrating that this "push" towards office conversions are not economical. That conversion costing wayyyyyy more than if it was demolished and built new. That's the point he's making there. It's not economical to do.

I do think the credit tightening will get worse, but I think everyone likes to think that the next 08 crisis is upon us, anytime we have recessionary measures. 08 was special, it was not caused by some economic imbalance, rather a lack of regulation on housing. If anything, the fact that RE lending is tight now, is helping to prevent another 08 meltdown. Shotty loans can certainly tank an economy (aka China rn.)

That being said, Jacksonville as a local environment faces a demographics issue, rather an economic one. Population growth, which usually follows job growth, can pretty much reverse almost any negative macroeconomic metric. What we struggle with as a city, is tackling tight credit markets when the demand is there. There is demand for retail, (https://www.costar.com/article/1546621985/jacksonvilles-retail-sector-second-in-the-us-for-rent-growth-during-the-third-quarter), and there is demand for housing (because we added 40k+ jobs in 2023 and retail trends typically follow housing trends).

I don't think the picture is pretty, but things aren't doom & gloom... especially locally.

[Skybox111]

Oh i see.

[Florida Power And Light]

My son and I went to Miami's Bayside Center last weekend and it was PACKED.  In fact, Packed isn't even a good word for it.  There were some places it was actually difficult to move through.  That was the first time I have actually been to downtown Miami (really just been to the airport and driven by on I-95) and I was blown away.  All I can say is WOW!!!

Downtown Miami is unrecognizable now when compared to what it was when Bayside opened in the late 1980s. Back in those days, it was pretty similar to Downtown Jacksonville. However, when it booms nationally, it really booms there. Nevertheless, the management at Bayside (along with the City of Miami) have found ways to keep people coming back to Bayside. Part of that has been clustering (like the cruise terminal being nearby). Another part has been renovation (yes, you need to refresh your property after 30 years) and another part has been changing the tenant mix to reflect the current market.