Armada Owners/City Talk Downtown Soccer Stadium

[Captain Zissou]

Off topic a bit, but it's truly crazy how bad boys high school soccer is in Duval these days. Fletcher, Stanton, BK, and Bolles all used to be state powers and now are shells of what they once were. Mandarin is the only historic power that is still strong, and they are stronger than ever. Talent has gotten spread around a lot more, and the new SJC schools all seem to be strong.

An intern at my company is a collegiate soccer player and they did not play for their high school team.  They said that clubs are far more important and a better jumping off point for a collegiate or professional career.  Their club, from SJC, is one of the best in the state and very few of their players actually participated in their high school programs.  That's a bummer, but you can't blame the players for wanting to spend their playing time more efficiently.  The

[CityLife]

Yeah, club has always been more important than high school, but it is especially more so now with the emergence of ECNL, MLS Next, and other elite platforms like that. With those leagues, plus apps like Hudl and VEO; it is considerably easier to get noticed now than it used to. Nobody falls through the cracks anymore and elite players don't have to play high school. That said, there are still a lot of elite players with scholarships already lined up that choose to play high school, and I doubt not having one or two players elite players is what is holding schools like Fletcher and Stanton back. Back in my day, Fletcher's team went 15+ players deep with quality players. Their record in the past few years is abysmal. Either the surfers have stopped also playing soccer, or it's not as family friendly of an area as it used to be. I speculate it's the latter. Having, the best club in the area (Florida Elite) located in SJC also probably pushes a lot of families to live closer to there.

[copperfiend]

So five years and counting for them to build the equivalent of a high school stadium?

No wonder Tebow and co. called their bluff and started their own team.

A team that is going to play where exactly?

Should be announced before too long.

This discussion was almost a year ago. And aside from rumors of a possible location on the western side of the Regency property, I have not heard anything about a Sporting Jax stadium.

In the original announcement three years ago, it was stated the men's team won't start playing until they have a stadium. It makes me wonder realistically when the team will actually start.

Last I heard (6 months ago, maybe), they were eyeing something far less exciting than Regency, 20+ miles out from DT Jax.

Who knows what will actually happen, but part of me wonders if this thing was launched under the assumption that tens of millions of dollars in public incentives would be theirs for the taking. Tough to make those numbers work when you've got a larger, higher priority football stadium and sports & entertainment district to tackle first.

I wonder what the stadium plan was when they announced the team. That was in 2022 and they had 2025 as a tentative start date. That included a completed soccer stadium. It's 2025 now and there's been no announcement of any type of stadium.

Realistically, it is probably 2028 for an expected start for Sporting Jax if there is a stadium requirement.

[Jrz Jax]

There was such a huge missed opportunity -- I know, this is the capital city of missed opportunities -- to get a proper stadium built, which could have served as the temporary home of the Jaguars during construction of Everbank. Now that the public coffers are tapped out on stadium financing, it just made it significantly harder. That "stadium" is nothing more than an office building with a field attached. Maybe there's a plan to expand that once they start playing, but those things don't happen, especially in the city where renderings go to die.

Not sure this would have been viable. There probably would have been a thousand reasons not to, but there seemed to be a prime location for a 30,000-40,000 seat stadium on city land at the corner of St Johns Bluff Rd and Town Center Parkway. There are already large turn lanes and signaling for that property, but whatever was planned there was abandoned. There needs to be that middle-capacity venue to attract "sports tourism" if that's really going to be a pillar. Maybe if it came to fruition, it miiiight have moved the needle for UNF to consider a football program.....

Eh, probably too swampy to do anything there, which is why no one has done anything there.

Apparently we don't deserve nice things.

[Jones518]

There was such a huge missed opportunity -- I know, this is the capital city of missed opportunities -- to get a proper stadium built, which could have served as the temporary home of the Jaguars during construction of Everbank. Now that the public coffers are tapped out on stadium financing, it just made it significantly harder. That "stadium" is nothing more than an office building with a field attached. Maybe there's a plan to expand that once they start playing, but those things don't happen, especially in the city where renderings go to die.

Not sure this would have been viable. There probably would have been a thousand reasons not to, but there seemed to be a prime location for a 30,000-40,000 seat stadium on city land at the corner of St Johns Bluff Rd and Town Center Parkway. There are already large turn lanes and signaling for that property, but whatever was planned there was abandoned. There needs to be that middle-capacity venue to attract "sports tourism" if that's really going to be a pillar. Maybe if it came to fruition, it miiiight have moved the needle for UNF to consider a football program.....

Eh, probably too swampy to do anything there, which is why no one has done anything there.

Apparently we don't deserve nice things.

That's Bearish!!



I wouldn't count Jax all the way out!


The city of Jax does not own any large parcels of land on St johns bluff rd near the town center to sell to a sports league owner like what's happening on the eastside. The area on St johns bluff you are speaking of was previously owned by the Morrocco Shriners and sold to a private developer to turn it into more retail stores and apartments.

https://www.jaxdailyrecord.com/news/2021/nov/30/morocco-shrine-temple-property-sells-for-dollar16-48-million/




Dury Hotels over Dury Inn was eyeing some other privately owned property over that way:

https://www.jaxdailyrecord.com/news/2023/aug/28/drury-inn-suites-considering-jacksonville-site-near-st-johns-town-center/

[Jrz Jax]

A little further south of the former Shriners property ... buuuut, I looked back and I misread the deed there. It's not owned by the city, but they had to shave off a little of the property to widen St Johns Bluff Rd., not the entire property. That hotel looks like it's on the other side of the street, between Bluff Road and Route 295/power lines.