Land swap - best deal on the table - Or not....

[jaxlongtimer]

One point of view posted on the Jaxson with this as its main argument for a high rise, exactly what I have cautioned against:

....But the best accomplishment of the land swap proposal is that it gets development done on the Landing pads...

https://www.thejaxsonmag.com/article/uf-campus-land-swap-is-the-best-deal-on-the-table/

A counterpoint by Mark Woods, Florida Times-Union columnist, which refrains my contention that we need much more public spaces, not less, to be a first class city and downtown:

Goal for Riverfront Plaza should be to get it right and get it done | Opinion
Mark Woods
Jacksonville Florida Times-Union

....Truth be told, I don't care all that much about a lot of the land swap details. And I'm fine with the University of Florida, one way or another, ending up with an existing building in LaVilla for its planned campus.

What I do care about is what happens in Riverfront Plaza.

Riverfront Plaza should be centerpiece

For as long as I've lived in Jacksonville, we've been bragging about having the biggest urban park system in America — and saying it's high time we turned it into the best.

To me, this should be our identity. Florida's natural playground. Our rivers, beaches, trees, parks. And achieving that admirable goal — something that can meld quality of life, economic impact, tourism, resiliency and more — involves a mix of things.

∎ Taking some of our preservation land — much of it the result of the Delaney administration's Preservation Project — and, while still protecting the natural assets there, improving the access and infrastructure.

∎ Creating and maintaining parks with all kinds of recreation, for all ages. Swimming, soccer, baseball, softball, tennis, pickleball and so on.

∎ And, finally, our own Central Park.

Every great parks system has that one iconic park, the communal outdoor meeting space. A park that mixes nature, recreation, relaxation, entertainment, food. A place that, by being a great urban park, is an engine of the economy and identity.

Many of these are massive parks. New York's Central Park is more than 800 acres. Chicago's Grant Park is more than 300 acres. St. Louis' Forest Park is about 1,300 acres.

To put that in perspective, our Met Park has shrunk to close to its original 14 acres. Riverfront Plaza is about 7 acres. Memorial Park is about 5.8 acres. James Weldon Johnson Park is about 1.5 acres.

Suffice it to say, we're never going to have a downtown park with hundreds of square acres. But what we can dream about having is a truly remarkable linear park stretching from Met Park to Memorial Park on the Northbank, and from the RiversEdge development to the Fuller Warren on the Southbank, connected by riverwalks, the shared-used path and bridges, linking to the Emerald Trail and its creeks.

To achieve this dream doesn't require all of this to be greenspace. But it does require all of it to be connected — and to have several sizable pieces of public land, with things for the public to do.

That's where Riverfront Plaza fits in.

It should be the centerpiece of all of this.

It's important to get it done and get it right. Or maybe that order should be flipped. Get it right and get it done....

....Another one of the selling points for the tower proposal is that it could generate about $700,000 a year to maintain and program the park.

This certainly is a long-running issue in a city that, by nearly any measure, spends less on parks than other places.

But it's a sad statement if the way we maintain our parks is by chipping away at them.

Every great park, from national parks to urban parks, involves and invites that temptation. In New York, Central Park represents about 6 percent of Manhattan's insanely valuable land. And yet while there have been many attempts to chip away at the park, it has remained largely intact — which has only made the land around it even more valuable.

That's probably not a good comparison. Few places are New York. A more relevant comparison might be St. Petersburg — where they have resisted the temptation to chip away at something that has become integral to their quality of life and economic boom: their downtown waterfront parks.

Those advocating for a land swap in downtown Jacksonville emphasize that this is merely the first step toward the Gateway Jax plans, that the next would involve getting into the weeds of those plans, and making a decision whether to continue down that path.

Still, this will take us down that path.

And I tend to agree with those who say we should first make sure this path is the right one — not just building this high-rise there, but building any high-rise there....

https://www.jacksonville.com/story/news/columns/mark-woods/2025/06/06/should-land-swap-for-uf-riverfront-plaza-be-path-to-park/84008385007/

[thelakelander]

∎ And, finally, our own Central Park.

Every great parks system has that one iconic park, the communal outdoor meeting space. A park that mixes nature, recreation, relaxation, entertainment, food. A place that, by being a great urban park, is an engine of the economy and identity.

Many of these are massive parks. New York's Central Park is more than 800 acres. Chicago's Grant Park is more than 300 acres. St. Louis' Forest Park is about 1,300 acres.

When I read this earlier, I thought these were bad examples. Springfield Park or basically the mile of historic parks lining Hogans Creek between Downtown and Springfield would be a better comparable. Hopefully, with the Emerald Trail project, this space can be placed back on its original pedestal.

[marcuscnelson]

If the goal is a lot of urban park space, a much more practical way of getting there seems to be leveraging the combination of Shipyards West, Sulzbacher relocating, (eventually) demolishing the jail, and Klutho Park to assemble a large, linear park along Hogans Creek through essentially much of the urbanized population. That's a much more substantial and Central Park-esque space than Riverfront Plaza, tower or not.

I'm not sure why Mark Woods seems to be treating the former Landing site as if it is already a completed park in its current form that is now somehow being torn up to include the tower and bridge connection. St. Petersburg is an admirable comparison, but its downtown is also very different territory from downtown Jacksonville. Is it a sad statement that you need people living near a park to maintain it? Perhaps. But it also is, given where Jacksonville is now.

[jaxlongtimer]

∎ And, finally, our own Central Park.

Every great parks system has that one iconic park, the communal outdoor meeting space. A park that mixes nature, recreation, relaxation, entertainment, food. A place that, by being a great urban park, is an engine of the economy and identity.

Many of these are massive parks. New York's Central Park is more than 800 acres. Chicago's Grant Park is more than 300 acres. St. Louis' Forest Park is about 1,300 acres.

When I read this earlier, I thought these were bad examples. Springfield Park or basically the mile of historic parks lining Hogans Creek between Downtown and Springfield would be a better comparable. Hopefully, with the Emerald Trail project, this space can be placed back on its original pedestal.

Curious, how many acres is Springfield Park?

I also don't think that Downtown wraps around it like Central Park or some parks in other cities.  But, agree, it is better than nothing even if not what some of us think of as a focal point for downtown given its "edge of town" location.  Will be interesting to see if the Emerald Trail makes it more relevant.

[jaxlongtimer]

If the goal is a lot of urban park space, a much more practical way of getting there seems to be leveraging the combination of Shipyards West, Sulzbacher relocating, (eventually) demolishing the jail, and Klutho Park to assemble a large, linear park along Hogans Creek through essentially much of the urbanized population. That's a much more substantial and Central Park-esque space than Riverfront Plaza, tower or not.

I'm not sure why Mark Woods seems to be treating the former Landing site as if it is already a completed park in its current form that is now somehow being torn up to include the tower and bridge connection. St. Petersburg is an admirable comparison, but its downtown is also very different territory from downtown Jacksonville. Is it a sad statement that you need people living near a park to maintain it? Perhaps. But it also is, given where Jacksonville is now.

LOL, you have a better chance of getting a 100 story skyscraper here than accomplishing all the things you list to get your linear park, based on all the complaints here about not funding the parks adequately that we already have or finally moving the jail for $1 billion.  But, we can all dream...

By the way, I take it Woods is advocating for a connected park from the iconic centerpoint of downtown to the other park areas.  It is a signature park, not the same as one less conspicuous.  As such, it can help to elevate the "brand" of downtown.

Woods agrees with those here about "getting it done" and emphasized that even in the column's headline.  The park is under construction, and minus the theoretical building pad, it appears that it will be completed in a reasonable time.  I think you also miss the point about chipping away at our parks... we need to think longer term, not "where Jacksonville is now." 

This is my main gripe about our City, this desire to chase "instant gratification" over longer term benefits.  If decades ago, instead of building acres of riverfront parking lots, we built these public green spaces, maybe we wouldn't be debating the current shortcomings of downtown.  We lack coherent and thoughtful planning and, instead, randomly ping pong from one "grand project" to another, hoping it somehow comes together and makes sense.  Gateway acknowledges this shortcoming by building their own ecosystem at Pearl, planned to integrate their city blocks into a coherent unit, starting with walkability (a must as mass transit isn't coming anytime soon to the urban core, another drop out due to lack of holistic planning).  What other mass of city blocks has been planned out that way?

[Ken_FSU]

I fail to see how activating this private development pad, putting it on the tax rolls, ensuring a funding source for the park, and giving people something to actually do at Riverfront Plaza meaningfully harms our ability to create a network of quality riverfront parks. It's a corner parcel, catty-cornered with busy roadways.



For this quote from Mark Wood's column, "It's a sad statement if the way we maintain our parks is by chipping away at them [for private development]," I'd remind him that Riverfront Plaza is net-new park, and was formally commercial mixed-use.

[Captain Zissou]

We lack coherent and thoughtful planning

Agreed.  I think adding one more random acre of green space to a public park surrounded only by office uses is a lack of coherent and thoughtful planning.  What does one more acre of grass due to Riverfront Plaza vs activation of the existing space with complementary uses?  This seems like a similar argument to "convert the skyway into a pedestrian path. It will be like the high line!".  Those things are needed in NYC because there's a scarcity of other public space in Manhattan.  We have nothing but open space.  There's over 100 acres of park space in the DIA's definition of downtown.  Thoughtful planning would be connecting those spaces, programming them in complementary ways, and making them the best spaces they can be. 

[jaxlongtimer]

For this quote from Mark Wood's column, "It's a sad statement if the way we maintain our parks is by chipping away at them [for private development]," I'd remind him that Riverfront Plaza is net-new park, and was formally commercial mixed-use.

Just to take your point... before it was commercial space, it was a parking lot.  Before that it was shipyard/docks and before that it was swamp and river bottom.  I don't see that is relevant to its current state.  I guess because the Four Seasons is being built on former public space and numerous other proposals are being made on similar property, we should take them off the table based on your comment that conversion is not acceptable.  Well, I can agree on opposing this reversal in those cases.

You could make your comment about most any real estate in use today.

[jaxlongtimer]

We lack coherent and thoughtful planning

Agreed.  I think adding one more random acre of green space to a public park surrounded only by office uses is a lack of coherent and thoughtful planning.  What does one more acre of grass due to Riverfront Plaza vs activation of the existing space with complementary uses?  This seems like a similar argument to "convert the skyway into a pedestrian path. It will be like the high line!".  Those things are needed in NYC because there's a scarcity of other public space in Manhattan.  We have nothing but open space.  There's over 100 acres of park space in the DIA's definition of downtown.  Thoughtful planning would be connecting those spaces, programming them in complementary ways, and making them the best spaces they can be.

We have at least as much open space to build high rises and such on private land in the urban core so why give up a precious acre on the most visible and possibly valuable property in Downtown to a high rise vs. public use?  As Woods' notes, 100 acres is not a lot.  I am also not sure how that number was arrived at.   I don't see that many acres in the traditional north core area.  Keep in mind, as I recall, we define Downtown as a much larger area than most people think of... from the Stadium to Brooklyn. Also, the point is made we are chipping away.  This isn't the first or last proposal on prime public riverfront facing property. 

[Tacachale]

There's really two things here. First, and what Kelsi's editorial really addresses, is which is the better way for the City to get the Interline property and move the UF deal forward with celerity: swapping the Landing pad or spending $7 million to buy it? After extensive negotiation, planning and work, those are the deals being voted on tonight. To me the price tag settles the matter: Gateway's price for the Interline property $7 million, and the Landing pads are only valued at $5.5 million.

Now, I'm in the administration, but no one has written more on Landing and the various issues and travesties surrounding it than we at the Jaxson. This is a good deal, and short of someone inventing a time machine and going back to prevent us from blowing $25 million demolishing the Landing, the best way to see anything but grass at this site in the next few years.

The second thing is what should go at the Landing development sections. Folks have their own opinions, and this thread is proof you'll never get everyone to agree. The mayor decided to go with the plan as we inherited it (which always has included a development integrated with the park)  and strike the best possible deal we could for the taxpayers, rather than going back to the drawing board and potentially spending more years. And at any rate, this thread is proof not everyone agrees anyway. One thing I've always believed having visited and researched other cities, is the park will fail without activation — and revenue. The current project will provide both. As such I'm very happy with it, not just as a mayoral aide but as a longtime advocate for our urban spaces.

[Tacachale]

I fail to see how activating this private development pad, putting it on the tax rolls, ensuring a funding source for the park, and giving people something to actually do at Riverfront Plaza meaningfully harms our ability to create a network of quality riverfront parks. It's a corner parcel, catty-cornered with busy roadways.



For this quote from Mark Wood's column, "It's a sad statement if the way we maintain our parks is by chipping away at them [for private development]," I'd remind him that Riverfront Plaza is net-new park, and was formally commercial mixed-use.

Yeah, I really don't understand this line of thinking. It's only a park at all because of a historically disastrous decision to demolish the Landing. And before the Landing it was surface parking, the result of another unfortunate decision to demolish the working waterfront. The thing in Downtown that's been most "chipped away" over the last 70 years is our building fabric! At one point a few years ago, we had 12 nearly continuous blocks of grass, and it's not like that resulted in a huge boom of folks coming down to "enjoy" it. What we've really needed is more intentional decision making.

[jaxoNOLE]

Based on the renderings, it appears roughly one-third of the surface area of the development pad will be park space. Additionally, the Gateway proposal includes a floor of public food and beverage space. So at the garden terrace level, the entire area remains accessible to the public. The space taken up by the main tower abuts the Main Street bridge. I actually believe the tower would make the park more enjoyable by acting as a visual and sound buffer against that traffic.

What specific negative externalities will the tower impose on the park?

Are there design compromises that could maximize the public space but still allow the synergies of a built-in user base? For example, adding a floor to the short leg abutting Independent Dr to permit a "blow-through" floor contiguous with the garden terrace, effectively doubling the size of the terrace and providing a covered area that could also house small-scale retail or pop-up markets? It just seems so possible to achieve activation & ensure public access without foreclosing the interest of private development, especially with Gateway as a partner.

[CityLife]

It's been a while, so I just went back and looked at the presentations from Perkins and Will, Agency, and Olin; and all three planned to have a high-rise structure there. There is even a 2nd structure in the NW corner in some. Seems like the ship sailed long ago to make the pad part of the park...

Here are the 3 presentations:

https://coj365-my.sharepoint.com/personal/rmezini_coj_net/_layouts/15/onedrive.aspx?id=%2Fpersonal%2Frmezini%5Fcoj%5Fnet%2FDocuments%2FP%2001%2002%20Northbank%20Lawn%20Riverfront%20Plaza%20FKA%20Jacksonville%20Landing%20Design%20Competition%2FPresentations&ga=1

The Perkins and Will proposal integrated the structure with the park the best by including outdoor dining and a "sky garden terrace" (see below). I think those (in addition to cough cough, the public art) are a big reason it was the winning proposal. Gateway is proposing essentially the same thing. Seems like a no brainer.

[jaxlongtimer]

I know I am poking the bear here  and respect the opposing heartfelt points of view.

I hope everyone feels the same in reverse.

Where I am coming from is this:  This property, as a public space, is truly unique.  It is riverfront, located in heart of the north core, is well connected with the riverwalk/Emerald Trail and walkability down Laura Street and is strategically located to brand, identify and glorify the downtown skyline.

No hotel is going to do the same.  Hotels can go anywhere downtown, they don't need to be on the most valuable and unique piece of property on our riverfront. We talk about all the empty blocks and surface parking lots downtown.  These should be prime for hotel development.  Why cram one in here that will also detract from the most iconic building on our skyline that instantly says "Jacksonville?"

[Tacachale]

After a couple of amendments, City Council passed the land swap 16-1, Rory Diamond voting no. Ju'Coby Pittman out on excused absence.