J Magazine June 2017

DOWNTOWN JACKSONVILLE: IT’S TIME TO FIX IT!
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 20
whole begins to suffer: People who ought to
get together, by means of central activities that
are failing, fail to get together. Ideas and money
that ought to meet, and do so often only by
happenstance in a place of central vitality, fail
to meet. The networks of city public life develop
gaps they cannot afford.”
“Without a strong and inclusive central
heart (emphasis hers), a city tends to become
a collection of interests isolated from one
another. It falters at producing something
greater, socially, culturally and economically,
than the sum of its separated parts.”
A half century later, city planner Jeff Speck
wrote “Walkable City: How Downtown Can
Save America, One Step at a Time.” While
suburbs were invented to isolate people, he
said, “Cities were created to bring things together.
They better they do this job, the more
successful they become.”
“The Downtown is the only part of the city
that belongs to everybody,” Speck pointed out.
“It doesn’t matter where you may find your
home; the Downtown is yours too. Investing in
the Downtown of a city is the only place-based
way to benefit all of its citizens at once.”
This critical concept of Downtown as a
diverse, active, human community hasn’t
fit well in Jacksonville because our definition
of Downtown is necessarily so big. It’s
more than two miles from EverBank Field to
Prime Osborn and a mile from State Street
down to the river, and the Southbank adds
still more territory. Our major investments
have been scattered all over that roughly
three-square-mile area, so there’s no
synergy among, for example, the updates at
EverBank, the new Duval County Courthouse,
Hemming Park, the T-U Center and
the Elbow, much less the Southbank.
Planner Davis said a successful Downtown
will have these three C’s:
CLUSTERING of different developments
and amenities, something shopping malls
figured out long ago with their anchor-store
and food-court arrangements.
COMPLEMENTING uses, so users of one
are drawn to other components as well.
Convention-goers like to seek out food and
drink; symphony-goers want to have dinner
first; residents like to walk places.
COMPACT setting, so the human activity
doesn’t get diluted across parking lots and
empty buildings.
That concept would focus on the central
core, from the Hyatt Regency on the east to
Broad Street on the west and from State Street
south to the river, with the epicenter being
Laura Street, between Hemming Park and
Jacksonville Landing — where some of the current
planning is targeted. That’s ground zero.
Now is the time to stop muttering, blaming,
dreaming and planning. This year should
be the year of commitment and action — and
building cranes.
Paul Astleford, president and CEO of Visit
Jacksonville, has long argued that Downtown
doesn’t need more unconnected projects but
rather a vision for itself. “It’s not about what
we want to have or what we want to build; it’s
what we want to be.”
Now he sees energy shifting toward a common
vision around which projects will emerge:
“For the first time, leaders are understanding
the difference between vision and strategy.
“Transformation is happening, and it’s
exciting — from silo-driven projects by developers
to a collaborative, visionary approach
to who we want to be, how we want to present
Jacksonville to the world with a unified
voice. It’s happening. That transformation is
in progress.”
Four powerful forces — four M’s, if you
will — are now at work to push Downtown to
blossom faster: the market, the magnate, the
master plan and the mayor.
THE IRRESISTIBLE
FORCE OF THE MARKET
If Downtown doesn’t discover itself, it
may be swept over by encroachments from
its fringes, with market forces providing the
energy. Millennials, and some retiring Baby
Boomers, shunning commutes and the car
culture, want to live in an urban environment
and enjoy the arts, culture and entertainment
of greater Downtown.
If you haven’t driven up Riverside Avenue
in a few years, you’ll be amazed. The Brooklyn
area has added 604 new apartments in the
past two years and filled them, and another
10-story, 300-apartment tower called Vista
Brooklyn is planned for this year.
The developments include retail and
restaurants, and a little farther south, new
restaurants and bars are popping up all over
Riverside and Avondale, leading to parking
skirmishes with nearby residents.
As the force moves northeast, The Florida
Times-Union is actively exploring sale or
redevelopment of its prime site between the
river and Riverside Avenue, just off the Acosta
Bridge.
From the east, the Sports Complex has
added the new Daily’s Place amphitheater
and Intuition Ale Works, and the city is
working with Shad Khan’s Iguana Investments
to develop Metropolitan Park and the
Shipyards, which stretch all the way west to
... the Elbow, the relatively new and popular
entertainment district soon to be anchored
by the Cowford Chop House. And suddenly
you’re overlapping with the Florida Theatre
a block away and verging on ground zero.
And from the south, across the river, Peter
Rummell is moving ahead with his plans
for The District, the development originally
referred to as “Healthy Town.” Nearby, also
along the river, a 300-unit apartment complex
called Broadstone River House is under construction.
A river-taxi ride away from ground
zero.
In fact, the list of projects actively planned
or underway in the greater Downtown area
is much longer: the Southbank Apartment
Ventures, the Lofts at LaVilla, Houston Street
Manor, the newly uncovered inlet between
Liberty and Market next to the Hyatt, the
USS Adams museum ship, the planned
River & Post restaurant catty-corner from
the Cummer, new docks on the St. Johns, the
new Baptist/M.D. Anderson building, various
infrastructure improvements ...
Of course, the tired Jacksonville Landing
stands out, at ground zero, as an, uh, opportunity
to be explored when the lawsuit between
the city and the owners is resolved.
The proposed expansions of the riverwalks
on both banks, the river taxi and the Skyway
would tie together all of the above.
Downtown advocates point out that
Downtown may be very close to an inflection
point for private investment. No one wants the
risk of being the heroic pioneer investor, this
thinking goes, but when critical mass develops,
there is plenty of money that wants in.
Jim Bailey said every major building Downtown
has been sold within the past five years,
and there’s a reason — presumably not out of
frustration or desperation but rather as patient
investment. “You can see something there.”
THE MOJO OF
THE MAGNATE
Since he purchased the Jaguars in 2011,
JUNE 2017 | J MAGAZINE 69