J Magazine Spring 2018

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“We need the Landing to at least keep up and not become the drag.”
Oliver Barakat, Downtown Investment Authority board member
FLORIDA TIMES-UNION
Both sides in the Landing dispute — Sleiman and Mayor Lenny
Curry — are passionate, committed and strong-willed, but the
pressures from all directions are suggesting that now is the time for
clenched-teeth mediation and compromise.
FINGER POINTING
It’s easy to try to blame Sleiman Enterprises and the city for the
Landing’s deterioration over the years. But the failure was likely inevitable.
The early desertion by stores and restaurants is an indication
the concept was flawed from the beginning. The festival marketplace
was built in an area with a sparse residential population,
leaving only the Monday through Friday work crowd as its base.
Retailers and restaurants can’t survive that way.
City Council member John Crescimbeni agrees that the absence
of a nearby residential base was a detriment to the Landing’s
success. A lack of parking, he said, may have been a secondary
contributor to its failure.
Parking shouldn’t be a big problem based on the lack of visitors
the Landing gets, outside of special events. A University of
North Florida public opinion survey commissioned by J magazine
showed 44 percent of local residents said they hadn’t been
to the Landing in the past year, while 45 percent had been there
only a couple of times. (See related story on page 26.)
Count many of those interviewed for this story among those
two categories. Council member Lori Boyer said she fits in the
category of visiting a couple of times a year.
“And the times were not to go to dinner there or go shopping
there, which is the purpose really of the venue,” she said.
Crescimbeni said he felt confident he hadn’t been this year
and probably didn’t go there in 2017.
Brian Hughes, chief of staff for Curry, said since 2012, the
mayor has gone there only to attend one political event and
several other times to see his daughters perform.
Barakat said ideally the average Downtown worker should
be going there twice a week and the average Jacksonville resident
once or twice a month. His office is a stone’s throw away
from the Landing, and he admits, “I might go once every
three months.”
Some of the festival marketplaces built elsewhere, like
in Baltimore and Miami, are thriving. But they’ve been bolstered
by extensive public investment or the nearby construction
of facilities like AmericanAirlines Arena in Miami.
But for years, as the Landing issue has languished, its
operators have been alone in trying to attract visitors to a
Downtown that basically closes up after work.
FINDING SOLUTIONS
Instead of focusing on the past, it’s more productive to
concentrate on what the new Landing should be. Many
concepts and visions have been shared since Sleiman
bought it.
The most recent came in 2015, when the DIA hired a
consultant that proposed creating an opening from Laura
Street through the middle of the building to the river — a concept that
is still popular today.
The mixed-use plan called for the construction of 300 apartments
to help boost the stagnant residential population. But since then,
the apartment dearth has been rectified by major developments
in Brooklyn and LaVilla, with more planned Downtown and on the
Southbank.
CONTINUED ON PAGE 24
During the week-long grand opening of the Jacksonville Landing in 1987, crowds packed the
courtyard. When it opened, the Landing boasted dozens of retail stores and 18 restaurants.
SPRING 2018 | J MAGAZINE 21