[Thundarr457]

Originally Posted by Vocal Banned

It’s the most bizarre thing. Miami, Orlando, Tampa, and St. Pete are absolutely on fire. They’re growing at a fast pace, building feverishly, and their downtowns are all constructing towers and making the CBD more urban, lovely, and walkable. But Jacksonville isn’t. It’s kinda stagnant. Is there a reason to this? Why are all the other large cities in Florida improving but not Jacksonville? I’m genuinely interested.

I would answer in one simple sentence. We are not experiencing a boom because we are fortunate. Let those other cities have the traffic, pollution and towers. You couldn't pay me to live in any of them.

[logybogy]

There's a lot of decent paying jobs in South Jacksonville, especially financial services and health care surrounding Mayo Clinic. Jacksonville actually has a pretty good diversity of corporate office type jobs in various industries such as financial services, logistics, and health care, as well as military and government contracting.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...ksonville_area

But if you are a company looking for a relocation, why bother with the CBD with the homeless and crime problems? South Jacksonville office parks have much better proximity to the nice parts of the metro such as Ponte Vedra Beach and Nocatee areas where the employees want to live.

[gatorlyn]

CBD = Confirmation Bias Disorder?

Then stagnant it is

[_Uncommon_]

Originally Posted by Thundarr457

I would answer in one simple sentence. We are not experiencing a boom because we are fortunate. Let those other cities have the traffic, pollution and towers. You couldn't pay me to live in any of them.

Yeah but it’s not like Jacksonville is this oasis either. Bad crime, homelessness, and segregation are real concerns for the city. When you add those to a stagnant downtown and a lack of progress, it makes Jacksonville appear even worse as a city. I’m not saying Jax is a bad place to live, but it certainly doesn’t help it to have a declining CBD and so many bombed out areas.

[Florida2014]

Jacksonville made an attempt to create a downtown experience with "The Landing"; however, that failed pretty miserably and just this last year after the shooting at the video game convention, it was leveled completely. I'm not certain what plans, if any, Shad Khan and the city's leaders have for the area, but I really feel like downtown Jax could be such a cool destination if they'd just put an ounce of thought into it. You have the St Johns River running right through it, you could have so many cool bars/restaurants facing the water. I also feel like there needs to be one more professional sports team downtown to draw people there, like an NBA team. That would help tremendously to draw patrons to a centralized area. I don't know if Jax could support them though.

I think the biggest issue with our downtown is that Jacksonville is 1,000 square miles, with most of the money here down south and towards the beaches. It is truly a hike to get to downtown from most areas so unless you "build it", they will not come visit. There have to be good reasons to make that trip and currently there are none. I've been in the Jax area since 2014 and I've been downtown probably less than 10 times in that period of time, there is just nothing there to do other than a few struggling restaurants here and there.

[Arcenal813]

Originally Posted by Florida2014

I think the biggest issue with our downtown is that Jacksonville is 1,000 square miles, with most of the money here down south and towards the beaches. It is truly a hike to get to downtown from most areas so unless you "build it", they will not come visit. There have to be good reasons to make that trip and currently there are none. I've been in the Jax area since 2014 and I've been downtown probably less than 10 times in that period of time, there is just nothing there to do other than a few struggling restaurants here and there.

This is a valid point, but remember that the Orlando MSA is also huge, and Downtown Orlando can be a bit of a destination for people living in, say, Sanford, Mount Dora, or St Cloud.
What Orlando has done to attract people was to build amenities that would attract locals: Lake Eola Park with weekend farmers markets, festivals, a lakefront (free) amphitheater, two beautiful pro sports stadiums, two performing arts theaters, and they are continuing along this trend, with the massive Creative Village, Downtown UCF campus, and the upcoming under I-4 playground (which looks awesome by the way.)
In addition to that, they've been expanding East into Thornton Park, with tons of cafes and shops, and North into Ivanhoe.

And remember that Orlando also faced another dilemma -- there is a massive tourist district some 10-20 miles South that sucks up a lot of the county's funds, as well as steers most visitors away from Downtown.

So while being a huge landmass can be a disadvantage, it can be done if there is a will. Build inviting things, and people will come.

[Arcenal813]

Originally Posted by Thundarr457

I would answer in one simple sentence. We are not experiencing a boom because we are fortunate. Let those other cities have the traffic, pollution and towers. You couldn't pay me to live in any of them.

Well Orlando doesn't really have many towers (I think it has less than Jacksonville.)
Neither does Tampa.

Traffic is terrible in all four cities, and Jacksonville is certainly no exception. That I-95/I-10 cluster**** is one of the biggest headache-inducing messes in the state. Looks like they took a page out of Tampa's I-275 with the I-95 4-lane to 2-lane to 3-lane in the span of a few hundred yards deal.

And... Pollution...

I'll leave this here. Hope you like Sulfur Dioxide.



There are many good qualities to Jacksonville. But let's not act like it doesn't have its relatively equal share of problems when it comes to traffic and pollution.

[Thundarr457]

Originally Posted by Arcenal352

Well Orlando doesn't really have many towers (I think it has less than Jacksonville.)
Neither does Tampa.

Traffic is terrible in all four cities, and Jacksonville is certainly no exception. That I-95/I-10 cluster**** is one of the biggest headache-inducing messes in the state. Looks like they took a page out of Tampa's I-275 with the I-95 4-lane to 2-lane to 3-lane in the span of a few hundred yards deal.

And... Pollution...

I'll leave this here. Hope you like Sulfur Dioxide.



There are many good qualities to Jacksonville. But let's not act like it doesn't have its relatively equal share of problems when it comes to traffic and pollution.

https://www.jacksonville.com/story/n...rds/112244206/

The Sulfur Dioxide seemed to come from the paper mills in Fernandina Beach which has now been remedied.

[_Uncommon_]

Originally Posted by Thundarr457

https://www.jacksonville.com/story/n...rds/112244206/

The Sulfur Dioxide seemed to come from the paper mills in Fernandina Beach which has now been remedied.

Right but you didn’t touch on the other elements of the post. Jacksonville has bad traffic in its own right and more towers than Orlando and Tampa, but far less amenities, interest, and progress. I think it’s a little unfair to suggest Orlando’s and Tampa’s problems don’t exist in Jacksonville, because they do. But I think the positives of Orlando and Tampa and Miami FAR outweigh the positives of Jacksonville. I don’t see why you would consider yourself “fortunate” to live in a city with all the problems of Jacksonville while having none of the upsides of Miami, Tampa, and Orlando. Very strange.

[Fredesch]

Why is a building boom a good thing? I don't believe building more = good.

We may also see down towns die as large organizations realize they do not need real estate to function. My employer has a large campus + several more building in Jax and hasn't reopened the campus or the other buildings. Everyone is working remote and will continue to work remote at least through the end of the year. The current thinking is whoever wants to continue working remote will be allowed to even when they feel it safe to reopen buildings. Real estate is a large overhead for companies, the less they need the better for them.

We have seen urban areas impacted before, Crystal City VA was impacted when the federal government decided it was too vulnerable to attack by truck bomb and the navy moved out en-mass. Building booms are ephemeral and not necessarily good (unless you are in the construction industry).