The ongoing revival of downtown Jacksonville has led to a new appreciation for the area after years of neglect.
But some residents still haven’t warmed up to the idea of hanging out downtown. Many don’t even know why anyone would do so. After all, it’s often portrayed as an empty wasteland – and who wants to hang out in an empty wasteland?
In reality, though, downtown Jax isn’t that bad. It’s actually pretty nice, and it’s getting increasingly nicer as development projects wrap up and new tenants arrive.
Obviously downtown is far from perfect. There’s a lot of work left to be done, and it’s still fighting reputation issues and lots of ground-floor vacancies. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t worth checking out – and more importantly, it means the area needs as much of the community’s support as it can get.
So if you’re still in need of some persuasion, here are a few great qualities of the city’s downtown area that just don’t get enough love.
If you’ve been downtown in a big city before, you’ve probably observed how noisy it is.
Relatively speaking, downtown Jax is a pretty quiet place. There aren’t a whole lot of people around, so you’ll mostly be listening to random car sounds or the occasional mass-gathering of birds.
And on the average day, unless there’s a special event downtown, you’ll be able to find a parking spot more easily than you would in other cities.
Obviously, the hope is that more people will start coming downtown routinely in the near future. But for now, we might as well take advantage of the silence.