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The Coastal
  • Development
    Building Up Jax - Jacksonville Construction and Development Updates Each Saturday

    Building Up Jax: Dick Mondell’s Burgers & Fries plans Jax Beach restaurant

    Building Up Jax - Jacksonville Construction and Development Updates Each Saturday

    Building Up Jax: MOSH releases new Northbank renderings

    Building Up Jax - Jacksonville Construction and Development Updates Each Saturday

    Building Up Jax: Whataburger adding third new Jax location

    Building Up Jax - Jacksonville Construction and Development Updates Each Saturday

    Building Up Jax: Whataburger now open in St. Johns, coming soon in Middleburg

    Building Up Jax - Jacksonville Construction and Development Updates Each Saturday

    Building Up Jax: East San Marco tenants revealed

    Building Up Jax - Jacksonville Construction and Development Updates Each Saturday

    Building Up Jax: Homespun Kitchen expanding to Riverside

    Building Up Jax - Jacksonville Construction and Development Updates Each Saturday

    Building Up Jax: Vagabond Coffee joining VyStar Tower; Dreamette to Springfield

    Building Up Jax - Jacksonville Construction and Development Updates Each Saturday

    Building Up Jax: Great Greek nears St. Johns opening; Hwy 55 Burgers coming to Westside

    Building Up Jax - Jacksonville Construction and Development Updates Each Saturday

    Building Up Jax: Purple Roots now open at Tinseltown

  • History
    • All
    • Jax Evolved
    Florida Times-Union building

    Story of a Building: The Florida Times-Union Building

    Edgewood Bakery

    Remembering Edgewood Bakery: Once a Murray Hill Staple, Now an Empty Building

    jacksonville university

    A Brief History of Jacksonville University

    history of Ed wAters College

    A Brief History of Edward Waters College

    Worman's bAKERY AND DELI

    Remembering Worman’s Bakery and Deli

    Before Normandy Mall, There Was the Loew’s Normandy Drive-In Theatre

    Before Normandy Mall, There Was the Loew’s Normandy Drive-In Theatre

    Green Turtle Restaurant in Jacksonville, fl

    Remembering Joe Adeeb’s Green Turtle Restaurant

    San Marco Theater, San Marco, Jacksonville, FL

    Story of a Building: San Marco Theatre

    Sun-Ray Cinema building Five Points Jacksonville FL

    Story of a Building: Sun-Ray Cinema Building

  • Jax Evolved
    VyStar at 100 West Bay Street, Jacksonville, FL

    JAX EVOLVED: VyStar Reinvigorates the Former Life of the South Building

    JAX EVOLVED: San Marco Preservation Society Now Occupies South Jacksonville City Hall

    JAX EVOLVED: San Marco Preservation Society Now Occupies South Jacksonville City Hall

    Old St. Luke's Hospital jacksonville fl

    JAX EVOLVED: Old St. Luke’s Hospital Building Now Houses Jacksonville Historical Society

    Paul Davis Restoration, formerly Chevrolet Parts Depot, Springfield, Jacksonville, FL

    JAX EVOLVED: Paul Davis Restoration Gives Life to Old Chevrolet Parts Depot

    Old St. Andrew's Church building, Jacksonville, FL

    JAX EVOLVED: Old St. Andrew’s Church Building

    Novel Coworking / Groover-Stewart Drug Company Building, 25 N. Market Street, Jacksonville, FL - Image copyright 2020 Google

    JAX EVOLVED: Groover-Stewart Drug Company Building Now Houses Novel Coworking

    Dyal-Upchurch Building, Jacksonville, FL

    JAX EVOLVED: Downtown Jacksonville Adaptive Reuse Collection

    The Barnett, Jacksonville, FL

    JAX EVOLVED: The Barnett’s Long Journey to Redevelopment

    JAX EVOLVED: Brewster Hospital to North Florida Land Trust, LaVilla, Jacksonville, FL

    JAX EVOLVED: From Brewster Hospital to North Florida Land Trust

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      Local Producer Alex Moye Releases New Album, “All I Need”

      Local Producer Alex Moye Releases New Album, “All I Need”

      Jacksonville Jazz Fest to Return This Fall

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    • Food + Drink
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      Cugino’s Sausage Launches The Southern Italian Deli & Market

      Prati Italia Jacksonville FL

      How the Prati Italia Team Survived the Pandemic

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Embrace Downtown Revitalization, or Get Out of the Way

by The Coastal
July 12, 2017 - Updated on July 19, 2018
in Culture, Featured, In the Community
Downtown Jacksonville at night
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It’s clear to anyone who’s paying attention that downtown Jacksonville is finally making a comeback.

After decades of dormancy, the oft-troubled core of our city has made some quick, intense strides in the past few years. Residents now routinely gather downtown for monthly festivals, bars and clubs that struggled for years are finally seeing some foot traffic, and plans for new developments have been announced left and right. Most significantly, there’s finally a large enough group of engaged, passionate residents who care about making sure this latest surge continues.

And yet, a small but vocal group of Jacksonville residents still insists that nothing has changed.

They see empty buildings, even though several of those buildings have pending redevelopment plans. They see crime and danger around every corner, even though crime rates downtown have dropped significantly since their peak in the ‘90s, and is far from the biggest problem area in Jax.

They see announcements like Shad Khan’s winning bid for the Shipyards redevelopment project, and they say it’s not good enough. Or worse, they complain about “giving away our city to a foreigner.” (Fun fact: Khan has lived in America since 1966.)

When a younger, more idealistic generation comes in, trying to change things for the better, they see naïve millennials. After all, if their generation wasn’t able to tackle the problems that faced downtown, how can we?

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Try to explain any of this to them, and they’ll double down on their insistence that downtown is a hopeless wasteland. Best to stick to the suburbs, they’ll say.

Perhaps they long for the days when Hemming Park was surrounded by department stores that now reside in malls, when the nicest office buildings were in the heart of downtown rather than in Southside. Those were days when there weren’t as many regulatory bodies controlling what can be developed, days when a belligerent megachurch didn’t own nine blocks of downtown property, days when there was still enough undeveloped property for projects with potential to find a space – and then sit there even if that potential never pans out.

Those days aren’t coming back, though.

And what the naysayers fail to understand is that the one thing that’s never going to help revive any part of the city – especially downtown – is sitting around and complaining about it.

No one is saying that downtown’s continued revival is guaranteed. There are certainly plenty of problems that still exist. Crime, while less of an element than in previous decades, is still present. The homeless population remains largely centered downtown – more a consequence of the available resources there compared with suburban areas. The number of empty buildings and retail spaces is declining, but there are still plenty of dilapidated storefronts sitting empty.

No one thinks the work is anywhere close to being done.

But to say that downtown is making a comeback is not to say that the work is done. There’s a difference between saying something is thriving, and saying it can thrive in the future.

So if you’re one of the people who thinks downtown is dead, that’s fine. You’re absolutely entitled to that opinion.

But maybe it’s time to get out of the way and let the rest of us keep working.

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The Coastal is a local magazine in Jacksonville, FL, founded in 2015 to bring you stories about the past, present, and future of the First Coast.

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Comments 2

  1. Matt Killen says:
    5 years ago

    Love it! Help or shut the hell up!

    Reply
  2. Matt Killen says:
    5 years ago

    Every Saturday!

    http://news.wjct.org/post/volunteers-invited-clean-city-saturday-trash-pickups-downtown-jacksonville

    Reply

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