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Update by Steve Congro
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Downtown Parks: Bay and Ocean Pocket Park
In last month's Downtown Design Review Board Meeting, plans were unveiled for another Downtown Jacksonville Pocket Park, this one at Bay and Ocean. With the construction of the second phase of the Bay Street Town Center initiative, the traffic signals will be changed at this intersection, eliminating the need for one of the roads from Independent Drive to Ocean Street.
Published August 19, 2009 in News Digg
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aaapolito
August 19, 2009, 06:24:34 AMYou left me hanging. What's MJ's take on this project?
thelakelander
August 19, 2009, 06:56:02 AMI don't think MJ has a unified opinion on this project at this point. Personally, I'd like to see how it fits within the overall vision for the Northbank. However, I would like to see that with all downtown projects.
Its really nothing more than a sidewalk that will better connect Bay Street to the Landing and the waterfront. I do like that they are using the lights they plan to replace on Laura Street.
tpot
August 19, 2009, 07:18:14 AMLooks like another place for the homeless to camp out.
heights unknown
August 19, 2009, 07:33:57 AMWe need another pocket park like we need a hole in our heads. Forget about the homeless using it after its built, at least they will make good use of it, but guaranteed, the public (minus the beloved homeless) will not make any use of it and it will sit either as an eyesore or not used at all, or misused (and not by the homeless). Oh well, poor vision, focus, and quagmire setting of goals by our leadership.
Height Unknown
zoo
August 19, 2009, 07:37:13 AM"so as to develop a pocket park that will be designed as a passive park."
It is clear they have learned from the Main Street pocket park implementation. tpot's prediction is iminent...
hightowerlover
August 19, 2009, 08:58:56 AMwhy dont we just make bay street into a culdesac
hanjin1
August 19, 2009, 09:00:56 AMso are the taking away this ramp?
That would suck because that is the way I use to get to Springfield when I go down by the Landing, other wise you have to keep going to the Hyatt and turn there.
Deuce
August 19, 2009, 09:19:05 AMThe only good thing I can see from this (if I have interpreted it correct) is improving connectivity between bay street and the landing. With the burgeoning entertainment strip along Bay, connecting it to the restaurants of the landing would begin to create a true entertainment district.
TPC
August 19, 2009, 09:24:45 AMReally? Lets call these panhandle parks, or pocket change parks. The only people who will use this park will be the transients.
hightowerlover
August 19, 2009, 09:29:13 AMwhy dont they just open some pocket businesses instead?
hanjin1
August 19, 2009, 09:36:00 AMThey're not smart enough to do that
Overstreet
August 19, 2009, 09:38:37 AMThat ramp was often confusing to many motorists coming off the Main Street Bridge. It looks like they are already doing some work in that area. I don't see any barricades closing the road. I trust they closed it before placing the hay bale silt barrier across the road.
It looks like they are really eliminating expanding an existing landscape area. I guess a pocket park is politically correct landscape areas. ............. er.....green space. "Passive" pocket park must mean you are not supposed to have picnics there or take the kids to the playground equipment.
I suspect too that caliper inches of trees planted in pocket parks enters into the calculations of areas the city clears and removes trees. So this program covers sins at another location.
GatorShane
August 19, 2009, 10:00:22 AMYou guys are a bunch of crybabies. It is what it is, a small passive park. I dont think of it as any sort of gathering place, but I do think it will give people a better way to navigate between the Landing and Bay Street.
Jason
August 19, 2009, 10:03:27 AMHonestly, I don't have a problem with it. Its simple and practical and provides a nice greenway connection for pedestrians making their way from the Bay Street club district to the Landing.
fsujax
August 19, 2009, 10:04:39 AMJason, I agree with your assessment. there has got to be some sort of better connection between the Landing and the activity on Bay St.
Steve
August 19, 2009, 10:16:19 AMThat would suck because that is the way I use to get to Springfield when I go down by the Landing, other wise you have to keep going to the Hyatt and turn there.
No - the signal at Bay and Ocean is going to be redesigned, similar to Broad and Bay.
Captain Zissou
August 19, 2009, 10:18:59 AMI like TPC's idea of calling them pocket change parks. The only possible plus is if that guy with the sax starts to play here instead of under the Main Street east of the Landing, that would be quite pleasant. Unless this park is extremely well lit, safe, and inviting, I think people will continue to use whatever route they previously used to get from the Landing to Bay Street.
Out of curiosity, how many people actually go from Bay Street to the Landing??
Doctor_K
August 19, 2009, 10:20:49 AMI haven't seen that sax-player guy in like months. Is he still playing 'neath the Main St. Bridge? I think he should get two jazz buddies and set up a trio and play in this new pocket-change park as a regular establishment. Would be phenomenal.
Captain Zissou
August 19, 2009, 10:24:46 AMI saw (heard actually) him two weekends ago on Saturday afternoon. I have actually talked to him at length once or twice. He and the rapping/bike trick homeless man are my two favorite outdoorsmen downtown.
JaxNative68
August 19, 2009, 10:50:12 AMGreen spaces in cities are highly underrated, even if they are under utilized by people the do soften the surrounding area and promote better air quality. Besides I would rather have 100 pocket-change parks than abandon foundations of building that have been demolished as we have now throughout our downtown landscape.
copperfiend
August 19, 2009, 10:52:51 AMNot many that I know.
chris
August 19, 2009, 10:54:25 AMI met with the director of JEDC for a project I've been working on for school and he mentioned this, the MetPark redesign, and the resignaling of Bay Street for gameday traffic as some sort of redesign of the entire Northbank. Seemed like an awful lot of money to throw at an area that still has safety concerns.
BTW, that ramp is and has been closed for quite sometime. As I understand, it will remain closed as part of the intersection redesign regardless of whether or not this park is built.
hanjin1
August 19, 2009, 10:55:54 AMYea, I am patiently awaiting the opening of that ramp, as I use it a lot.
Ocklawaha
August 19, 2009, 12:25:36 PMI love it, one more place to put our streetcars should we desire to run them up Ocean. Otherwise, a good entry to transit on Independence Drive. BTW, Am I the only one that has a probblem with double named roads? Why not decide either Independence or Water Street? Ditto for the Southside corridor with 100 names, imagine being an out of town executive and trying to find the right office, in the right office park, and the freeway has 100 names! "JTB 1 mile", "J.T. Butler, 1 mile", "Turner Butler, 1 mile", "J. Turner Butler, 1 mile", "Butler Blvd, 1 mile" etc... Boulevard? more confusion, it's another EXPRESSWAY! Sucks to be the executive looking for a Boulevard.
It's worse then the "OCKLAWAHA RIVER" which the State continues to misspell as "OKLAWAHA" on about 1/2 of the bridges and maps. How about those expressway directional signs in Northern St. Johns County that read "Jacksonville 17 Miles," and within the next mile one passes another sign, "JACKSONVILLE CITY LIMITS - AMERICA'S LOGISTICS CENTER." Logistics? Hell Tallahassee or the Federal DOT doesn't even know where the city is, imagine the job they'll do on our High Speed Rail!
OCKLAWAHA
Jason
August 19, 2009, 12:30:36 PMI couldn't agree more Ock.
Captain Zissou
August 19, 2009, 02:00:13 PMOck, I think I read on here that those "Jacksonville 17 mile" signs are in reference to the courthouse. Apparently that is the universal system of measurement on interstates, to the courthouse..... Maybe..
tufsu1
August 19, 2009, 02:25:00 PMthe ramp where the park will be was officially closed by curb and gutter at Bay Street just this week....and the retooling of the signals sahould be semi-operational within a few weeks
Basstacular
August 19, 2009, 02:41:44 PMNot many that I know.
I am sure I am the minority, but me and my friends make that jump nearly every weekend. Most of the time we get started at Dive and wind up wanting to get a little country in us at Mavericks. Just last weekend I thought how nice it would be if that area was a little more lit and pedistrian friendly.
Just letting you know some would appreciate it.
archiphreak
August 19, 2009, 02:54:16 PMI'd love to have a smart ass remark in response to what the City Proposes, but honestly at this point I'm just all out of words. The City is taking away a road to put in a "pocket park".....a park next to an off ramp at the Main Street Bridge....tucked between an off ramp and a big tall building and surface parking lot.....Do City Officials go around thinking of ways they can screw up the city by and large or is this really all accidental?
904Scars
August 19, 2009, 03:09:37 PMThe rapping homeless man I have encountered many a time on Bay St. Saturday nights. I've even seen him down at the beach on 1st Street, I think last weekend actually. He must make good use of the transient system or his collection of bikes, which I have seen him with multiple ones.
As for the park, like some said, take it with a grain of salt, it's just a small walkway more or less. There has been a need for better navigation around that area.
tufsu1
August 19, 2009, 04:35:08 PMthe road needed to go away in order to make Bay Street function as a 2-way street....is this a bad thing?
jaxlore
August 19, 2009, 04:56:03 PMAs long as there are not knocking down a building to make this i am cool with it. What else could be done with space?
904Scars
August 19, 2009, 05:01:56 PMIm down for anything that makes Bay Street more nighttime friendly, of course I'm biased because I spend 2-3 of my nights a week down there. It's a shame Bay St doesn't have the room to have attractions on both sides of the road.
Fallen Buckeye
August 19, 2009, 06:02:14 PMPersonally, I'm a country boy (living in the city by necessity) and one of the things that would deter me from living in an urban area is a the concrete jungle effect and lack of green space. If you want to make downtown attractive to suburbanites in order to reduce on sprawl, green space is one of many essential elements.
shanshan1218
August 19, 2009, 07:18:43 PMGreen is always nice, imo.
I last saw the sax guy under the bridge as always, he started playing scooby doo for my kid. Was quite entertaining.
I have made the jaunt from bay st to the landing like twice in the two years since I started going there. I'm sure there are people out there that do it quite often, I'm just not sure they are here with us on mj forums.
Charles Hunter
August 19, 2009, 09:36:41 PMThe street connection is closed, as tufsu said, as part of the 2-waying of Bay Street (which I thought this forum supported). Why not make the abandon area a park, with a little more green? What should the City have done? Just leave the little stub of a road going nowhere?* It's not like they said, "Let's make a pocket park - hey I've got an idea, lets close that road by the Main Street Bridge ramp - and to make it work, we'll make Bay Street 2 ways."
* everyone who uses "road going nowhere" as a straight line for a joke owes me a royalty fee!
thelakelander
August 19, 2009, 09:58:51 PMI really don't see it as a negative, like the Main Street pocket park. The site makes it a completely different situation. Its a better use than the ramp it will replace and it will provide for a better connection between Bay Street and the Landing. However, I also don't really see it as a park. Its more like a sidewalk replacing the ramp. Most of the landscaping and vegetation is already existing. Imo, its a non-issue. There are bigger fish to fry in this city.
geauxtigers31
August 21, 2009, 07:40:17 PMI think any initiatives like this are good ones and it is being placed in a potentially higher traffice area then the Main Street Pocket Park. In response about the Sax player, and being relatively new here, why is there no designated areas downtown for street performers? Are there ordinances in place that discourage it? Being from Louisiana I use New Orleans as my reference point for what a big city can be, and to be honest I find MANY similarities between the two places except that Jacksonville lacks an identity. But to be fair, New Orleans is one of te best in terms of identity. But anyway, my point is why are there no street performers anywhere down town???
DavidWilliams
August 21, 2009, 07:59:54 PMI know St Augustine has had their issues with street performers (urrr vagrants) for many years.
geauxtigers31
August 21, 2009, 08:06:18 PMWhen I'm jogging along the riverwalk from the Y to the landing I could easily forget that I am in Jacksonville and not New Orleans...except theres no saxophones or worn out acoustic guitars sounding through the air. You wanna take care of the vagrant problem put an instrument in their hands and make them an asset to downtown. And don't act like they don't have time to learn to play it...what else are they gonna do? Plus they will make more money than by just begging. It's win win, if the city could somehow encourage it.
urbanlibertarian
August 21, 2009, 08:23:39 PMThere are plenty of out of work actors downtown pretending to be stranded travelers, lost children of God, commuters without bus fare and solitary conversationalists.
geauxtigers31
August 22, 2009, 03:16:47 AMTo answer one of the earlier threads, when me and my friends go barhopping downtown we frequently make the trip from the landing to Bay St. Someone needs to do something with that building with Jaguars painted in the windows...Bostwick Building I think its called. It is in a perfect location to serve as the hub to connect the two areas, plus very visible to everyone passing through downtown via the Main St. bridge. A nice live music, chill out bar/pub would be a sure success. Downtown has enough loud Hip-hop/martini/night club places. It will never be a viable contender until it diversifies the night life options, like the Beaches locally or any other successful night life destination in the country. When inside Mark's or Dive I could forget which one I'm in they're so similar.
urbanlibertarian
August 22, 2009, 11:00:08 AMHere's the MJ feature article on the Bostwick building:
http://www.metrojacksonville.com/article/2007-oct-inside-the-bostwick-building
JaxNole
August 22, 2009, 01:57:33 PMA little late to this thread, but I think this carries more value than what we have on Main. It was nice to come across some green spaces in other cities where pedestrian traffic is the norm. New York, Boston and even New Orleans come to mind.
Walking between TSI and its neighbors and The Landing, in my opinion, is an enhancement.
geauxtigers31
August 22, 2009, 07:44:20 PMThanks for the article urbanlibertarian. I am shocked at the photos of the inside of the building. How can a city let this happen? Or even the private sector? It is located in arguably the primest spot in all of downtown. Investors have really missed the boat.