Why would you close a perfectly good Naval Station?

The new terminal opens up a splended opportunity for BEACH-RAIL, streetcar. With venues on the South at Ponte Vedra-Sawgrass, attractions all along the Coast, Jax Beach-Atlantic Beach, and a cruise port on the north, this might be the most viable route in the county. Thought should be given by our port authority on future private right-of-way over the marsh, along the road to string the beach pearls together.

Better idea: Close Mayport NS, put the cruise terminal there, reconnect Mayport Village with the rest of the beaches and watch some great developments pop up in a huge piece of river/beachfront property that's currently not on the tax rolls.

I can see it now....thousands of cruise passengers getting on transit with all their luggage...please, they barely use the streetcar in Tampa that stops right in front of the terminal!

I am in favor of the city furnishing trackless trolleys to the Beaches. The Brill Company of Philadelphia, PA. have a trackless trolley car costing $6,000 which can carry 30 passengers. It operates on rubber tires like busses, but from two overhead electric wires, allowing the car to turn around autos. The same as an auto would. It would use the beach roadway. We could purchase 10 of them for $60,000. The cost of the equipment, poles, wires, sub-stations, etc, would be $6,000 per mile.

This would build up the beaches, also all along the line stops could be made every half mile at rates so much per mile.

Too bad those who started Jacksonville did not appreciate the beaches as we do now and started Jacksonville at St. Johns Bluff like all other cities on the East and West Coast of Florida have been started, what is within a mile or two of the
ocean. Jacksonville will build with the proper transportation and cheap transportation towards the beaches and in the future and from the beaches back towards Jacksonville.

Jacksonville should at first session of legislature arrange to take over the 100' strip (beach railroad grade) from new limits in southside on beach road to beaches then from Mayport to St. Johns County line as part of Jacksonville. We should do this so that we could give the necessary improvements to the ocean part of Jacksonville, such as paving, beautification and planting trees, right kind of building regulations, do away with mosquito conditions in the marshes in back of the beach, cutting a canal from Florida East Coast Canal to within 5 blocks of the beaches so that excursion steamers could go down the St. Johns River and deliver our people there, thus giving them a plesant boat ride at a small expense also. We could then give the beaches lower electricity and power.

St. Elmo Acosta, from the Jacksonville American, Aug 1, 1931.

wrong again....there are four Tampa hotels directly on the line....with almost 1500 rooms...and if you count hotels within 3 blocks of the streetcar line, the number jumps to 8 hotels with close to 2500 rooms....can we match that?

Also....the streetcar will never be extended to the airport in Tampa....streetcars serve a local area....say up to 5 miles long

Tampa's airport will either be served by the second phase of their light rail plan (of course Phase 1 has to get approved first)....or commuter rail through TBARTA, or maybe someday high speed rail.

I didn't slip at all Ock....you said we had more hotels/rooms on the beach than Tampa, and I proved you wrong....but just so you know, only 2 of the Tampa hotels have been built since the streetcar line opened....and they account for less than 500 rooms.

I totally AGREE that streetcars often spur development around it....but its still not a viable transport mode for diatnaces that are longer than about 5 miles....combined with the luggage issues, it seems to me that a streetcar line from hotels in Ponte vedra and Jax Beach to Mayport to primarily serve cruise passengers would not work.

It makes much more sense to work with the hotels to provide shuttle service (as is done in Tampa)....especially if ships will only be in port 1-2 days a week!

Council ready to vote on Mayport cruise terminal
But the Port Authority hasn't finished research or made final decision.

The Jacksonville City Council is expected to pave the way Tuesday for a cruise ship terminal to be built in Mayport.


Opponents of the plan say they were taken by surprise by the council's decision to move forward on a vote. They were hoping that wouldn't happen until the Jacksonville Port Authority finished researching the project's financial feasibility and made a final decision.


Council President Ronnie Fussell decided in early January to postpone voting on the three bills associated with the cruise terminal proposal to give the Port Authority time to weigh in. He told the council's Land Use and Zoning Committee not to vote on the zoning bill.


The JPA board met Jan. 26 and decided to look for a firm to design and build the terminal. However, the board members reserved the right to scrap the project if it cost too much or if they changed their minds.


Fussell said the JPA and Councilman Ray Holt, whose district includes Mayport, indicated they no longer saw need for the council to delay a decision. He and Art Graham, chairman of the Land Use and Zoning Committee, decided the committee would vote.

Is there an advertised Request For Proposals at this point?

I think "for the time being" is important to note. It will be back.

I think "for the time being" is important to note. It will be back.

Exactly. The way stuff works around here, they're hatching some plot behind the scenes to overrule what the people who actually live and work in that area want.

This will be exactly like the Craig airport extension. Nobody wants it except for some stupid bureaucrat

sometimes what the people who live/work there want is not what is best for the entire community....its called NIMBY-ism (not in my back yard)....or BANANA (build absolutely nothing anywhere near anything)....which is why government has limited powers to condemn property through eminent domain.

What isn't fair is giving a historic designation to a place that looks like utter garbage everyday. Most of what is directly across the river from the site is boat marinas and the ferry terminal, the homes are slightly further upriver.

Another thing is that these ships are only in homeport for 2 to 3 days max, from what I've seen, before they go back out. I honestly think it'd be neat to get to see a cruise ship from my deck across the river if I lived there.

This is turning more into a catfight of people wanting to preserve something that is far from historic IMO and those of many others. The only historic thing there is something you can't even get to because it is on NS Mayport property, the lighthouse.

This cruise port is going to play a large part in the continuing growth of Jacksonville as a destination and port city. Miami and Port Everglades(Fort Lauderdale) are out of room and Port Canaveral is coming close and is also starting to charge higher rates. Jax is cheaper and easier to get to for more people who want to take a cruise, that is plain and simple. We have a large SE market to draw from, basically cockblocking some cruise traffic for ports further south, namely Canaveral.

again, the purpose of eminent domain is to allow government to acquire land at a fair price in order to provide fo something (roads, schools, utilities, etc.) that benefit the community as a whole....in Florida, as elsewhere in the nation, eminent domain can be used for economic development...the Supreme Court affirmed this in the Kelo case a few years ago

Fascination embarks record number of passengers from Jacksonville
Jacksonville Business Journal

The Jacksonville Port Authority’s cruise terminal set a record last week when 2,623 passengers embarked on Carnival Cruise Lines’ Fascination cruise to Half Moon Cay and Nassau, Bahamas.

The previous record for a single cruise was 2,539 passengers, set earlier this year. The record-breaking cruise comes after the authority pulled back on its plans to build a $60 million terminal in Mayport Village to focus on its cargo business and see how the cruise industry weathers the recession.

not quite....Florida already had strong rules on the books regarding eminent domain for economic development....it deals with CRAs and "blighted" areas....the bill you refer to pretty much clarified what was already in statute and rule.

That said, I agree that Kelo doesn't matter in this case....because JaxPort already has the land!

Business strong, but cruise terminal for Jacksonville on hold
Jacksonville Business Journal - by Mark Szakonyi

The Jacksonville Port Authority doesn’t expect to restart its push to build a new cruise terminal for at least another year.

Since the authority pulled back on its pursuit in March, the infrastructure bond market has improved and ships are being filled with passengers despite cruise opponents’ warning that the recession would cripple the industry. But authority board chairman William Mason said his priority is getting Hanjin Shipping Co. Ltd’s $208 million terminal online, which is expected to be open at the site of the current cruise terminal in 2012.

“I don’t think there is any chance we are going to lose the cruise industry,� said Mason.

The authority last week signed a two-year contract with Carnival Cruise Lines to keep service of its 2,052-passenger Fascination. Since October, the cruise ship has been running at nearly 113 percent capacity, said Tony Orsini, the authority’s senior director of cruise operations.

He said Carnival has reduced rates for the Jacksonville-based cruise but not by as much as it has cut cruise packages in other locations. The cruise industry as a whole has fared well in the recession, but Jacksonville’s cruise industry has the added plus of being a heavy drive-to market, meaning passengers don’t have to buy plane tickets. A third of the country is able to drive to Jacksonville in 24 hours or less.

Despite being a drive-to market, Jacksonville International Airport has experienced an increase in cruise-bound passengers, said Michael Stewart, Jacksonville Aviation Authority spokesman.

He said about 15 percent of the cruise-goers come through the airport and the majority come in on Saturday, which is a slow day for the business-passenger heavy airport. Jacksonville Port Authority Executive Director Rick Ferrin said the latest construction of a new cruise terminal could start is April 2012.

The cruise lines could be diverted to a temporary terminal while a new terminal is built and the existing cruise terminal could be kept open longer by making it the last structure to be demolished to make way for the Hanjin facility.

Although the authority’s call for design bids was recalled, the terminal was expected to include a 1,400-space, five-story parking garage and about 25,000 square feet of retail space. The construction would create about 1,500 jobs and have an annual $500 million impact on the area, said Louis Woods, a University of North Florida economics and geography professor, based on an economic analysis commissioned by the authority.

With 40 percent of passengers staying in Jacksonville before or after the cruise, hotels logged about 18,000 room-nights annually, Dan King, general manager of the Hyatt Regency Jacksonville Riverfront, said previously. Hotels reported a 6 percent to 7 percent occupancy drop when cruise service stopped between April and mid-September.

Each cruise passenger spends about $300 in the area, said Visit Jacksonville spokeswoman Lyndsay Rossman, and the Fascination has a $25 million impact on the area per call.

The largest cruise ship in the world Oasis of the Seas cruised under the Storebealt bridge Denmark 15 minutes past midnight 31 of November 2009. The ship is 72 meters high and the bridge is 65 meter. But with very high speed and funnels lowed down they had a margin of 1 meter and 25 cm up to the bridge. The ship had the highest speed it can have so it plowed itself down in the sea so it could go under. it will not stop in Europe but go directly to Florida.