Jackson Square UpdateA new bloom on Philips Highway plants seed of change
Behind a fence full of “No Trespassing” signs and beside hills of fill dirt and asphalt millings, a football-size field of flowers is sprouting in an unlikely spot along Philips Highway.
A few months ago, developer Steve Cissel planted the garden of blooms including zinnias, crimson clovers, black-eyed Susans and California poppies on the property just outside Jacksonville’s downtown.
In a mostly commercial area with a reputation for other kinds of seedy activity, Cissel said someone asked him if the poppies were an opium den in the making.
“People say ‘Philips Highway? That’s Hooker Highway,’” he said.
The land is actually part of a plot of about 18 acres slated to become a cluster of apartments, retail and office space. In the future, it also could include a commuter station for people to board buses or a light rail bound for the downtown.
But with no money to break ground because of the economic downturn, Cissel’s trying to attract positive buzz to a site that once included an old Chevy dealership.
While the blooms are mostly past their peak now, for months Cissel let people cut flowers for free. Now he wants to develop a community garden, and has no-cost plots available in what will become a winter vegetable garden.
City Planning Department supervisor Sean Kelly said the city approved the Jackson Square at San Marco development in October 2008. The go-ahead came despite strong objections of some residents who live on the ritzy side of nearby River Oaks Road railroad crossing at F.E.C. Park.
He said some of those San Marco residents complained about traffic that a new mixed-use development would bring to their streets and the San Marco Square area. But a city study showed the impact would be minimal.
“This is a dream kind of project,” Kelly said. “...This is exactly what we should be doing all over the older urbanized areas.”
Controversy about closing the railroad crossing and blocking the road between the two neighborhoods lingers. Department of Transportation officials said they issued a notice they intended to close the crossing after a River Oaks Road resident appealed to them to do so, including a petition with 95 signatures.
But DOT officials said the city and Cissel filed an appeal, meaning an administrative law judge would recommend an outcome to the DOT’s secretary, who would make the final decision. The parties are scheduled to meet next month to try to resolve the issue, DOT spokesman Dick Kane said.
At the same time, Cissel is hoping to stir a rebirth of perceptions about the interconnected highway strip. Southside resident Carol Kartsonis grew up on land that will include the new project, and sold him her grandmother’s house and land.
“Whether the people in that neighborhood like it or not, I believe they would be well served by a project that promotes mass transit,” the 42-year-old said of those on the rail crossing’s other side. “...I was born on that street. It’s been the wrong side of the tracks in San Marco the whole time.”
Across Philips Highway, some who live in houses that back up to Interstate 95 are also looking forward to a boost in a residential neighborhood that is dying out, including Unita Barnes Fowler.
She and her extended family have lived on Crawford Street for more than 50 years. The 67-year-old said she’s pleased to see something sprouting on the mostly vacant lot if construction isn’t starting.
“I’d much rather see something growing or going up,” Fowler said.
Fans of the Cissel’s flowers said it was a surprise to see the field pop up while driving down the highway.
San Marco resident Leone Faust noticed the zinnias one day because they were a favorite of her mother’s, who had been in a nursing home for several months. When her mother died a few days later, Faust and her sister cut some of the blooms for their loved one’s funeral service.
“It was just meant to be,” Faust said.
San Marco resident Michael Hayden, a 66-year-old retiree and gardening enthusiast, said he’s stopped several times to cut flowers since the day he found the field.
“I said ‘My God!’ I was amazed.”
Hayden said he brings the blooms to friends in retirement homes and likes seeing new life along the tired stretch of highway.
“If he’s allowing vegetables,” Hayden said of Cissel, “maybe I’ll do that, too.”
http://jacksonville.com/news/metro/2009-11-20/story/a_new_bloom_on_philips_highway_plants_seed_of_change
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