Ten Principles for Creating A Successful Hemming Plaza

7. The Inner Square & the Outer Square


Hemming Park's Outer Square fed the public space with foot traffic by surrounding the park's perimeter with pedestrian scale uses facing it.  The conversion of these buildings into single entrance governmental complexes has created a serious of dead zones around the plaza today.

Visionary park planner Frederick Law Olmsted's idea of the "inner park" and the "outer park" is just as relevant today as it was over 100 years ago. The streets and sidewalks around a square greatly affect its accessibility and use, as do the buildings that surround it. Imagine a square fronted on each side by 15-foot blank walls -- that is the worst-case scenario for the outer square. Then imagine that same square situated next to a public library: the library doors open right onto the square; people sit outside and read on the steps; maybe the children's reading room has an outdoor space right on the square, or even a bookstore and cafe. An active, welcoming outer square is essential to the well-being of the inner square.


The "Outer Square" can be seen in the form of F.W. Woolworth's, JCPenney, and the Robert Meyer Hotel in this mid-20th century image.

The concept of an "Outer Square" is a critical element that has been completely overlooked in discussions concerning Hemming Plaza.  During the space's most popular years, department store, specialty retail, hotels, window displays, and restaurants surrounded the park, generating a critical mass of foot traffic that energized its perimeter.  One of the downfalls of relocating civic uses around Hemming has been the City of Jacksonville's failure to make sure these uses fit in at the pedestrian scale.  Today, most of the "Outer Square" is surrounded by blank walls or "dead zones" that fail to generate foot traffic and activity.  Even the public library's retail spaces are designed in a manner of where they fail to take advantage of the wide sidewalk between them and the door.  If success is truly desired, improvements to Hemming Plaza's "Outer Square" should be included in the short and long term strategies.

An example of a short term strategy could be to modify policy (Ex. allow the business to operate outside of the library's restricted hours and include outdoor seating facing Hemming) to attract a restaurant to the long abandoned Shelby's Coffee space.  A long term strategy would be to find ways to consolidate office use within City Hall and City Hall Annex, which will allow the corners of those buildings to become retail once again, similar to the role Quizno's plays in the Ed Ball Building.  Another suggestion would be for the City to move forward with finding an everyday use for the Synder Memoral Church building.  The first step could be a recommendation by the council committee to issue an RFP for this key piece of property with the intention of a use that helps activiate the park.


The the long term, pedestrian scale uses in the park's Outer Square should be reincorporated into all buildings owned by the City of Jacksonville.