It looks great, alot better than the original IMO. It has a nice lil' funky urban flair to it, with some retail added. It definitely doesn't look like the typical downtown Jacksonville parking garage. Looks like a best case scenario to me.
If its going to be built and COJ is going to pay for nearly half of it, then the best case scenario to me would be for COJ/DDRB to remain firm on having this thing built to the minimum design standards, which means including street level retail.
If the site were in an odd ball, off the beaten path location, I could see the argument for not doing any retail. However, given the location, this really needs to be something at ground level that can help stimulate pedestrian connectivity and interactivity between the riverfront and Hemming Plaza district. Complying with the minimum standards in place does that. The way the proposal has been written up, retail will never be built or at a minimum, you're looking at several years of dead space on that block.
I'd also suggest shifting the garage closer to the Suntrust Building or designing the garage's first floor to accommodate some retail. Depths of 38' aren't ideal for retail and will only strengthen the idea that downtown can't support retail. At a minimum, we should be striving for at least 65'-70' of retail depth. Depending on how the retail design is handled, that would be a prime site for something like a CVS or Walgreens right now.
With that in mind, regardless of what it may look like, I think 5/3 Bank's parking garage overlooking Fountain Square in downtown Cincinnati is a good example to follow for having a parking garage at a high profile downtown location. Its core purpose is to park cars but at street level, its one of the more interactive pedestrian scale environments in that downtown. When it comes down to it, these are the things that can either work to stimulate vibrancy or kill it.
