Suburban Infill: Tapestry Park

[Metro Jacksonville]

Suburban Infill: Tapestry Park



The first phase of the Southside's newest 'urban village' is rapidly nearing completion.  Will it spur similar development in an area of town where the main street lacks sidewalks?

Full Article
http://www.metrojacksonville.com/content/view/820

[copperfiend]

It's another project on Southside Blvd. without direct access. Much like the shops in front of the Publix, the businesses in this area will struggle. I hope I am wrong though.

[billy]

How many acres ?

[thelakelander]

18 acres

From the Times-Union - 3/05/07

Urban life heads to the suburbs

Construction of 45 townhomes and some retail space at Tapestry Park, a new Southside community tucked between Tinseltown and the Merrill Lynch office campus, has begun, according to recently paid city building permits. Developed by Birmingham, Ala.-based Arlington Properties, doing business as Tapestry Partners LLC, the 18-acre neighborhood eventually will have 52 multi-story condominiums, some with ground-floor shops, restaurants and nightlife venues. The site also is expected to house the area's first Hotel Indigo, InterContinental Hotel Group's newest boutique hotel brand.
The idea is to create a trendy community where you can live, work and play without needing a car to go from one to the other.

No car? On the Southside of Jacksonville? Yup.

There are various developments in the vicinity of Tinseltown and St. Johns Town Center touting the live, work, play concept including Toscana and Esplanade, both of which will be built adjacent to the town center.

The second phase of the Tapestry Park development, which is expected to start construction later this year, will add about 275 homes, according to a news release in December. Building permits show that construction of the first phase will cost upwards of $13.86 million.

www.jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/030507/bus_8238961.shtml

[jmccharen]

I. HATE. this. movement in development.
You still need a car to live here. You will still drive your car across the development to Publix. You will still drive your car to your cube-farm job down Gate Parkway. That's not such a big deal, it's just human behavior,  but these New Urbanist fantasy lands promote themselves as the ultimate in real estate virtue, and while I have to agree that this condo-farm is eight thousand degrees more humane than most, it just irks me to no end that this is the best we've got right now.

Maybe 50 years from now, when it is simply too expensive to drive at all, developments like this one will be our new urban centers, and the "Town Center" will actually be some kind of (albeit, still completely surreal) town center. I can see that happening. In the meantime I just wonder, who the heck decided to build this crap out in the middle of the swamp next to the "Town Center" (i.e. on top of what used to be wilderness), instead of somewhere closer to the ACTUAL town center of this exploded, distended city?

Jacksonville still lacks almost everything it needs to be a thriving city, including real public transit, integrated development planning and land-use planning, population density along transit corridors...and more sprawl, even with a New Urbanist flavor, simply doesn't help.

It may seem silly, but I think I actually get more frustrated by developments like this than their counterparts that don't have any of the same amenities and claims. But let me reiterate, this one is much better than those. It'll be much nicer to live in, by leaps and bounds. It just blows my mind how far we are from sustainable development in this part of the world, and I can't give this sort of development very much credit for being less bad than most.

[zoo]

I'm with you jmc. This makes me want to throw up.

It looks like the southside is winning the battle over downtown for jobs, retail, etc.

JEDC (aka downtown's "master developer"), why don't you end the fantasy that downtown can be revived? Quit pretending you're trying. Next step? Put Deutschebank down there by Merrill Lynch, BCBS, and all the other corporate behemoths that could have saved downtown were it not for bumbling politicians (leadership level -- Gate Parkway, anyone? -- AND body politic) and corporate, carbon-emitting suburbanites (most of JEDC's board members and execs).

[thelakelander]

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.  Deutschebank is looking at an existing office building at......5022 Gate Parkway.

JEDC (aka downtown's "master developer"), why don't you end the fantasy that downtown can be revived? Quit pretending you're trying.

I still believe that the Downtown Market would be better off with less governmental interaction.  I'd like COJ to take their hands out of the cookie jar, leave the room and let the free market step into the kitchen.

[Captain Zissou]

I was in Charlotte, NC last weekend, home of some real work play condos.  I stayed at Cityview Towers and (lower income dorm-ish building catering to BoA and Wachovia interns and college students) walked to lunch, dinner, shopping, bars, Wachovia's campus,an art museum, an IMAX theater, and two different grocery stores.  I never realized how far behind even the second tier cities Jacksonville is.

[thelakelander]

I never realized how far behind even the second tier cities Jacksonville is.

For the most part, many of these improvements in similar sized cities are recent additions made within the last ten years or so.  We've just dropped the ball on things that have become routine in many of these other municipalities.

[zoo]

Bank of America bought the revitalization of downtown Charlotte. Where are Jacksonville's corporate benefactors. Oh, that's right... they are living in Ponte Vedra and setting up their shops in the Southside Sprawl. If there are corporate benefactors that "get" downtown, please follow Bank of America's (in Charlotte) lead!

[urbanlibertarian]

I still believe that the Downtown Market would be better off with less governmental interaction.  I'd like COJ to take their hands out of the cookie jar, leave the room and let the free market step into the kitchen.

Amen, brother.

[thelakelander]

Bank of America bought the revitalization of downtown Charlotte. Where are Jacksonville's corporate benefactors. Oh, that's right... they are living in Ponte Vedra and setting up their shops in the Southside Sprawl. If there are corporate benefactors that "get" downtown, please follow Bank of America's (in Charlotte) lead!

Unfortunately, they (Barnett Bank) were bought out by what would eventually become Bank of America.  So now we need CSX, Fidelity, Winn-Dixie, etc. to step up to the plate.  But I don't think they have an interest in doing so.

[second_pancake]

Whoa, whoa, whoa.  Slow down jmc.  This is the one thing that recent developers have gotten right.  They failed with Town Center and Nocatee and River Town by doing exactly what you say you hate...making it a pseudo-town that still requires people to drive everywhere.

Merril Lynch is directly next door along with Blue Cross and Blue Shield. Less than a mile down the road is a major insurance company along with a mortgage company.  These are HUGE employers, not your average national retailer paying minimum wage.  The people that work at these places will actually be able to afford an apartment or townhome in Tapestry Park and they will NOT have to drive to work, they can easily walk or bike.

As for you comment about having to drive to Publix, unfortunately that may be true but it has nothing to do with the poor planning of TP but rather the poor planning of the developer that created that Publix shopping center.  Even if you live in the apartments/houses directly behind the Publix, it is difficult to get there by foot or bike.

The businesses in TP are cut off from Southside for good reason, to keep traffic moving on that major artery and to keep TP a true live/work/play community. It was not designed to accomodate shoppers from Orange Park to travel down Southside and stop in for a drink or a bite to eat.  It was designed to accomate the RESIDENTS of TP and with that in mind, they've done a bang-up job.  Will it be difficult for the businesses at first?  Of course, but with over 370 residences and major employers with virtual direct access, they will do just fine.  Just think of all the employees who would previously have to drive across Southside blvd to go to Camille's, Larry's, Bojangles or Arby's for lunch that will now be able to merely walk down the sidewalk and be able to sit outside a cafe, taking in some scenery rather than being in a hurried rush and staring out at a sea of cars on Southside.

[second_pancake]

I also want to make note that I too think the downtown area needs to be the focus, however Jax is too damn big and the unfornate truth is that Southside has a large, if not larger, center of professional business than downtown and it's not new.  Businesses continue to build here because of the sucess of the pre-existing businesses and the proximity to their clients/vendors and their employees.  Because of the sprawl, Southside is right in the middle of most of the major residential communities making the commute for employees relatively the same regardless of what part of town they are coming from.  You can't say that about downtown.

CZ mentioned seeing successful build-outs in Charlotte.  Just having come back from the Dallas-Fort Worth area, I have seen this phenomenon as well...mostly in the Fort Worth area btw, Dallas is still behind.

Communities like Flower Mound, Bedford, Colleyville, Hurst, North Richland Hills, and the like...even downtown Fort Worth, have built actual towncenters going so far as to move their seat of town government there (3 of the towns I saw had the Courthouse and/or City Hall moved directly into the new town center).  They built the centers around thriving businesses and considered traffic patterns, existing housing and general livibility.  I could go on and on about the great things I saw, or didn't see in the case of homeless people, in Fort Worth, but I'll leave it alone for now.

The point I'm trying to make is that all of the communities I mentioned above, including the city of Fort Worth, don't add up to the areas that make Jacksonville.  It works there because everything is split into it's own entity.  We see development on the Southside here and scream about Jax having it's priorities wrong, but would you more than likely wouldn't feel that way if it was the Township of Southside, and downtown probably wouldn't be in the state it's in now if that area was known simply as Jacksonville.  In fact, it might generate some jealousy and competition, but what do I know.

[thelakelander]

The businesses in TP are cut off from Southside for good reason, to keep traffic moving on that major artery and to keep TP a true live/work/play community. It was not designed to accomodate shoppers from Orange Park to travel down Southside and stop in for a drink or a bite to eat.  It was designed to accomate the RESIDENTS of TP and with that in mind, they've done a bang-up job.  Will it be difficult for the businesses at first?  Of course, but with over 370 residences and major employers with virtual direct access, they will do just fine.  Just think of all the employees who would previously have to drive across Southside blvd to go to Camille's, Larry's, Bojangles or Arby's for lunch that will now be able to merely walk down the sidewalk and be able to sit outside a cafe, taking in some scenery rather than being in a hurried rush and staring out at a sea of cars on Southside.

I still question the ultimate decision of building 40,000 square feet of retail (roughly the size of a typical Publix store) on a side street with limited visibility and access.  370 residents and office workers at Merrill Lynch can't support that much retail square footage.  The hotel will help, but other than a destination restaurant or two, in key locations (where signage can be still seen from Southside) most of the retail space at Tapestry will end up being service oriented type businesses (Day Spas, Salons, real estate offices, etc.) that don't have to rely as much on direct access and visibility.