Nocatee's Town Center Revealed

[Metro Jacksonville]

Nocatee's Town Center Revealed



It is being billed as the first phase of a pedestrian friendly downtown core.  Metro Jacksonville has the site plan and wants you to decide if this will truly become the urban downtown core of a new city.

Full Article
http://www.metrojacksonville.com/content/view/715

[fpj]

New-suburbanism perhaps?

Moving right to left, we have Crosswater Pkwy that looks like a fairly substantial pseudo greenspace medianed road.  Right up against this are the outparcels which to me are code words for "Square Restaurants with their own parking lots," then a huge parking lot for Publix and all.  (It is interesting to see how these parking lots are absent from the pretty street level sketches, but I guess you have to have a pov from somewhere to create them).  Moving to the left some more, some phase II areas, which appear to be more parking lots and small buildings in other sketches available on the nocatee wwwsite.  Then a buffer of townhomes, condos and apartments before we have a band bordered on the top by what looks like a home depot/lowes shopping area and then homesites continuing on the bottom before we get to Office Park World.

So, will this be "a lively new version of the traditional pedestrian friendly downtown"?  I guess so if you want to DRIVE to it.  There might be sidewalks and bikepaths and all, I can't really tell, but if the royal "they" really wanted to create a true pedestrian friendly area, they would have put it in the middle of everything and clustered living spaces around it (or on top of it, shudder the thought) instead of the oh so typical linear plan shown here.

[zoo]

Ditto. New suburbanism at its worst. Nothing can be the center of anything if it isn't even in the center, but relegated to the NE corner of the overall development. Sea of surface parking doesn't mean "downtown" to me at all (unless you're talking about Jacksonville's).

The only real urbanism occurring anywhere in Jax is occurring downtown or near downtown. Stop trying to build new downtowns! Take a drive through Baldwin Park in Orlando and see how much of a downtown it feels like. About as much as St. Johns Town Center.

Developers don't yet get that they can't create a lively urban center from scratch -- at best an antiseptic suburban variety of it.

[Ocklawaha]

I sort of agree, with a twist. Scrap most of the parking lots for mini-lots or street parking AL LA  Edgewood in Murray Hill. Use some of those expansive green spaces that divide the neighborhoods in the "Town" and install modern or old fashioned rural Trolley cars. Tiny 20-30 passenger cars that could fan out throughout Nocatee, and loop through and around the downtown core blocks. This could be done for as little as 2-5 Million dollars a mile, including track, cars, shops and overhead wire. It would "BRAND" Nocatee as the real rural town that it dreams to be. It has been done in the past too, ever hear of "The Ortega Company?"

Ocklawaha

[thelakelander]

I don't think the suburbanites and developers out there care much for trolleys, buses or anything else.  From the look of the master plan, the "town center" is not even located in the center of the community.  Instead, its an outparcel, itself.

[avonjax]

another fancy stip center. Calling Nocatee a town is kinda funny to me. It's just a large sub-division with an open air shopping center. For what it is it's nice, but that's about it.

[copperfiend]

Can we all agree on this about Nocatee? It is what it is. They can call it whatever they want. I am sure the people that will live there will be excited that they can go to Publix, Target, Lowe's and Chili's.

[EP]

Looking at those renderings makes me tired.  At least they sure didn't skimp on the impervious surface.  Nothing defines a place better than acres of surface parking.  Seriously guys, can we get some garages and preserve some of that open space?

Downtown core = 1 story height limit, haha

[copperfiend]

They won't pay what it would cost to build a parking garage in Nocatee. Surface parking is the cheaper option by far.

[Bike Jax]

It didn't work for Disney with Celebration and it won't work here. You can not manufacture a town by simply adding a "town center" full of national chains and expect to create a community.

Do you think all the people working all those high paying retail jobs will be enjoying the good life that Nocatee will provide? No they won't. They will have to commute from outside of "the town".

A rich, vibrant community does not come with the instructions, "simply add water".

[DemocraticNole]

I have to agree that you can not create a downtown from scratch by having one story buildings. You need to have tall buildings to even attempt to do that, and even then I'm not sure it would work.

Let's face it though. Jacksonville isn't going to become the type of urban community we would like to have until much tighter land-use regulations are put in place. Right now we are doing are best to become the Houston of Northeast Florida: nothing but endless sprawl, poorly constructed suburban growth, and poor traffic.

Why can't we get some developers with the forsight to build some really tall buildings in the city's core? The only city in the state that seems to be building a skyline is Miami. The rest of the state seems content with the kind of cheap suburban growth that will be very difficult to continue this century with rising fuel costs and poor traffic. Downtown Jacksonville is such a beautiful area and has so much potential, that it makes me sick seeing it go to waste. How many municipalities have the kind of picturesque setting we have, with 5 bridges spanning the river downtown? Not that many, I can assure you.

The city should be providing tax incentives for those who restore old and delapidated buildings as well as provide huge tax incentives for those who are willing to build some more skyscrapers downtown. Of course, that will never happen, not with the incompetence of John Peyton and the often uninterested attitude of the city's citizens.

[second_pancake]

It didn't work for Disney with Celebration and it won't work here. You can not manufacture a town by simply adding a "town center" full of national chains and expect to create a community.

Do you think all the people working all those high paying retail jobs will be enjoying the good life that Nocatee will provide? No they won't. They will have to commute from outside of "the town".

A rich, vibrant community does not come with the instructions, "simply add water".

Precisely.  I don't suppose Blue Cross, Merrill Lynch, any of the hospitals, Modis, or Bank of America, will be moving their corporate offices over there, eh?  Of course not.  Welcome, The Town of More Sprawl.

[alohameisha]

I know they are trying but it is not the same as the historic town centers that already exist. I understand people are stoked b/c of a water park etc for the kids and all that jazz but I can't cough without hitting a great park with playground equipment here is Riverside.

I don't see the point in turning more trees into cement on the way to St. Augustine while there are plenty of exisitng homes for sale in our already huge metropolis.

Close or not I don't see these people getting out of the SUV's to walk, bike or walk the dogs in this town center environment. More power to them if they do but it looks like a another strip mall although more pleasing to the eye.

It is like the town center the concept is cool but poorly executed. No parking or trees near the little area people might want to walk makes for sizzling good time in the warm weather. Then they have these out parcel monster stores scattered everywhere. Leave some trees people maybe that is why people in historic disctricts can walk year round... ample tree cover.

[thelakelander]

Close or not I don't see these people getting out of the SUV's to walk, bike or walk the dogs in this town center environment.

Locally, we've butchered the understanding of what a "town center" really stands for.  Now every new strip mall is using the term.  Even Gateway Mall has been renamed Gateway Town Center.  In Central Florida, Celebration is laid out ten times better and they don't walk there.  Residents still get in their SUVs and head to Walmart and the fast food joints on US. 192 in Kissimmee. 

There's no reason to think that this would be any different, especially since the "downtown" isn't even in the center of the proposed development.  You'll be able to drive through Nocatee and not even get a glimpse of its "town center" if you stuck to the major roads within its borders.  However, I'm sure the developers of Nocatee don't care one way or another as long as suburbanites keep forking out the bucks on homes that may not last as long as their 30 year fixed mortgages. 

[M104]

What a waste of space.

Make it walking neighborhood like the 3rd Street Promenade in Santa Monica.

Even the St. John's "Town Center" would benefit from closing down all the streets to vehicle traffic.