America's Downtowns Ranked by Number of Employees

[Ocklawaha]

I think most cities define their downtown somewhat differently, and that probably accounts for the widely varying accounts.

In Jacksonville we actually have several definitions in common use. For most people, "Downtown" means the core area, including only the Northbank east of Hogans Creek, south of about Union/State, and west of Lavilla (or possibly including Lavilla). However, the "Central Business District" is often considered equivalent to Downtown. This comprises a wider area, including the Southbank (approximately north of 95), the Stadium District out to the riverfront docks, and Lavilla and Brooklyn. This includes area beyond what many people would consider the true "downtown", but it has more of an official position. You also regularly hear people who work in Brooklyn or the Southbank say "I work Downtown". Within the CBD I'd wager there really are 38k workers, as it includes those areas.

In one of our research trips downtown, we found in several old city plans and documents that Jacksonville's downtown was defined as running from Myrtle to Talleyrand and from State Street to the River, interestingly it didn't include Brooklyn nor any of the Southbank but then this was around 1925.

Also beware of low-balling the figures in Jacksonville, when I did the article: 'SKYBRIDGE JACKSONVILLE' http://www.metrojacksonville.com/article/2013-mar-skybridge-jacksonville , I saw so many conflicting numbers on employment that I did my own footwork and concluded in the Southbank hospital district alone, we are UNDERCOUNTING by several thousand +/- employees. After many calls and calling out individual offices and businesses I came up with 11,900 BEFORE Baptist opened the new tower. The number included just those buildings/employers that would be linked by a Skybridge system.

[simms3]

My take on the numbers based on research (information that an expensive subscription gets me ).


Northbank has about 9.5 million SF of office space and is about 19% vacant (this is in about 45 buildings).  Note that this does include every building along Riverside Ave from those wholly-owned by Fidelity to the Florida Times Union building and stuff in between, and it includes the CSX building.  It even includes City Hall, YMCA annex, MOCA office space, Haydon Burns Library, etc.  It does NOT include the City Hall Annex or the Public Library.  It does include the old Barnett Bank building (139,000 SF), which of course is 100% vacant.  Most of the vacancy is between Everbank Center, BOA Tower, Suntrust tower, 225 Water St, 233 W Duval, and the Old Barnet Bank building.

Southbank has about 2.4 million SF of office space and is about 14% vacant.  I count ~10 buildings, with 1.6 million SF between the largest 3.  This does NOT include Baptist Hospital or its medical office tower, but apparently the hospital employs just over 4,000, and it does not include School Board.  This is an area reaching from the two Dupont office buildings over to just south of 95 where the MOB is.

11.9 million SF in urban core with a blended 18% vacancy rate, so about 9.76 million SF occupied, or at least leased/sub-leased.  Here are your employment figures at different employment densities:

1:400 24,398
1:350 27,883
1:300 32,530
1:250 39,036
1:200 48,795

Add: est. employees in City Hall Annex, School Board, the Landing, RCBC and other restaurants, Main Library, off-site city/agency workers, hotels, parking garage operators, the Fed Reserve branch, and the ~4,000 at Baptist Medical Center.  Call it 8,500 more employees.

So by my best guess using the 1:300 employment ratio above (factoring in that some space downtown may not be fully occupied but that other employers are "class B" employers with higher employment densities), and adding 8,500 employees as above, I estimate between 40,000-41,000 downtown employees.  Of course while the bulk work day jobs and commute in for the 9-5, this also includes people who work evening shifts at hotels, restaurants, and the hospital.

[simms3]

Right, but how many of those are single-tenant / never on market (e.g. CSX), or owned and occupied exclusively by COJ? To get to those figures you'd have to include everything that's been taken over as government offices and isn't participating in the market, which is why I said the figure is misleading. And I'm talking the northbank, the south bank was shipyards until the 1960s.

I get it now. You just don't count major employers in your numbers.

56,000 sounds high, even counting Riverside Ave and the Southbank, unless they have expanded their area a bit (Shands, Riverside, San Marco), but 8000 is equally off the mark for Northbank employment. These numbers are for employees, not some intangible "market participation" index. DVI's numbers are pretty close, though certainly not updated daily:
http://downtownjacksonville.org/DoingBusinessDowntownJacksonville/DemographicsAndStatistics.aspx

The 7.3 million SF DVI has even seems small, since it appears they are counting all three areas, and you can easily piece together 5 million SF from the 10 or so biggest offices on the northbank. Granted, some of those have 60+% vacancy rates.

See my post above - you and I are on the same page it sounds like.

[I-10east]

I-10 should start his own suburban jacksonville site, seeing that that seems to be ultimately what he wants. Its available too. Go for it, I-10! https://www.register.com/checkout/available-login.rcmx?domain=suburbanjacksonville.com&term=36&result=available&searchOrigin=homepage&domain=suburbanjacksonville&selectedTLDs=.com&bulkTest=true

LOL that was pretty funny, I admit. Very creative.

[tufsu1]

the only absurd # posted here is 8,000 workers on the northbank...after all, COJ has nearly 6,000 alone

great tufsu.

which buildings are they in on the northbank.

Break it down for us.

Which buildings on the northbank have the 6000 full time employees.

FSCJ, Shands and the State offices are all on the springfield side of Union and State Streets.

I really don't want to get in this back and forth discussion...it is so 5 years ago.

That said, most City employees are in the following Northbank buildings:

City Hall
City Hall Annex
Ed Ball Building
Courthouse
Courthouse Annex (old City Hall Annex)
Police Station

and yes, I know the state employees are north of State/Union....but I suggest you check the DIA boundaries....that area is now included as part of "downtown"

Finally, I don't remember any discussion about employees having to be full-time nor does the DVI report make such a claim...but even so, most COJ employees are indeed full-time.

[PeeJayEss]

Oh, so we all agree!

Except for tufsu and stephen..
who will never agree...
on anything.

[Cliffs_Daughter]

#25 representing.... and as a former COJ employee, I must say I LOVE working downtown in Cbus.
They're limiting it to the very boundaries of downtown/capitol area though. Anything that's just on the other side of that invisible line would raise it to #20 easily.

[krazeeboi]

That downtown Raleigh figure looks VERY fishy. Their downtown alliance says it houses 38K workers, so where is that 122K figure coming from? Even if you include NC State, I seriously doubt it's that much of an increase.

[simms3]

^^^All of the small and mid-size state capitals are fishy, including Austin.  As are Brooklyn, NY and Los Angeles.  Most everything else seems about right.