Retail-less parking garage proposed for downtown

[thelakelander]

Another retail-less parking garage coming to downtown?

Read More: https://www.thejaxsonmag.com/article/retail-less-parking-garage-proposed-for-downtown/

[jaxlongtimer]

^ Ennis, you are not really surprised by this, are you?  Par for the course in Jax.  Anything goes, except common sense planning.  Retail for these garages should be baked into the zoning code and strictly enforced, but, well....  this is "Slack-sonville."

[Charles Hunter]

This should definitely have street-level retail along Bay Street.

And adding more parking in that garage, using the same access/egress for cars, gee, instead of an hour (if you're lucky) to get your car out after an event at the Performing Arts Center, it will now take 2 hours or more. Note to the FSCJ Artist Series and the Symphony - get your member parking from the surface lot between the garage and Water Street, instead of the garage. Buy out the whole lot.

[Jax_Developer]

Sorry not sorry, all new construction parking structures should be banned DT. We have more space for car living than people living.

[acme54321]

Isn't this the same out of town developer that tore down the bus station and put in an illegal surface lot?  And is trying to tear down the Ford plant?

[avonjax]

Just another dead space.

[fsu813]

Interesting that they feel there is market for a new parking garage.

[Captain Zissou]

Steve Diebenow must really hate The Jaxson.  Keep fighting the good fight, boys!

[Ken_FSU]

Isn't this the same out of town developer that tore down the bus station and put in an illegal surface lot?  And is trying to tear down the Ford plant?

Yep, Amkin Hogan (Ramon Llorens).

Absolute last thing we need is another dead block.

I'm curious where the demand is for this much new parking.

[simms3]

This should definitely have street-level retail along Bay Street.

And adding more parking in that garage, using the same access/egress for cars, gee, instead of an hour (if you're lucky) to get your car out after an event at the Performing Arts Center, it will now take 2 hours or more. Note to the FSCJ Artist Series and the Symphony - get your member parking from the surface lot between the garage and Water Street, instead of the garage. Buy out the whole lot.

Sounds like we both park in this garage!

This garage is hardly ever full.  In fact, I've never seen it full, not even close.  Ludicrous that we would want more parking...

I don't think everything needs street level retail, "just because", but in this case I think it should be baked in.  If we are going to allow Ramon Llorens to demolish a true treasure of this city (Ford Plant) and Daily's already demolished one of the last brick buildings in LaVilla just one block down Bay, and these groups are trying to "improve" downtown with their projects, then there needs to be better master planning and coordination here.

Just ludicrous and insane.

[Ken_FSU]

Terribly basic question from a guy who knows very little about garage construction:

Why, absent immense public pressure, is it such a tough sell for a developer to add some shell retail bays to the ground floor of a parking garage?

Is it as simple as the developer believes they'll make more money long-term leasing that XXXsf to cars than they would leasing to retail tenants?

Is it inherently more difficult/complex/expensive to include retails slots in a garage?

Using the VyStar Garage ($22 million price tag) as an example, would that have magically been a $17 million garage absent retail?

Just curious what the gap looks like, and why these garage developers have to be dragged kicking and screaming toward ground-floor retail slots.

[Steve]

My only thought would be the flow of the garage, but given they're using the existing ingress/egress points it seems like it's doable.

[Lunican]

Wait for it.... U2C TOD!

[Jax_Developer]

Terribly basic question from a guy who knows very little about garage construction:

Why, absent immense public pressure, is it such a tough sell for a developer to add some shell retail bays to the ground floor of a parking garage?

Is it as simple as the developer believes they'll make more money long-term leasing that XXXsf to cars than they would leasing to retail tenants?

Is it inherently more difficult/complex/expensive to include retails slots in a garage?

Using the VyStar Garage ($22 million price tag) as an example, would that have magically been a $17 million garage absent retail?

Just curious what the gap looks like, and why these garage developers have to be dragged kicking and screaming toward ground-floor retail slots.

They lack confidence in the projects viability for retail space to be leased up. There are a lot of better options for the space sizes & types that would be built under a parking garage for example. Most retail uses prefer to be with residential or office use. I believe DT vacancy is near 20% right now.

[thelakelander]

This particular garage location is surrounded by class A office space and a Marriott hotel.