Daniel Davis wants to relocate the jail in his first term, if elected

[landfall]

The problem isn't necessarily that the jail is Downtown, it's where it is Downtown. if the jail was where the Convention Center is and vice versa we wouldn't be having this conversation. Bay St is the gateway to the sports complex and a jail being there doesn't fit in with that. The same goes for Maxwell House. Rather than something cohesive or complimentary linking the bars/restaurants to the sports complex you have a jail and a coffee factory.

[thelakelander]

I view Maxwell House an asset. Definitely don't want to lose that historic economic generator and high wage paying job creator. Also, no thanks to sticking the jail in LaVilla.

[Jax_Developer]

You are not reading what I'm typing then. The Berkman is the best economic indicator of the Jail's terrible effect DT.

So this is the reason you believe spending a minimum of $400 million to move the jail should be the top downtown revitalization priority?

I have no infatuation with the Berkman. Luckily in Real Estate, numbers don't lie. And although we have some newly minted realtors here, I do have my license and I do actively buy/sell in this market. I think, just maybe, I know a little bit about real estate. Ignoring the Berkman demonstrates that the blinders that are on the other side of this opinion. It's literally the ONLY new building since the jail was built. So yeah lets ignore the only project from that instead of learn from it.

Are familiar with the history of Berkman II and the Shipyards site since its closure? You believe that history changes if the jail were not there? How did the jail lead to the Trilegacy debacle?

Yes & Yes. The reason we have no Shipyards is because of the jail. In the 2002 JAX Daily article I attached, the exact same talking points are mentioned by the developer.. "Oh the jail isn't that big of a deal.." etc. Well, maybe if the site economics didn't constrain it in the way that it did, we wouldn't have had the same result as we did. Would there have been issues with the Berkman II if the jail was right there? Probably not but I can't say for certain. The economics of the site left it constrained while also being in a bad economy a few years later. Again, this is the central core we are talking about. The Central Core's economics could not support the reworking or restructuring of the Berkman II, simple as that. That's wild to me.. & when we consider the areas like the Southbank or Brooklyn, the issues of the Berkman II & the Shipyards have far more likelihood to succeed... just based on numbers.

I don't think there's any disagreement here that a scenario in which we can move the jail is probably better for the surrounding area and downtown overall in some way. But that's an opinion in a vacuum.

What's being disagreed on is that spending hundreds of millions of mostly (but probably all) public dollars to move the jail as soon as possible and potentially hundreds of millions more to incentivize or construct projects to go on the resulting grass lot (because we know the city's current intention is to build a convention center there) is the best, highest, most prudent, and most efficient use of limited public funds right now. As others have said, that's money that could be used on any variety of other projects both in downtown and far beyond it. It's not a question of virtue, it's a question of priority. Sure, moving the jail would have a benefit, but is it the most important thing we need to do right now? I'm not particularly confident it is.

Agreed, I can completely understand that others have differing priorities. To mention the Jail relocation as a talking point, is simply lacking the understanding to know why it just isn't. I'm not claiming it needs to be moved tomorrow, but there needs to be a plan.

I think we're also forgetting that moving the jail and police HQ to the Northside doesn't just move inmates.

It moves hundreds upon hundreds of civilian employees who are out there right now supporting the restaurants, stores, and bars downtown.

Police officers, administrators, clerical workers, guards.

Walk into Superfood, 7-11, the Brick, Jimmy Johns, etc. at any given time during the week and you're just as likely to be in line behind a police officer as you are a businessman.

There's got to be 15 businesses offering bonds within two blocks of the prison alone.

Just like the demolition of the Landing didn't just involve removing a structure, but 30 small businesses adding vibrancy to the CBD, moving the prison doesn't happen in a vacuum either. You don't just end up with a grass lot for a decade, but with a massive chunk of the downtown workforce and numerous small supporting businesses sent packing to the Northside.

You can't even call it a zero sum game.

It's spending more than half a billion dollars to leave downtown business worse off than it was before.

What about the thousands of residents/workers who do not goto our Central Core? What about the sales tax, the business tax, the property tax etc.. Those factors FAR outweigh the economic benefit of a police HQ. Like I have mentioned before, in 95% of cities in the US, the central core is the highest earning district in their respective cities. Not in JAX. We are that 5%.

Always said Bay St can and should be Jax party street and removing the jail helps. Its in in totally the wrong place in 2023 with the likes of the Court having now moved and the Landing demolished.

If anything, the story of the courthouse move is a great example of why being careful about the prospect of moving the jail is a good idea.

We spent $350 million building a massive new courthouse complex elsewhere (while sacrificing generational investment in other important things) and millions more on the demolition of the old one because getting it off the riverfront ASAP was just so important, plus millions more to redo adjacent infrastructure at Coastline Drive (think Hart Ramps) only for the grass lot that was left behind to still be just that years later.

To add to this, how much income has the city made off selling these vacant lots to developers? Most of the redevelopment projects require the land to be given away and millions more in incentives. We would have been better off just selling or giving away the vacant buildings.

The largest most intense projects are on the Northbank's riverfront. Therefore, the incentives granted on the Riverfront are actually "paying for" the jail. In all actuality, these points work in tandem for the purposes of this discussion. That goes with the Bay St renovation.. some of those dollars are being spent on the jail. More & more sunk cost.

Here is one way to break this deadlock ...

Ask the voters to decide if they want to blow $400 million on the U2C or $400 million on moving the jail or "none of the above." 

An absolute no brainer lol.

I view Maxwell House an asset. Definitely don't want to lose that historic economic generator and high wage paying job creator. Also, no thanks to sticking the jail in LaVilla.

Agreed on the Maxwell item. Other historic factories have done well in urban DT's, Heineken comes to mind in Amsterdam bc I have done it. Maxwell house, with more activity around it, might have the ability to create a cool walking tour or something similar.

[thelakelander]

You are not reading what I'm typing then. The Berkman is the best economic indicator of the Jail's terrible effect DT.

So this is the reason you believe spending a minimum of $400 million to move the jail should be the top downtown revitalization priority?

I have no infatuation with the Berkman. Luckily in Real Estate, numbers don't lie. And although we have some newly minted realtors here, I do have my license and I do actively buy/sell in this market. I think, just maybe, I know a little bit about real estate. Ignoring the Berkman demonstrates that the blinders that are on the other side of this opinion. It's literally the ONLY new building since the jail was built. So yeah lets ignore the only project from that instead of learn from it.

Are familiar with the history of Berkman II and the Shipyards site since its closure? You believe that history changes if the jail were not there? How did the jail lead to the Trilegacy debacle?

Yes & Yes. The reason we have no Shipyards is because of the jail. In the 2002 JAX Daily article I attached, the exact same talking points are mentioned by the developer.. "Oh the jail isn't that big of a deal.." etc. Well, maybe if the site economics didn't constrain it in the way that it did, we wouldn't have had the same result as we did. Would there have been issues with the Berkman II if the jail was right there? Probably not but I can't say for certain. The economics of the site left it constrained while also being in a bad economy a few years later. Again, this is the central core we are talking about. The Central Core's economics could not support the reworking or restructuring of the Berkman II, simple as that. That's wild to me.. & when we consider the areas like the Southbank or Brooklyn, the issues of the Berkman II & the Shipyards have far more likelihood to succeed... just based on numbers.

After the Shipyards closed in the 1990s, the Spence family acquired the property for a new market-rate logistics use (remember, this was a maritime industrial district) related use if not convinced to redevelop the site by the city into mixed-use residential, office, hotel and park space. One Shipyard Place had already broken ground when playing with the money funny blew that public private partnership up.

By all means, not sexy for those wanting to see this area filled with condos, restaurants and shops, but if left alone, the property would have been producing revenue and jobs for a few decades now, instead of wasting away as a vacant lot.

LandMar was the next developer to take a stab at the site. The national economy taking a nose dive in the mid-2000s, not the jail, sent their entire real estate development business into bankruptcy.

Berkman II was well under construction when disaster happened. Shotty construction led to its collapse and years of being tied up in court. Not the jail. Since the Spence/Trilegacy debacle, the Shipyards property has been in COJ's hands. The jail hasn't been the reason COJ has put no real money into the site during that time. COJ has struggled to invest in public spaces and rid itself of city owned property all across downtown for decades. One could easily argue, that COJ is the biggest slumlord in downtown. 

By no means am I arguing that the jail is the Taj Mahal or the best utilization of that particular piece of property. However, it isn't the reason no development or investment has taken place on the Shipyards property since the Berkman II collapse. COJ deserves all the blame. Nothing about the jail has stopped us from investing to build a park, extend the riverwalk, sell off and incentivize pad sites, etc. but ourselves. All of this could have occurred a decade ago and cost us way less than $400 million, if it were a larger priority of the various mayoral administrations and councils during the 2000s.
 

The largest most intense projects are on the Northbank's riverfront. Therefore, the incentives granted on the Riverfront are actually "paying for" the jail. In all actuality, these points work in tandem for the purposes of this discussion. That goes with the Bay St renovation.. some of those dollars are being spent on the jail. More & more sunk cost.

Don't get too sucked up in the one-trick pony very conceptual proposals that require massive sums of public money to be remotely feasible. Hopefully, a few will happen but we should not ignore where the real tangible development projects are happening right now in Brooklyn, NoCo (I really hate using this term lol) and the Sports District. In my opinion, from a downtown revitalization strategy perspective, we should flood them with intentional adjacent investment as quick as possible to stimulate real critical mass.

[Jax_Developer]

Truthfully, most of what I know about the Shipyards history beyond what can be found from news articles is from you. I just don't follow or at least agree with your stance. The only reason I still feel any slight need to respond is due to your presence & reach in Jacksonville with the Jaxson. I honestly just can't accept this is a talking point, and I feel extremely confident that a model would prove the economic failure the Jail has been.

https://www.thejaxsonmag.com/article/the-shipyards-20-years-of-renderings/

In this very article, there is a claim made that FNF was considering an HQ in one of the earlier plans.. Think about that cumulative impact. It would make sense for them to be in the CC on prime Riverfront. Also not to mention now several independent development firms have ultimately failed at the shipyard site. Understandably 08' was different, but that doesn't account for the time period. For over 20 years nothing has happened. There really is only one reason for that. Pretty much everywhere else on the river DT has a building or a project. Except here.

Business & people have options.

What is the highest Class of rent possible for those spaces next to a jail? (There is no argument for luxury Class A space)
What % of high end buyers/renters want to live next to a jail?
What % of companies want to set up a business in a less-dense micro economy next to a jail?
What Fortune 500 business wants to be positioned near a jail?
What is the real top dollar rent or sale price for land next to a jail?

--

I can absolutely say with certainty that a Class A product is not viable in the immediate location of the jail. The Berkman's value over time essentially proves this. It has lost value.. which is an anomaly in residential real estate. The inability for multiple firms to not make a greater vision a reality immediately highlights this even more.

Also is it fair to the people of Jacksonville to accept that these land uses will never be usable for Class A space? In our Central Core? Riverfront? That concept seems absurd to me. Seemingly there have been chances, and opportunities.. all of which have come up empty handed. I could never seriously model rents or condo sales in that immediate area that command prices that are seen in other smaller coastal cities in Florida. If there was no Jail there, does $1M+ condo on the river sound that crazy? Not to me.. With the jail.. apparently so.

I'm not sucked up in anything really. What I am passionately against is thinking that all these riverfront parks and bay st projects are going to be worth what they should be with a massive jail sitting on its doorstep. There are some pretty heavy claims being made in this thread that other metro's seemingly have already addressed and solved. To say some of those public dollars in DT right now are not being paid because of the jail, is not being totally honest on the situation as a whole. The Jail also has a negative affect on a greater surrounding area, to a lesser extent.

Take the average consumer data given by the BLS, you'd only need 10,000 people spending on their daily basket items to reach an immediate sale tax of $15,000,000 from $200,000,000 in gross sales. 10,000 in a Central Core is child's play by even JAX's historic standard from my understanding.

[thelakelander]

Truthfully, most of what I know about the Shipyards history beyond what can be found from news articles is from you. I just don't follow or at least agree with your stance. The only reason I still feel any slight need to respond is due to your presence & reach in Jacksonville with the Jaxson. I honestly just can't accept this is a talking point, and I feel extremely confident that a model would prove the economic failure the Jail has been.

https://www.thejaxsonmag.com/article/the-shipyards-20-years-of-renderings/

In this very article, there is a claim made that FNF was considering an HQ in one of the earlier plans.. Think about that cumulative impact. It would make sense for them to be in the CC on prime Riverfront. Also not to mention now several independent development firms have ultimately failed at the shipyard site. Understandably 08' was different, but that doesn't account for the time period. For over 20 years nothing has happened. There really is only one reason for that. Pretty much everywhere else on the river DT has a building or a project. Except here.

My one and only stance regarding the jail relocation is this. It isn't the reason that the Northbank is not successful. It's relocation should not be given a higher priority (in terms of downtown public investment) than direct reinvestment into the Northbank core (i.e. incentizing adaptive reuse, infill development, investing in public parks, streets, etc.).

[jaxlongtimer]

I view Maxwell House an asset. Definitely don't want to lose that historic economic generator and high wage paying job creator. Also, no thanks to sticking the jail in LaVilla.

Agreed on the Maxwell item. Other historic factories have done well in urban DT's, Heineken comes to mind in Amsterdam bc I have done it. Maxwell house, with more activity around it, might have the ability to create a cool walking tour or something similar.

Re: Maxwell House, a missed opportunity is factory tours.  Unfortunately, companies have become so safety, security and liability conscious, that few remain.  But, I recall for years the successful tourist draws of Anheuser Busch breweries, Hershey and Ghirardelli candies, etc. in the hearts of their cities that lived in synch with the surrounding areas.

Not necessarily in the downtown area, but as a child we toured ice cream, milk, potato chip, soft drink, bread, candy, pine sap distilling and glass making factories.  Even got to visit the Kennedy Space Center to see the Apollo capsule being assembled.  Today, pretty much gone the way of the dinosaurs.  Can only think of wineries and distilleries as maybe still doing tours open to the public with any regularity.

[jaxoNOLE]

^with Maxwell, Manifest, Intuition, and soon to be MOSH, Orleck, and the Fire Museum, there should absolutely be an opportunity for a multi-attraction ticket that could offer a full day of entertainment.

I miss the AB tour very much. Never had a better-tasting Budweiser than the one from their tasting room.

[thelakelander]

It was a bummer to lose the AB tour. I agree that their tasting room was the best. Does Domino Sugar allow tours at their Inner Harbor plant?

[marcuscnelson]

Obviously this isn't really about Davis anymore, but now Ron Salem appears to be declaring he will take the reins for this:

https://www.news4jax.com/news/local/2023/06/08/moving-duval-county-jail-to-be-a-budget-priority-for-incoming-jacksonville-city-council-president/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=snd&utm_content=wjxt4

$250 million is a little less than previously stated, but I imagine that doesn't include the cost of a new police headquarters.

[Ken_FSU]

Obviously this isn't really about Davis anymore, but now Ron Salem appears to be declaring he will take the reins for this:

https://www.news4jax.com/news/local/2023/06/08/moving-duval-county-jail-to-be-a-budget-priority-for-incoming-jacksonville-city-council-president/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=snd&utm_content=wjxt4

$250 million is a little less than previously stated, but I imagine that doesn't include the cost of a new police headquarters.

Saw this earlier.

There's no universe where we build a new future-proof jail for $250 million.

San Jose is looking at $690 million (https://www.mercurynews.com/2022/05/16/price-of-santa-clara-countys-new-jail-soars-with-officials-blaming-it-on-delays-and-inflation/)

DC up to $750 million (https://www.dcpolicycenter.org/publications/cost-new-dc-prison/#:~:text=per%20bed%20costs.-,Operating%20costs,million%20depending%20on%20the%20capacity.)

Atlanta estimates $2 BILLION (https://www.ajc.com/news/fulton-study-new-jail-would-cost-2-billion/HDIJNS43VNAK3FINZ2AUD2XMNI/)

Kansas City is $300 million+ (https://www.kcur.org/news/2023-05-01/if-jackson-county-legislators-dont-act-today-the-new-jail-price-will-spike-by-millions)

Between relocating the jail and Police HQ, demolishing the old, and preparing the site for redevelopment, we're talking an easy $750 million.

[jaxoNOLE]

This sounds a lot less "hair on fire" than Davis' promise to make it a first-term priority. Planning ahead and getting a good grasp on what the cost could be seems prudent. A range of $250 million to $750 million is so ambiguous as to render even high-level strategic conversations meaningless.

[Charles Hunter]

Maybe we could get buckets of money from the Governor if we build the new jail next to Disney World?

[fsu813]

This sounds a lot less "hair on fire" than Davis' promise to make it a first-term priority. Planning ahead and getting a good grasp on what the cost could be seems prudent. A range of $250 million to $750 million is so ambiguous as to render even high-level strategic conversations meaningless.

Idea:

Cruiseships.

It worked for guests of Super Bowl XXXIX, it could work for guests of the Sheriff.

[thelakelander]

This sounds a lot less "hair on fire" than Davis' promise to make it a first-term priority. Planning ahead and getting a good grasp on what the cost could be seems prudent. A range of $250 million to $750 million is so ambiguous as to render even high-level strategic conversations meaningless.

Its premature of them to state random numbers like $250 million when they don't even have a site selected or timeline of construction. But yeah, I don't mind the concept of planning ahead. Its pretty smart to do that. If we had done that for downtown revitalization as a whole, it would have been revitalized 20 years ago and with a lot less tax money invested.