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

[thelakelander]

The goal of revitalization is vibrancy and a better QOL for residents. It's all encompassing and not an either or for adaptive reuse, infill development, achieving certain lease rates, etc.

I think this is where I am tripped up. If we only are able to make the economics work for adaptive reuse, or only able to make it to New Construction with insane incentives, then I think it is safe to say that the city failed its objectives, again. If Apple founded a new technology, but spent 75% of their operating funds to do so, you better hope they are selling trillions of that product otherwise we know what would happen.

I think you may be too far into the weeds. The economics don't necessarily work for adaptive reuse either, without an infusion of local incentives. Can't worry about Apple right now when we still need to light the streets, clean the sidewalks, upgrade parks, restore dilapidated buildings, etc. We're going to have to invest in the little boring things and incentivize complementary adaptive reuse and infill development until the economics start to work.

Jacksonville in particular has too many dead parcels.. We also know that building up city infrastructure does help the overall city's tax base. There really are some known items at play here that I guess the city is putting aside(?)

Yes, we've spent billions to create all of these dead parcels in the name of new construction that still failed to materialize. We can easily turn things around however. To do so, we'll have to use our resources to cluster, complementing uses (and financial strategies) within a more compact area to speed up the revitalization process.

To me, the goals the DIA & City have should be to make new construction projects economically viable.. and whatever needs to be done to make that happen should.. I still haven't heard anyone explain why virtually every direction you go from our Central Core has higher real estate values and lease rates.

Engulf yourself in the history of how the Northbank economically fell off the wagon and you'll have your answer. The bigger question would then be why are we continuing to try the same strategies that have already proven to be failures over the last 40 years but expecting a different outcome? To reverse the path, we have to use proven strategies that work, even when they don't sound super sexy or come with a flashy rendering.

I do have one pretty good reason tho.. aka why these talks are likely circulating again. The decade long efforts of the downtown incentives have not yielded rosy results.

Downtown has been an atm machine for the politically connected for decades. That's likely the largest reason. What really needs to be done isn't getting done (or ignored outright) because it results in less control of who financially benefits. A lot of people don't like to hear that and it could make some feel uncomfortable. But take a deep dive into the history and it becomes as clear as day.

[Jax_Developer]

The Apple item is to demonstrate the lack of a proper study on the opportunity costs surrounding this heavy investment. I don't care about Apple. If a private company did what the COJ is doing, the point is they would be out of biz.

--

How is it that the CC hasn't been able to turn it around but they demolished almost the entirety of Brooklyn? And why is it that Brooklyn has somehow been able to turn it around? I don't think I can believe the argument that Brooklyn was somehow in a better state than the CC.

--

The Jail has been one of the only consistent items on the Northbank for the last 40 years. Whoever made that decision, has caused billions in unintended damages. I understand there is more history to it all, but I don't believe this argument for the last 5-10 years. Times can change what has more meaningful impacts. Right now it is the jail and a large majority of people I talk to here say that is the #1 reason they don't go downtown. Lease rates and rental rates prove this.

--

So has many other downtowns across the US. I grew up in a top 50 metro, and when we first moved there a few families owned a ton of the RE. This same story can be said elsewhere too. When bigger money comes into play, things change. Why do we see Town Center with lease rates that rival South FL and major urban areas? There are reasons for all of that. DT has been plagued by poor policy.. completely agree.. but there is more to it now. Other cities are pulling ahead like crazy while we are for some reason debating on the idea of a 2,000+ bed pre-trial facility/jail devaluing DT property. Other cities made these decisions a decade or more ago.

[Gators312]

Charlotte's jail is downtown (1.8k beds, if iirc), and its DT is far from a ghost town.  There is no reason Jax can't significantly improve downtown without moving the jail. 

Moving the jail is a reasonable LONG TERM goal for the DT, but I don't think it is a higher priority than septic tank removals and other infrastructure improvements and maintenance that our city needs now, especially after having to invest $1B+ just down the street.   If I had a magic wand and removed the jail today, the cranes would not just magically appear overnight. There is plenty of vacant land downtown; tearing down the jail would be like the Landing on steroids.

Those people you reference who don't go downtown because of the jail, do they not go to Jaguar games, other sporting events, and concerts?  Because most people who live in the Jax Metro have no reason aside from special events to go downtown.  Why drive past the restaurants and entertainment options in San Marco, Riverside, Brooklyn, TC, and the Beaches just to come downtown?  COJ taxpayers and FDOT have subsidized the sprawl for decades at the expense of DT.  Until DT has a competing QoL to the surrounding neighborhoods/suburbs, you'll never see lease/rental rates that rival major urban areas, jail or no jail.

How much have we spent as taxpayers to tear down city-owned property for it to sit vacant and underutilized?  If we invested as much in activating downtown spaces as we have spent on subsidizing the sprawl over 50 years, downtown would be thriving. 

[thelakelander]

Jax_Developer, I accidently clicked on the wrong button in moderator mode, resulting in the reply below overriding your's. I was able to go back and restore your original, at the 11:36:16 edit mark. Sorry about that. Here is my reply to your post at 10:27:

The Apple item is to demonstrate the lack of a proper study on the opportunity costs surrounding this heavy investment. I don't care about Apple. If a private company did what the COJ is doing, the point is they would be out of biz.

Yes, a private company would be out of business if it had the responsibilities of a municipal government. I have no disagreement with this statement and I'm also not defending COJ's revitalization strategies and investments in the past.....because they haven't work. That's clear as day, as revitalization should not take 70 years.

How is it that the CC hasn't been able to turn it around but they demolished almost the entirety of Brooklyn? And why is it that Brooklyn has somehow been able to turn it around? I don't think I can believe the argument that Brooklyn was somehow in a better state than the CC.

I really do believe that taking a deep dive into history will reveal the cause and effect. In many ways, Brooklyn is an example of urban renewal, gentrification and a bad outcome for urban revitalization. We basically turned a walkable neighborhood into a suburban arterial filled with surface parking lots and parking garages. 


Riverside Avenue in 2000 verses 2006 immediately after the 6-lane widening. We basically used roadway widening money to acquire and raze an entire urban commercial district. It's taken over 20 years since that time to get to where Riverside Avenue is today. However, the resulting infill has largely been suburban oriented due to an unwillingness to support urban infill from a public policy perspective.

Now, if we just want to focus on new construction over the last decade, we have to go back +20 years ago when FDOT destroyed blocks and blocks of the neighborhood for what was then the most expensive roadway widening project ever (Riverside Avenue and Forest Avenue to six lanes).


Brooklyn Park was supposed to be a part of the Miles Development project. Much of what was left in Brooklyn east of Park Street, was razed for this project that then failed when the real estate market crashed.

Then there was Miles Development in the early 2000s that basically razed everything east of Park Street for an infill project that failed when the real estate market crashed in the mid-2000s. Then we also need to account for the increase in popularity of Riverside and Five Points and the early 21st century challenges for infill commercial development that came with that growth (i.e. it's a local historic district with a zoning overlay, so there's only so much infill density that could take place without a big fight with neighborhood groups). There was also incentives play and significant investment in infrastructure and drainage, east of Park Street.


A previous pre-2008 proposal for what eventually became 220 Riverside.

When the real estate market came back after the crash, the NAI Hallmark was finally able to get 220 Riverside underway back during the Alvin Brown Administration and the Miles property got developed, both being able to have direct access to a larger market base, while being adjacent to the Northbank to still be considered downtown. I've said a lot and definitely missed out with some additional detail, but significant investment in public infrastructure played a big role in what's happening out. The big negative is that same public infrastructure investment and a lack of will power at the municipal level to require more urban oriented infill projects has made the area very autocentric. All in all, Brooklyn is a good and bad local example for us to learn from.


Riverside Avenue in 2009. On one hand, new access to I-10/95 and the reconstruction of Forest Street and Riverside Avenue were a positive, in terms of investing in public infrastructure. On the other hand, if better planned, we could have saved the urban integrity of the neighborhood and created opportunity for denser mixed use infill, while still benefitting from the public infrastructure enhancements.

The Jail has been one of the only consistent items on the Northbank for the last 40 years. Whoever made that decision, has caused billions in unintended damages. I understand there is more history to it all, but I don't believe this argument for the last 5-10 years. Times can change what has more meaningful impacts. Right now it is the jail and a large majority of people I talk to here say that is the #1 reason they don't go downtown. Lease rates and rental rates prove this.

To me, we have to really ignore cohesive history of how the Northbank arrived at where it is today to immediately point to the jail as the #1 issue for the Northbank's challenges. The jail has been in that immediate vicinity since the founding of the city decades prior to the civil war. There is no one-trick pony/site solution to the Northbank's challenges.

So has many other downtowns across the US. I grew up in a top 50 metro, and when we first moved there a few families owned a ton of the RE. This same story can be said elsewhere too. When bigger money comes into play, things change. Why do we see Town Center with lease rates that rival South FL and major urban areas? There are reasons for all of that. DT has been plagued by poor policy.. completely agree.. but there is more to it now.

We can't keep being plagued by poor policy and expect different outcomes, regardless of where public incentives are being funneled. My one comment to all of this is to first stop doing what doesn't work. In fact, start doing the complete opposite.  In this revitalization process, that's where we need to start.

Other cities are pulling ahead like crazy while we are for some reason debating on the idea of a 2,000+ bed pre-trial facility/jail devaluing DT property. Other cities made these decisions a decade or more ago.

What else have other cities done and when during their revitalization process? I don't think anyone is really debating the idea. The debate is more around how it fits into everything else that needs to also be done during the revitalization process.

[thelakelander]

tearing down the jail would be like the Landing on steroids.

A good example of a public policy decision that has cost us at least a full decade of activity at this particular site, that will also require a good $50-$75 million in extra public money to eventually turn it into a park.


2015 Landing redevelopment plan that requested $11.8 million in public incentives.



Would DT Jax be better off with this being completed +5-7 years ago for $12 million in tax incentives or the current plaza plan that will cost us +$50-$75 million in public money, that may not be completed for another decade (yes, completion includes the tower too).

Different people will have different answers. However, what's not debatable is the extra amount of money flowing into the site from taxpayers and the opportunity cost when it comes to development timeline. We've missed another economic development boom (what else could have gotten underway when the market was booming?) and the revitalization process of the Northbank core has been extended another generation.

In this case, we're 100% the reason for spending extra tax money that could have helped other neighborhoods or downtown needs. We're also 100% responsible for Northbank revitalization taking +10 years longer. The jail also had no impact on the viability of this particular project. However, petty local politics did.


Maybe something like this dead Hyatt Place project would have got done and built by now, if the 2015 Landing project moved forward. Imagine the Northbank waterfront today, if the Landing, Hyatt Place and VyStar were all successfully completed years ago. How many more restaurants, retailers, residents, businesses, tourists, bars, events, jobs, etc. would be clustered in the core of the Northbank today? It's staggering when you really sit down and think about it. We can't bring back lost opportunities but we can learn from them, to make sure we don't miss the next opportunity that pops up.

[Jax_Developer]

Charlotte's jail is downtown (1.8k beds, if iirc), and its DT is far from a ghost town.  There is no reason Jax can't significantly improve downtown without moving the jail. 

I just looked up that facility. I think what I will do is make a chart, and go through every top 50 metro to demonstrate the extreme proximity of the Jax jail to the tallest buildings DT. The Charlotte facility for example is probably one of the only ones that comes close that I have seen so far. Still being further from the central core by several blocks, smaller, and bounded by a freeway I do think makes their situation better than ours.

tearing down the jail would be like the Landing on steroids.

A good example of a public policy decision that has cost us at least a full decade of activity at this particular site, that will also require a good $50-$75 million in extra public money to eventually turn it into a park.


2015 Landing redevelopment plan that requested $11.8 million in public incentives.



Would DT Jax be better off with this being completed +5-7 years ago for $12 million in tax incentives or the current plaza plan that will cost us +$50-$75 million in public money, that may not be completed for another decade (yes, completion includes the tower too).

Different people will have different answers. However, what's not debatable is the extra amount of money flowing into the site from taxpayers and the opportunity cost when it comes to development timeline. We've missed another economic development boom (what else could have gotten underway when the market was booming?) and the revitalization process of the Northbank core has been extended another generation.

In this case, we're 100% the reason for spending extra tax money that could have helped other neighborhoods or downtown needs. We're also 100% responsible for Northbank revitalization taking +10 years longer. The jail also had no impact on the viability of this particular project. However, petty local politics did.


Maybe something like this dead Hyatt Place project would have got done and built by now, if the 2015 Landing project moved forward. Imagine the Northbank waterfront today, if the Landing, Hyatt Place and VyStar were all successfully completed years ago. How many more restaurants, retailers, residents, businesses, tourists, bars, events, jobs, etc. would be clustered in the core of the Northbank today? It's staggering when you really sit down and think about it. We can't bring back lost opportunities but we can learn from them, to make sure we don't miss the next opportunity that pops up.

Lol I bet your computer has a ton of renderings & projects.. Always impressive how much information you have on things here locally.. hence why I gravitated to the site! I don't think I disagree with your statements really.. I think the issue has become hyper focused in the past 5-10 years mainly. If there was successful ground-up occurring nearby, I wouldn't feel the same way I do. I do think underwriting projects near the CC have become extremely difficult.

But let me mess around this weekend and see if JAX really does have the closest jail facility to the tallest building in town. That would be an interesting stat IMO.

[thelakelander]

Lol I bet your computer has a ton of renderings & projects.. Always impressive how much information you have on things here locally.. hence why I gravitated to the site!

Lol unfortunately! We've had the forums running since 2004 or 2005. We've seen a million projects be proposed and die or significantly value engineered over that period of time.

But let me mess around this weekend and see if JAX really does have the closest jail facility to the tallest building in town. That would be an interesting stat IMO.

Fort Lauderdale has Jax beat. Their jail and tallest are a good stone's throw across their little river.

[thelakelander]

No jail relocation stuff in Deegan's first budget:

Mayor-elect Donna Deegan talks budget priorities, appointments in exclusive interview

As for potential future projects, Deegan said she is open to incoming City Council President Ron Salem’s idea to study whether the downtown jail should be moved elsewhere. She also said she wants to analyze data over time to decide whether to enroll police into the Florida Retirement System pension plan. Neither project would be decided or funded in her first year’s budget, she said.

https://www.jacksonville.com/story/news/politics/government/2023/07/03/mayor-elect-donna-deegan-outlines-priorities-for-first-budget-goals-for-july-1-transition/70356673007/

[Jax_Developer]

Opportunity cost will continue to skyrocket. Already well over $1B.

[Jax_Developer]

I did what I said I was going to do, albeit a little later than I thought. Here are some parameters used:

- Top 25 Cities in the US by population
- Assessed the location of any downtown facility
- If it was located downtown, the overall size was considered

The reason why city size was used, and not metro.. is due to a few reasons.

- Jacksonville has been a top 25 sized city for over 50 years
- Using MSA's typically means there are several downtowns, with several jails/prisons, with varying levels of land availability
- City based reasoning allows for several variables related to decision making to be "similar"

With that being said, Jacksonville is truly the only of its kind. When you look at other Top 25 cities with downtown facilities, the comparisons get to be very difficult to rationalize.

Here are cities without downtown facilities of any kind:

1). New York City
2). Los Angeles
3). Philadelphia (a small federal corrections facility exists for trial only)
4). San Antonio
5). Dallas
6). San Jose
7). OKC
8 ). D.C.
9). Indianapolis

These markets are representative of the extremely high price/demand for downtown land with the exception of OKC & maybe San Antonio.. essentially forcing their jail's relocation overtime. Some may point out that NYC has a facility in Chinatown, for which I'd say go look at the news for that one.. They have met high levels of resistance for a new facility.. so much so the Mayor has put things on halt.

These cities have facilities near downtown, but they are geographically separated from the rest of downtown:

1). Houston
2). Charlotte (limited)
3). Nashville
4). Boston
5). Denver

All of these cities are those which have expensive land prices for downtown space, and thus have their facilities near less desirable downtown locations.. such as near freeways or railroads.

These cities have jails/prisons on the edge of downtown, often times with almost 10 blocks separating them from "main st" of their respective central cores:

1). Phoenix
2). Austin
3). Fort Worth
4). Columbus (limited - actively relocating outside of DT)
5). San Francisco
6). Seattle (limited)
7). Las Vegas (limited)

Some of these can be explained as well.. Phoenix is located near an industrial zone DT. San Francisco & Seattle have no reasonably available land within its city limits. Las Vegas has a facility positioned well off of the strip. Not downtown but I still wanted to count it.

These cities have centrally located downtown facilities, without barriers of access:

1). Chicago (federal corrections high-rise)
2). Jacksonville
3). San Diego
4). El Paso (1,000 beds)

Very hard to compare the Chicago or San Diego market to Jacksonville in this case. Chicago houses a federal facility near the federal district there, and San Diego is in the same boat as the other California cities.. which lacks available land. El Paso.. well I'll give the naysayers that one.

Out of the cities with a jail/prison downtown, here is a list of the cities with active relocation movements: Nashville, Fort Worth, San Francisco and Seattle. The following cities are currently in the act of relocating it's downtown jails/prisons: Indianapolis (I think done now), Columbus, Seattle (partially).

As for Ft. Lauderdale, again.. not an accurate comparison. Size of Ft. Lauderdale is 36 square miles vs. Jacksonville's 875 square miles. Ft. Lauderdale more closely resembles a city like San Diego in this comparison.. most of San Diego is not developable and lacks available land.. unlike Jacksonville. San Diego also has high enough land values to still facilitate construction nearby a price depressed block around the jail.. just like Fort Lauderdale. Again, we have land.. they don't.

Jacksonville most closely resembles El Paso on this list.. El Paso is surrounded by government uses.. and parking lots. Almost no private business to speak of within a block or two... but it is also located on land that otherwise holds no additional value.. such as a view of the river.. There absolutely needs to be a study on how we can correct this critical error. To say the Northbank isn't hurting because of the jail is a complete myth at this point. Still yet to see a study or article on how jails can co-exist with densely populated downtown spaces.

[thelakelander]

I'm in Columbus right now and staying across the street from the courthouse and jail. It's more centrally located than Jax's jail, as Hogans Creek is historically an industrial area on the far edge downtown. This government complex is dab smack on High Street, the main street running through downtown and the entire town. It is two blocks south of Columbus Commons (and old mall demolished and converted into a park.....like what we want to do with the Landing site) and roughly two blocks from the riverfront (already done...but what we wish ours could resemble in the future).

The German Village and the Brewery District neighborhoods are immediately south of the jail. German Village is a like a more dense and vibrant version of Riverside.....but within walking distance of downtown....if you're willing to walk by the jail and county courthouse complex. There are also expensive lofts across the street. Downtown Columbus as a whole solidifies how bad we have been at revitalizing downtown Jacksonville. Even the worst of this place is a lot cleaner and more manicured from a public realm perspective.


Courthouse on left, my hotel is the large red brick building on the right.


Franklin County Government Center (and jail) on left, new loft apartments on right.


Adaptive reuse loft apartments one block north of the jail.


The hotel I'm at (left) and the county courthouse (right).


I ate breakfast at the hotel this morning. This was my view. The jail and county complex across the street, expensive river front condo towers two or three blocks west of High Street (the main street through DT Columbus).


Columbus Commons on Friday, one block north of the hotel.


Bail bonds and restaurants in historic buildings and storefronts across the street from the jail.


The jail is on the northside of I-71. German Village is a historic district immediately located on the south side of I-71. I walked through it this morning as well. Here are a few pictures.











On my way back to the hotel, I walked through the Brewery District, which is immediately on the other side of I-71 from the jail.














This was taken one block south of the jail.


You can see the government tower (the jail is attached to it) in the background of these restored old brewery buildings. I-71 separates the two.


The back entrance of the jail.


Smaller jail but definitely solves the transportation issue of getting prisoners to the courtroom.


Very similar to JSO's complex but with county operations all consolidated vertically.





Oh yeah....the riverfront. This was taken on Friday, about two blocks NE of the back of jail and detention center across the street.







Overall, I'm very impressed with what Columbus has accomplished since my last visit a decade ago. I'm not saying the jail is the best but I was very impressed with the vibrancy of German Village (immediately south of it), High Street (immediately east and north of it) and just the overall clean streets and well manicured public land scape in general. Downtown Jax looks dingy in comparison.

In the end, I agree that we should study the future of jail relocation....even if that relocation is to stay downtown (there is a logical economic argument of keeping the hundreds of JSO jobs downtown). If the complex is nearing the end of its useful life, that's the smart thing to do. However, that's a completely separate conversation from spinning jail relocation as a revitalization strategy. The jail didn't blow up the Landing and leave it as a vacant lot. The jail isn't the reason we have not been able to two-way our streets after talking about it for decades. The jail isn't the reason our public realm isn't maintained and well landscaped like what's shown in the Columbus pictures. We have a lot of things we need to address in downtown. It would be a mistake to cover up our implementation warts by blaming them on having a jail in downtown.

[thelakelander]

I also like the discussion of the new Franklin County Jail. It's largely focused around the need to replace a dated facility and modern prison design. Not about making downtown vibrant. Likely because their downtown and surrounding neighborhoods already have life.

https://correctionalnews.com/2020/05/01/new-ohio-jail-on-track-to-open-in-2021/

https://news.wosu.org/news/2021-07-27/new-franklin-county-jail-offers-more-light-open-spaces-and-rehabilitation-services

[Jax_Developer]

Duval's jail is closer to the the CC than Columbus. The duval jail is 3 blocks to the BOA tower.. Columbus is 9-10 blocks from it's skyscraper core. Also, Columbus' jail is bordered by an interstate, and is boxed in by parking, stroads and other govt uses according to google maps.

Columbus built their facility in 1986. Duval's in 1991 of course. So I don't really buy that second argument as much and I don't think the links provided prove that it was built for any one purpose. Sounds to me that there were enough collective benefits to make the move happen. AKA, dated facility, using prime downtown land, with negative social externalities. All of these combined negatives do mean more than just a financial return I'd argue and I think duval is in the same position.

I do agree btw that the Jail is not responsible for why we are here today.. poor leadership got us here and I don't want to argue another position on it.. but there has been a black hole created for projects within X miles of the jail for quite a while now, that essentially cuts off everything else that we are working towards. It would be a shame to have Brooklyn, Southbank, and the Sports District all revitalized with the CC cutting off that consistency. A healthy DT area should have higher rents/leases.. which is true for the aforementioned spaces.. but not the CC.

[thelakelander]

BOA is six blocks from the jail, not three. However, the center of the Northbank is a few blocks north of BOA. Columbus is also laid out differently. The downtown is linear and the skyscrapers (their government center is a skyscraper) are as well. I'd call the capitol the core and it is closer to their jail than our city hall. It's also on their main street. Bay Street is not ours. Nevertheless, the most vibrant areas of Columbus are to the north and south of downtown (although the downtown is very active).

Also, it would be better to compare county population instead of city or MSA. I believe Duval County is the country's 45 or 46 largest. I believe using city population to compare county jails, invalidates a good portion of your analysis.

Last, do you know what they are going to do with their existing downtown jail, once their larger facility is open? I can't imagine that they are going to put in condos or worried about residential leasing rates. Their government center takes up a fraction of the land that ours does, despite Franklin County being larger than Duval. I imagine, that portion of their block will be retrofitted with a compatible government related use.

[thelakelander]

Also, Columbus' jail is bordered by an interstate, and is boxed in by parking, stroads and other govt uses according to google maps.

I walked this area this past weekend. It is reflected in the images. It is more vibrant than any area of Downtown Jax. Brooklyn and the Southbank included. The City of Columbus has done a significantly better job at tackling downtown revitalization then we have. I believe that is where our low hanging fruit lesson lies. In spite of all our warts, we can do more with what we have now, along with taking advantage of big ticket items when they present themselves.

Non-jail related and where Google Maps can be deceiving is the work they've been doing with their Interstate overpasses. FDOT and JTA could learn a few things about how to reconnect neighborhoods back together from a pedestrian perspective, by improving mid-century highways that were built to destroy them.


The High Street bridge over I-670. It's a cap with restaurants. As a pedestrian, you don't notice you're on a bridge.


The back of the cap and I-670 in the background.


Bronzeville's Long Street is Jacksonville's version of LaVilla's West Ashley Street. Here, the I-71 bridge is designed as a linear park, paying homage to the Long Street scene that was destroyed decades ago.


Like the High Street example in Short North, the Bronzeville I-71 bridge cap is designed for a retail pad in the future. In the meantime, this portion serves as a linear park.

Columbus built their facility in 1986. Duval's in 1991 of course. So I don't really buy that second argument as much and I don't think the links provided prove that it was built for any one purpose. Sounds to me that there were enough collective benefits to make the move happen. AKA, dated facility, using prime downtown land, with negative social externalities. All of these combined negatives do mean more than just a financial return I'd argue and I think duval is in the same position.

They built their jail in 1969. It is 22 years older than the Duval County Jail and smaller, despite Franklin County being larger than Duval County. They are good comparable to examine their process, timeline, the when and the why. In the meantime, we should be working to resolve the other downtown ailments we've struggled with.

All of this said, I heard Councilman Salem's interview this morning on First Coast Connect. I agree with the language he made, regarding his desire to begin to study the pros and cons of building a new jail and pinning down an actual estimate to do so.