Established in 1869, Springfield experienced its greatest growth from the early 1880s through the 1920s. It became Jacksonville’s first inner city neighborhood and its growth was fueled by the great Jacksonville fire of the early 20th century. The neighborhood also became a place for many of the City’s elite to settle with the majority of the houses built in wood frame vernacular structures. Springfield, like so many other inner city neighborhoods in Jacksonville declined in the Post WWII area thanks to suburbanization and it being surrounded by predominately African American and red-lined neighborhoods. The result of its decline was the removal of much of the historic commercial fabric along Main Street (Jacksonville longest historic main street) and 8th Street. Fortunately most of the grand historic homes survived and Springfield has been revitalizing since the 2000s.
The most intact portion of Springfield is south of 10th Street and generally closer to Main St. Although neighborhood streets north of 10th street are generally not bombed out, just more distressed and with more missing teeth. There are also efforts to create Jacksonville’s own version of Miami’s Wynwood with the Phoenix Arts District centered at 14th and Liberty Avenue where there are many underutilized or abandonded warehouses located. This is still in the nascent stages, but hopefully it takes off. Springfield also has solid public transit access, convenient access to dwtn, good housing diversity with a lot of affordability remaining, decent park and walkable school access, and lots of food & beverage amenities. Retail amenities are also pretty good but the neighborhood lacks a supermarket and other key amenities. As with other Jacksonville neighborhoods, Springfield needs more density to become a top-tier urban district. This starts with upzoning Main Street and 8th turning these corridors into true mixed-use districts. The neighborhood also needs better bike infrastructure and more park amenities in its northern half where they are non-existent.
Click here to view my Springfield album on Flickr
URBAN STRENGTHS:
* Excellent sidewalk and ADA infrastructure across nearly all of Springfield.
* Solid tree canopy throughout most of Springfield.
* Other than Downtown and Brooklyn, Springfield has the best public transit access in the City.
* Excellent access to Dwtn. Only a 5 minute drive and 10-15 transit trip. Sadly not bike paths connecting directly to Dwtn although there is a nice dedicated bike lanes going east-west on 8th St.
* Excellent connectivity as well with one of the City’s best neighborhood grid networks.
* Good racial diversity. breaking down to around 30% Black, 50% White, and 9% Hispanic.
* Poverty is still a bit high, but excellent economic diversity.
* Two quality public schools (elementary & middle school) sit within the neighborhood. A couple well rated high schools sit on the edges of Springfield and are walkable to some residents.
* Excellent historic housing stock containing Jacksonville’s best collection of late 19th century styles.
* Good for sale diversity (other than 1-beds) 2-beds sell anywhere from 50K-400K. 3 & 4 beds sell anywhere btwn 75K-600K. Still affordable product available on the edges of Springfield.
* Decent rental availability and some affordable options. 1-beds lease btwn $600-low1Ks, 2-beds btwn $800- high 1Ks, and go array of 3-bed rentals ranging btwn 1K-3K.
* Good park amenities mainly due to Henry J. Klutho Park running several blocks along a creek hosting lots of diversity amenities. Also a public pool and couple other parks.
* Solid food & bev amenities, a couple night clubs, a couple local museums and convenient access to arts amenities dwtn.
* Decent retail amenities including a couple drug stores, accouple groceries, some boutiques & gift shops, a couple banks, a handful of gyms and dessert joints, a major hospital, a skateboard shop, a music store, plenty of churches, and a post office.
* Good recent streetscaping projects along Main and to a less extend, 8th Street.
URBAN WEAKESSES:
* Median age of a Springfield resident is pretty old (around 45) but a decent number of kids live here.
* urban In-fill is pretty limited here.
* Limited one-bed for sale product. Price point is in the 100KS.
* Limited park access in the northern half of Springfield.
* Missing some key retail amenities including a supermarket, post office and hardware store. Also not a ton of boutiques or creative stores.
* Safety has certainly improved recently in Springfield but a decent amount of it still occurs especially on the edges of Springfield. Still a good amount of blight as well.
* Main Street is the longest historic commercial street in Jacksonville much of it has sadly been demolished. South of 8th Street is the most in-tact with many new business filling vacancies. North of 8th St has mostly been replaced with autocentric buildings.
*E 8th Street is also a historic biz district but most of it has been demolished.
* Pedestrian activity was pretty limited.
* Density is pretty low for an urban district.
Evaluating our Urban Communities [with a focus on America] 