Cocoa Village, Cocoa’s Historic Core and Major Space Coast Tourist Destination

I evaluated the portion of Cocoa referred to as “Cocoa Village”, which is essentially dwtn Cocoa. I didn’t exactly use the officially boundaries of Cocoa Village but instead used the two boulevards on the northern and western borders (King and Cocoa Blvd), the City boundaries to the south and Indian River to the East.

Cocoa was established in the late 1800s. Cocoa’s business district was mostly destroyed by fire in 1890. But redevelopment fortunately came quickly thanks to the extension of the Jacksonville, St. Augustine, and Indian River Ralline to Cocoa. The City was chartered in 1895 and in the 1910s, population growth accelerated reaching 1,500 in 1920. The population rose dramatically following the development of the space industry, quadrupling from 3,000 in 1940 to 12,000 in 1960. Cocoa Village has a small permanent population of just under 1,000 residents and its energy is driving by tourism including major Cruise liners coming from Port Canaveral for day trips. The City also sponsors around 50 special events each year to keep the City active.

From an urban perspective Cocoa has a great array of retail and cultural amenities with great vibrancy and walkability. But like many historic Florida centers few people live here and most visitors drive to Cocoa instead of walking or biking here. Because of this public transit is limited, there are few rentals available, for-sale housing is expensive, and the median age is around 65. Cocoa Village is also missing a supermarket and drug store. For Cocoa to turn the corner they need to incentivize more housing development, which should be prioritized along the western edge where there is currently lots of vacant and surface parking lots. I’d also like to see the Cocoa Blvd Stroad tamed and become more walkable.

Click here to view my Cocoa Village Album on Flickr

URBAN STRENGTHS:

Excellent Riverfront parks (Cocoa Riverfront Park & Lee Wenner Park) along with a central plaza.
Economic diversity.
Excellent sidewalk and ADA amenities btwn Florida Ave and the Indian River. But west of Florida Avenue the residential streets generally lack sidewalks.
Great cultural amenities including tons of restaurants, bars, cafes, a couple breweries, several art galleries & night clubs, a larger historic theater complex, a couple local museums and several historic sites along with a couple live music venues.
Good retail amenities including tons of boutiques, gift shops, and clothing stores, several antique stores, a couple banks, a book store, toy store, a bike shop, a hardware store, several dessert joins, a couple gyms, a post office, several churches, a couple medical offices, and the public library is located several blocks to the North.
Cocoa Village is very safe but the surrounding inner city Cocoa neighborhoods are pretty rough. You get a sense of this for the Dwtn Cocoa areas west of Florida Ave.
Excellent historic architecture with a good mix of historic commercial bldgs and older homes.
Mix of more urban in-fill (especially along the River) and auto centric crud along the Blvds.
Excellent urban form and streetscaping in the portions of Cocoa Village east of Florida but terrible urban form along the Blvds and large surface parking lots on its western edge.
Solid Tree Canopy.
Good pedestrian activity.

URBAN WEAKNESSES:

* Very low density for an urban area.
* So so public transit access.
* Lots of small population centers in the Space Coast Region (i.e. Titusville County Seat, beaches, and Cape Canaveral) but all a spreadout and not well connected by transit.
* No Dedicated bike infrastructure.
* While the broader Cocoa FL is very racial diverse Dwtn Coca is very White an elderly (median age 65).
* Within Dwtn Cocoa there is only a Episcopal academy. A handful of small schools in the area and a larger middle school but not really walkable.
* Listed rentals are very limited.
* Some for sale product but limited 1-beds and generally expensive. 1-bed sell in the 200Ks. 2-beds are either small sf homes that sell around 200K or expensive waterfront condos selling btwn 600K-1m. 3 & 4 beds range btwn 300K to the lower 1 Millions depending if its a sf home or fancy waterfront condos.
* Missing a drug store and supermarket.

Brooklyn and LaVilla- Historic Jacksonville Neighborhoods slowly emerging from devastating Urban Renewal & Redlining policies of the past

In this evaluation I combined LaVilla and the Brooklyn neighborhoods as they are both neighborhoods with major urban renewal pasts sitting on the edge of Dwtn. In 1887 Brooklyn and LaVilla were annexed by Jacksonville. Brooklyn remained primarily residential into the 20th century, but it eventually developed into a commercial and industrial area with the increasing use of the railway. The neighborhood had a thriving African American community but it was LA Villa that during its height was considered the mecca for African American culture and heritage especially the part of LaVilla north of Adams Street. The area also became a transportation hub with rail service developed by Henry Flagler.

By In the 1950s, Interstate 95 was intentionally chosen to cut through the heart of these African American communities. In Brooklyn suburban office buildings surrounded by surfacing parking lots and strip malls lining Riverside Ave replaced the neighborhood’s waterfront properties The more interior part of the neighborhood was encouraged to fall blight and decay through redlining practices and neglect. In La Villa after the 1960s, the neighborhood entered a period of precipitous decline as the railroad industry restructured, I-95 chopped up the neighborhood, and active neglect by the City. During the 1980s the crack cocaine epidemic hit hard among struggling residents of LaVilla, resulting in an increase in crime and furthering the decline. By the 1990s the City finally turned its attention to reinvesting in LaVilla through blight removal and helping to renovate historical structures, such as the Ritz Theatre. More recently new urban in-fill projects are emerging helping the neighborhoods to reurbanize as a neighborhood just south of Dwtn should. But an immerse amount of vacant and underutilized space remain in both communities demonstrating the long road ahead to rebuilding these communities.

Given their great proximity to dwtn, great public transit access, in-tact urban grid, and access to the St. John’s river both neighborhoods are poised to return. I just hope that the redevelopment strategies are well throughout for how to bring back the neighborhood as a whole and deal with the wounds of intentional urban renewal that so harmed countless of African American families in the past.

Click here to view my Brooklyn and LaVilla Albums on Flickr

URBAN STRENGTHS:

Excellent public transit and access to Dwtn. Even decent bike infrastructure to dwtn although the lines are very skinny and unprotected.
Generally good sidewalk and ADA infrastructure.
Good rental amenities with studios and 1-beds leasing in the low-mid 1Ks, 2-beds lease btwn the mid 1Ks to low 2Ks. Only a handful of 3-beds available.
Decent parks including the unity plaza set around a ponk, a boardwalk and recreational trail along the river, and couple other small parks.
Neighborhood is generally safe but is pretty empty is spots encouraging homeless to set up shop.
Lots of dead space and autocentric arterial roads running through the neighborhood. The newer in-fill is starting to rectify this issue but it is still a long road ahead to urbanizing Brooklyn and LaVilla.

URBAN WEAKNESSES:

* Extremely low density for an urban district.
* An excellent middle school for the arts in LaVilla, not much else other than a couple small private schools dwtn.
* For sale housing product is very limited in the neighborhood. Only a handful of older homes and new townhomes that have sold.
* Tree canopy isn’t great.
* Cultural amenities are a bit limited including a handful of restaurants, bars, and cafes, the Ritz Theater, the Friday Music hall, a live music venue, a night club and good access to the cultural amenities in neighboring Dwtn and Riverside.
* Retail amenities are also pretty limited including a supermarket, several banks, a couple boutiques & salons, an ice cream shop, a couple gyms, and several doctor’s offices.

San Marco- a 1920s Mediterranean Revial Inspired Urban Community in South Jacksonville

The South Jacksonville community emerged after the American Civil War and was incorporated in 1907 With the opening of the St. John’s River Bridge in 1921, linking the neighborhood to Dwtn, development in San Marco exploded. Telfair Stockton developed 80 acres of the neighborhood as a planned Mediterranean inspired community strongly influenced by the City beautiful movement using more winding streets, planted mediums, and intentionally reserving space for parks. The development was centered on San Marco square, which was inspired by its namesake in Venice. In 1932, the municipality of South Jacksonville was annexation into Jacksonville. The portion of San Marco north of I-95 was increasingly integrated into Downtown Jacksonville’s urban fabric and in the 1980s officially was designated part of the Central Business District. The neighborhood began to decline under the pressure of suburban sprawl but the residents fought back by embarking with a major historic preservation movement in the 70s, revitalizing the San Marco Square commercial district, building a new public library and park complex, and converting the former South Jacksonville City Hall into a Police headquarters. San Marco is now one of urban Jacksonville’s most expensive and desired communities.

This and Riverside are arguable Jacksonville’s best urban neighborhoods. But there are still major improvements needed before I would considered this to be a premiere urban district starting with densifying the neighborhood so it can become more walkable and amenity rich. The San Marco commercial districts could be upzoned and single family zoning could easily be abolished throughout most of the neighborhood. I’d also like to see more affordable housing options and walkable schools.

Click here to view my San Marco album on Flickr

URBAN STRENGTHS:

Excellent access to Dwtn across all modes of transit even including a bike lane. 30 min bus ride and 10 min drive to Dwtn.
Decent public transit access and better than most inner city Jacksonville neighborhoods
Overall a very safe community with limited blight.
For sale housing is on the pricy side but still pretty good diversity. Few 1-bed condos however. 2-beds sell between 100K-650. 3&4 beds sell btwn 175K-1.5 M. Some larger mansions even sell for more.
Excellent park amenities with several small-medium sized parks well distributed throughout the neighborhood. Also a Community Center, which functions as a mini-recreation center and a town square in the heart of the commercial district.
About 70% of all San Marco streets have sidewalks and most of those that have sidewalks have modern ADA curb cuts.
Great historic architecture especially the 1920s Spanish Renaissance biz district.
Decent urban-infill which generally has pretty good urban form. Not wild about the architecture style itself of the in-fill.
Several urban commercial districts in San Marco the best being the San Marco Square. Further towards dwtn along San Marco is a decent multiple commercial district and Henricks Street is semi-urban for several blocks. Atlantic St is the emerging biz district center on the public Shoppes East San Marco but this feels like a poor attempt at new urbanism as its not mixed-use and has too much surface parking. Kings Ave is a highway but has been tamed recently with a bus only lane.
Good cultural amenities including lots of restaurants, bars, cafes and breweries, a couple live music venues& art galleries, a community theater, several events centers, and night clubs.
Excellent retail amenities including a supermarket, several drug stores, lots of boutiques/gift shops, several antiques & home good stores, plenty of banks, a book & toy store, tons of dessert joints & gyms, a hospital, public library and some churches.”

URBAN WEAKNESSES:

* Low density for an urban district but on par with other inner-city Jacksonville neighborhoods.
* Racial diversity is pretty limited as this is a 3/4s Caucasian community.
* A well rated public middle school and small Montessori school are the only schools within San Marco but several quality schools on the edges of the neighborhood.
* Decent # of rentals but pretty pricey. 1-beds lease btwn 1K- the low2Ks. 2-beds btwn the mid 1Ks-2Ks. Some 3-bed product too that lease in the 2Ks & 3Ks.

Springfield- Jacksonville’s Historically Elite Neighborhood

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.

Murray Hill- An attractive historically working class Jacksonville urban district

I essentially only included the northern half of Murray Hill with the more urban portion north of Kingsbury Street. The areas south of here are completely devoid of sidewalk infrastructure and far from the relatively walkable business district that runs along Edgewood Ave.

Murray Hill (Heights), in Jacksonville took the name of a neighborhood in Manhattan. The Heights part of the original name may be due to its relatively elevated location compared to Dwtn. Development in Murray Hill was sparked by the Great Fire of 1901 which lead to a great expansion of the City to the west and south of Dwtn. The neighborhood got another boost in 1914 with the construction of streetcar line giving Murray Hill convenient access to Dwtn. The neighborhood was annexed into the City of Jacksonville in 1925. Murray Hill has always been a haven for modest working class families and hosts an attractive mix of brick, wood, stucco, concrete, bungalows and cottage style homes. Like much of inner-city Jacksonville the neighborhood began to decline in the 1970s thanks to white flight and the construction of suburban malls. But Murray Hill was less affected than neighborhoods north and east of Dwtn as it was not completely red-lined like those community. Fortunately most of the neighborhood remained in tact by the 2000s and revitalization efforts began to take root by the turn of the 21st century, due to its centralized location, attractive but modest historic housing, quality parks, and relatively walkable commercial district along Edgewater Ave. More recently families desiring urban living but unable to afford neighboring Avondale of Riverside are moving here.

Murray Hill also offers a lot of rental options and at pretty modest prices. It has an excellent tree canopy and good array of walkable retail and cultural amenities concentrated on the Edgewood Ave corridor. For Murray Hill to bevome a great urban district it simply needs more density. This can start with upzoning along Edgewood avenue incentivizing mixed-use infill to built on this already successful business district. Cassat Avenue needs a complete redesign as its a very ugly autocentric road. Better sidewalk and biking infrastructure is also needed along with more walkable schools and some key retail amenities such as a supermarket. But Murray Hill seems to be headed in the right direction however.

Click here to view my Murray Hill album on Flickr

URBAN STRENGTHS:

Good access to dwtn thanks to the short driving commute.
Solid urban street grid and good connectivity.
Much more working class neighborhood than neighboring Riverside but higher than ideal poverty rates. Also much higher Black and Hispanic households here than Riverside.
Good for sale housing diversity and very reasonably priced compared to neighboring Riverside and Avondale. This includes several 1-bed condo options generally selling in the 100Ks. Lots of 2-bed options selling anywhere from 75K to the low 300Ks. 3 & 4 beds sell btwn 90K-500K.
Decent # of rentals and pretty moderately priced. 1-beds rent for $900- 1.5K, 2-beds in the low1Ks-mid1Ks, and even a good # of 3-beds leasing between the 1.5Ks to mid 2Ks.
Good array of small and medium sized parks well distributed across Murray Hill.
Excellent tree canopy.
*Edgewood Ave contains the bulk of retail and cultural amenities in Murray Hill. Good array of restaurants, bars, and cafes, a quality community art center, a live music space in the historic Murray Hill Theater, and couple breweries & night clubs.
Decent retail amenities including a couple grocerias, a drug store, a couple banks, a Goodwill’s, several boutiques and vintage stores, a bookstore, a couple antique stores, several dessert joints & gyms, plenty of churches, and a public library branch. There is also a suburban Lowes a block from Murray Hill’s western edge.
The inner half of Edgewood Avenue until the Murray Hill Theater is pretty pedestrian friendly but the outer half starts to feel more like a Stroad.
Murray Hill is a neighborhood on an upward trajectory but still some lingering crime issues. Cassat Ave is pretty rough on the western edge but the residential street near it are nice. The residential area just north of Edgewood is historically pretty working class. Some rougher looking homes but not widespread blight and abandonment.

URBAN WEAKNESSES:

Only a small dedicated bike lane in Murray Hill and along Cassat Ave. Other than that no bike infrastructure.
Below average density for an urban district but decent for Jacksonville.
About 50% of residential streets have sidewalks and many of those don’t have modern ADA curbs. The business district along Edgewater generally has good sidewalks and ADA infrastructure.
Really only one school in the neighborhood, a well rated elementary. A handful of schools on the edge of Murray Hill with mixed ratings.
Missing some key retail amenities including a supermarket, post office, and medical offices.
*Cassat Avenue along the western edge of Murray Hill is a pretty ugly autocentric street. Some hope as a bike lane was recently installed here. But it really needs a complete resign to be more walkable and safe.”

Fairfax- A quasi-urban neighborhood located on the St. John’s River

“Fairfax sits just south of Avondale and was mostly developed between the 1920 and 1960s. The northern edge of the district is where the best urbanity lies with older homes and the Hershel commercial district which has a couple blocks of decent urban form. The rest of the neighborhood, while on a good grid, is mostly single family homes where sidewalks are optional. Highway 117 is the other Fairfax commercial district creating the district’s western boundary and is a classic American Stroad lined with lots of strip malls and autocentric uses.

Fairfax has the typical suburban strengths of good safety, full tree canopy, decent retail amenities (albeit often car centric) and a lots of for sale housing diversity. While I don’t consider Fairfax a quality urban district yet, there is hope that it could transition into a more urban neighborhood thanks to its existing urban grid and semi-urban biz district along Hershel Street. A good place to start this transition is to upzone the Hershel Street corridor allowing mixed use infill. Fairfax also needs bike infrastructure, walkable schools, better public transit, and more consistent sidewalks to be a functional urban district.”

Click here to view my Fairfax album on Flickr

URBAN STRENGTHS:

*Convenient access to Dwtn by car, along a 15 min drive. Takes about 45 minutes by bus and no protected bike paths to Dwtn.
* Solid grid and good block connectivity.
* Decent For sale options but no 1-beds available. 2-bed for sale homes sell anywhere btwn 100K-450K. 3 & 4 beds sell btwn 180K-700K with a handful of mansions selling over 1 M.
* Overall a pretty safe community.
* Great tree canopy.
* Decent retail amenities but half of them are located in a suburban shopping mall. The neighborhood has a supermarket, a department store, a couple drug stores, a hardware store, several banks, a book store, a couple boutiques and antique stores, several salons, a couple gyms and dessert joints, and a couple churches.
* Decent historic homes much of the commercial infill is in suburban shopping malls.

URBAN WEAKNESSES:

Public transit is so so and bike infrastructure non-existent here.
Poor density for an urban district.
Good sidewalk and ADA along the main arteries of Fairfax. But sidewalks only existing on about 1/3 of all residential streets.
Pretty Caucasian neighborhood with limited racial diversity. Better economic diversity.
No schools within the Fairfax boundaries but a quality elementary school just north of the neighborhood and several small schools to the west.
Rentals are very limited in Fairfax.
Pedestrian activity is pretty limited
Parks are concentrated in the southeast corner of the neighborhood. Stinson Park is very nice along the riverfront and a couple parklettes nearby.
Cultural amenities are limited to a handful of restaurants & bars, a lively night club, a coffee house, and a couple art galleries.
Hershel Street has some urbanity and semblance of a business district esp. near St. Johns Ave but still several small shopping malls. As a 6 lane road Highway 117 is a lost cause has host the bulk of Fairfax’s strip malls.”

Avondale-a well planned early 20th Century Jacksonville Community with a great Urban Business District

Avondale was developed a couple decades after Riverside mostly between the 1910s-1950s. It was developed as an exclusive upscale subdivision by a development group out of Cincinnati which is why it was named after a high-end Cincinnati neighborhood of the time… Avondale. Sadly Avondale has a legacy of segregation as blacks were excluded from this extensively planned community. Fortunately the neighborhood has obtained a fair level of diversity in its present state by far less than it could have been. Avondale excels at having an intentionally designed 3 block business district along St. John Ave also referred to as the “”Shops of Avondale””. The neighborhood also developed with parks and parklettes being included intentionally to provide more residents with easy access to their own walkable park. Avondale also features well signed homes from the 1910s-1940s often in the Mediterranean Revival style and has good access to Dwtn and a thick tree canopy.

But due to its design corresponding with the rise of autocentric neighborhoods, Avondale is pretty low density, lacks the rental diversity of Riverside to the northside, lacks economic diversity, and has many residential streets without sidewalks. Retail amenities are also very concentrated at the shops of Avondale effectively making many parts of the neighborhood unwalkable to retail and cultural amenities. The neighborhood also needs bike infrastructure, more walkable schools and several key retail amenities (i.e. grocery store, drug store, etc.) to truly be a walkable urban neighborhood.

Click here to view my Avondale album on Flickr

URBAN STRENGTHS:

Good connectivity here.
Only a 10-15 min drive to Dwtn but no dedicated bike access and Public transit takes 40-45 mins.
Very attractive historic homes especially along Edgewood Ave and near the riverfront. Post WWII housing is generally urban including many of the commercial buildings along St. John’s and some newer condos near Big Fishwier Creek.
Decent for sale diversity but less one-bed options than Riverside. Similar price point.
Overall a very safe community with limited blight issues.
Excellent tree canopy.
A major state college sites on the western edge of Avondale.
Great set of parks including medium sized ones, sports facilities, playgrounds, riverfront parks, and several parklettes spread throughout the neighborhood.
Lots of food & beverage amenities concentrated along the St. John’s business district, a couple art galleries, a couple live music venues but not much else culturally.
Retail amenities concentrated in the St. Johns biz district including lots of boutiques, gift shops, several dessert joints, gyms, antiques, and home good stores and several churches.

URBAN WEAKNESSES:

Almost no bike infrastructure here. Mediocre Public transit access.
Pretty low density for an urban area.
About 40% of residential streets have sidewalks and many of those don’t have modern ADA curbs. The business district along St. John’s however has excellent sidewalks and ADA infrastructure.
Some rentals options but much less than Riverside to the north. Price points are similar to Riverside.
Decent but not great access to walkable schools. Two well rated elementaries and a below average high school in the neighborhood.
Missing several key neighborhood amenities including a supermarket, drug store, hardware store, hospital/medical offices, and local post office and public library.”

Riverside- Neighborhood with Jacksonville’s best preserved Historic Architecture

“Riverside and Brooklyn (neighborhood just to the north) saw modest growth until 1887, when the city of Jacksonville annexed them and established a streetcar line. The neighborhood really exploded between the Great Fire of 1901 and Florida’s real estate bust in the 1920s. This was a great period to develop architecturally as some many different revival styles were in vogue. Riverside probably contains the best diversity of historic home styles in all of Florida. Riverside and Avondale helped to preserve their architectural legacy by creating one of the City’s largest historic districts in 1974. Riverside also became a cultural center for Jacksonville’s LGBTQ population and is now one of the City’s most in-tact urban districts.

In additional to preserving many of its historic homes, Riverside all has three commercial districts making it one of Jacksonville’s most walkable neighborhoods. These districts include several blocks of King St. and the Five Points commercial district centered on Park St. and a more limited biz district along Stockton St. The neighborhood also has typical suburban amenities including good schools, safety, solid park space, and extensive tree canopy. The neighborhood excels at providing a diversity of for sale and rental options and price points and has solid cultural and retail amenities. Riverside escaped, for the most part, the post WWII disinvestment of many parts of the City except for the north edge of the neighborhood along I-10 where many homes are dilapidated or demolished. Not surprisingly this was the part for the neighborhood with the highest concentration of African Americans historically. This area is slowly rebounding but lacks sidewalk and ADA infrastructure. For Riverside to become a premiere urban district it needs additional density to drive better walkability and amenities. I’d also like to see more bike infrastructure and more park amenities in the north edge of the district.

Click here to view my Riverside and here to view my Five Points Albums on Flickr

URBAN STRENGTHS:

Pretty good grid and connectivity.
Go access to Dwtn across all modes of transit. Decent bike connection to Dwtn and pretty good transit service. Only a 10 M drive to Dwtn.
ADA infrastructure is pretty good sidewalks exist on about 80% of streets (less so in the more blighted areas along I-10) and ADA standard curb cuts existing on about 40% of intersections with better consistency in the biz districts.
Pretty good schools with several well rated elementary schools and a high school, albeit not rated well.
Good for sale diversity including a good # of 1-bed condos that sell btwn 150K-330K, 2-beds sell btwn 100K-500K (some more expensive) with lots of diversity and 3 & 4 beds sell anywhere btwn 150K-1 M with some price mansions & bay front condos.
Good amount of rental product and decent amount is moderately priced. 1-beds lease anywhere btwn $850-2K, 2-beds btwn $900-2.5K and a good # of 3-beds homes for a bit more.
Overall very safe but some blighted areas remain around 1-10.
Several quality parks but I’d like to see several more in the Northern edge of the district where none exist.
solid tree canopy across most of the neighborhood.
Lots of attractive historic homes throughout. Modern in-fill is pretty good but a decent amount of autocentric commercial uses.
Excellent food & beverage amenities, several breweries, several art galleries, the Cummer Art Museum, a couple historic homes and several night clubs.
Good retail amenities including a couple supermarkets, a farmers market, several drug stores, plenty of boutiques & gift shops, a couple book stores, banks, plenty of dessert shops, a couple gyms, several antique & home good stores, a public library, a major hospital, plenty of medical offices & churches.

URBAN STRENGTHS:

No bike share stations in the neighborhood or across Jacksonville.
So so density for an urban area.
Some economic and racial diversity but the district is majority white and affluent with the exception of the low income parts near I-10. Neighborhood is also pretty old on average with limited family households.”

Ft. Myers Beach, FL

I included the most urban portion of Ft. Myers Beach from the northern tip, southwards to Connecticut Avenue. This evaluation occurred after Hurricane Ian severely damaged the City. My approach to the evaluation is to assume the City will be rebuilt in more or less the urban form it was in pre-hurricane. Given Florida’s rapid post hurricane recovery this seems to be largely accurate although many of the low lying single family homes will likely be replaced with larger/more expensive single family homes on stilts or large apartment bldgs more resilient to hurricanes.

Present day Ft. Myers Beach was first settled by people of European decent in the mid 1700s by Cuban fishermen. The Homestead Act of 1862 brought American settlements to Estero Island. The island remained sparsely populated until 1911 when developer William Case built the first subdivision and cottage rental industry. Development on Ft. Myers Beach (then called Crescent Beach) was slow until the 1920s as Florida gained national attention as a vacation destination. The land boom ended with the hurricanes of 1921 and 1926 that challenged the paradise appeal of southwest Florida. But development slowly increased and by the 1950s, Crescent Beach began to boom and modernize. By 1960 Crescent Beach hosted 2,500 residents and its population peaked at 9,000 in 1990. Crescent City officially changed its name to Ft. Myers Beach in 1995 Since then the City has actually lost full-time residents shifting to snowbirds and tourist. The City now hosts just under 6,000 souls.

Old San Carlos is the main commercial street, which hosts decent urban form and walkability but still plenty of surface parking lots along it. Estero is the main beachside Thorofare through Ft. Myers and is most urban where it intersects with Old San Carlos and here is a block long pedestrian street a block from the beachfront. The further south down Estero the urban fabric becomes less and less urban and mixed-use but still hosts sidewalks, ADA curbs, and some restaurants bars sprinkled in.

Click here to view my Ft. Myers Beach album on Flickr.

URBAN STRENGTHS:

* Decent grid but lots of dead end streets due to the skinny nature of the island and also plenty of cul-de-sacs.
* Dedicated bike path along most of Estero Blvd provide a good bike connection to post of Ft. Myers Beach included in this evaluation.
* Lots for sale product available including plenty of 1-bed condos that range anywhere from 200K-850K. Wide range of prices of 2-beds starting at 200K to 2 M with some product even more expensive. 3 & 4 beds sell anywhere between 400K- around 3 M with some mansions costing even more.
* Quality park space including a public Beach running along the entire Gulf coast, an expansive nature preserve, the quality Bodwitch point park at the top of the island, and an expansive ballfield park.
* Decent cultural amenities including lots of bars & restaurants, a couple cafes, night clubs, a local theater, a couple art galleries, lots of places that host live music, and a local art center.
* Ok retail amenities. The supermarket is several blocks south of this evaluation area, plenty of gift shops, souvenir stores, and boutiques. Also a couple banks, lots of dessert joints, a couple gyms, a local public library & post office, and a couple churches.
* A very safe community.
* Decent street scaping.
* Good tree canopy but this has been significantly reduced since Hurricane Ian.

URBAN WEAKNESSES:

* Very low density for an urban area.
* Pretty poor public transit access.
* ADA curbs and sidewalks really along exist along Old San Carlos and Estero Blvd. Side streets generally don’t have sidewalks.
* Poor diversity ratings across all measures. This is a very white, elderly (median age is 68), and generous prosperous community.
* Only one school in Ft. Myers beach, a well rated elementary school of only 100 students.
* 30 minute drive to dwtn Ft. Myers and no viable public transit option. Important to keep in mind that there are a lot of service industry jobs in Ft. Myers Beach.
* Very limited rental product and what does exist is mostly 2 & 3 bedrooms.
* Missing a lot of retail amenities including a drug store,.
* Historic architecture is limited especially after Hurricane Ian. Modern architecture isn’t very impressive either. Generally cheap with semi-urban design.
* Plenty of surface parking lots and strip malls.

Downtown West Palm Beach, FL

For the borders of Dwtn West Palm Beach I use Royal Palm Way as the southern boundary, Sapodilla Ave to the west, Banyan Blvd and Quadrille Blvd to the north and the bay to the east.

I divide Downtown West Palm Beach into three districts: City Place- the new urbanist/town center development west of Quadrille Blvd; Clematis St- the historic main street which dead ends into a great urban park; and everything north and south of Clematis St which is pretty dead and half developed.

Downtown West Palm Beach fell on pretty hard times in the 70s/80s due to crime and suburban sprawl issues. But like most American downtowns it saw re-birth in the 90s thanks to the preservation and renovation of the Clematis main street and the construction of City Place. Since those major improvements there has been a consistant trickle of new apartment buildings Downtown, slowly improving the viability of Dwtn as an urban neighborhood.

But to become a great urban district West Palm Beach needs significantly more mixed-use urban in-fill in the portions of Dwtn north and south of Clematis St, better bike infrastructure, more affordable rental options, and more retail options outside of Clematis and City Place.

Click here to view my Downtown West Palm Beach Album on Flickr

URBAN STRENGTHS:

* Great density for a Downtown.
* Excellent ADA infrastructure and streetscaping along Clementis (historic main street) and the City Place Development. More hit or miss in other parts of dwtn with current ADA curbs often missing.
* Connectivity is generally good Dwtn but there are several wide, fast moving boulevards here.
* Generally a pretty high median income but also 25% of Dwtn residents are in poverty. Pretty good generational diversity and decent racial diversity.
* Decent amount of affordable housing options Dwtn.
* Good tree canopy throughout most of Dwtn, especially at City Place.
* Good park amenities overall with the riverfront running down the entire length of the bay attached is several larger parks. Centennial Park is the best park Dwtn with an amphitheater, fountains, large lawn, and space for farmer’s markets. City Plaza also has some attractive plazas spaces but small.
* Centennial Park functions as a quality civic space given its location at the end of Dwtn’s historic main street.
* Cultural amenities include a good array of restaurants, bars & cafes esp. concentrated at City Place & along Clematis; several art galleries (City Place), a cineplex, a couple performing arts center, and a comedy club, a couple music themed bars, several night clubs, and a couple of local museums. The convention center is located on the southern edge of Dwtn.
* Retail amenities include a Publixs and Gourmet Grocery store, several drug stores, many retail stores, boutiques and shops in the Square Shopping Mall; several boutiques/vintage stores on Clematis, several home good stores, plenty of banks, a couple of bookstores, tons of dessert shops & bakeries, lots of gyms, the main public library, and plenty of churches, and a major hospital is only 1/2 north of Dwtn.
* Overall this is a very safe dwtn.
* Decent college population of about 4-5K btwn PM Atlantic University & PM State College.
* Wonderful urban in-fill at City Centre. The rest Dwtn is a mix of bland 60-20s office bldgs and better modern high-rises.

URBAN WEAKNESSES:

* Public transit is only decent Dwtn and in a handful of districts surrounding it. Most the City of West Palm Beach of fair-poor public transit access. Transit access to surrounding suburbs is similar.
* Dedicated bike lanes within Downtown and the City of West Palm Beach are limited to mostly waterfront trails. Some good connections to the suburbs. Dwtn also just rolled out dedicated bike stations in only Dwtn.
* Decent access to schools including a really great Arts High School and a couple Christian elementary schools.
* For sale housing is generally pretty expensive but smaller condos are moderately priced. Studios sell around 200K, lots of 1-bed condos selling btwn 200K-500K, most 2-beds sell btwn 300K-700K but some in the Ms, 3-beds generally 500k- the low Ms.
* Rentals are more expensive with studios leasing in the 2Ks, 1-beds generally in the 2-3Ks, 2-beds generally 3-4Ks, and 3-beds around 5K.
* No sports arenas dwtn.
* Dwtn hosts around 30K employees. Less than Ft. Lauderdale but not terrible considering the City’s size.
* Retail amenities are highly concentrated at City Place and along Clematis. The rest of Dwtn isn’t terrible mixed-use.
* Skyline is pretty bland.
* Historic architecture is pretty much limited to Clematis with a scattering through the rest of Dwtn (not including City Place).
* Dwtn is pretty dead along its southern and northern edges. Lots of surface parking and vacant lots here. Great urban massing at City Centre and Clematis.