Councilman makes two recommendations for future of Jacksonville Landing

The city councilman who has the Jacksonville Landing in his district is weighing in on what he wants to see there next.

This week, the city agreed to pay $15 million to regain control of the property.

The Jacksonville Landing has been a downtown landmark for decades.

Now that demolition is on the horizon, the city is looking at what’s next.

Councilman Reggie Gaffney told Action News Jax he shared two ideas for the future of the Landing during a meeting with the mayor’s administration on Thursday.

“I’d like to see multiuse. I’d like to see townhouses at the top and retail to the bottom,” said Gaffney.

Vijaya Venkatesh, who works downtown, disagreed with that idea.

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“Why put townhomes here? I don’t think that’s a good idea. We have townhomes everywhere else,” said Venkatesh.

Gaffney said his second idea was to ask the community and developers for innovative ideas for a big attraction.

One idea Gaffney is not sold on is a rendering of a park released by the mayor’s administration last year.

“I want to keep my options open because I’m not sure that’s going to get – that won’t become a destination and right now we need to be thinking big,” said Gaffney.

Venkatesh said a park would be fine with her.

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“Anything for children and families to do, that would be fine, yeah. I think that would be a good idea. Some place we can hang around, relax and spend, like, a Friday evening, or Saturday evening,” said Venkatesh.

There is no timeline for demolition because the city needs to come to settlement agreements for each of the remaining Jacksonville Landing businesses’ subleases.

The mayor plans to ask the City Council for $1.5 million to settle those subleases and another $1.5 million for the demolition.

Cox Media Group