Riverfront Parks’s vision, since 2020, has been for Jacksonville to create destination parks along the Northbank. How gratifying to see substantial levels of city funding proposed by the Mayor and approved by the City Council for the destination parks in downtown – Riverfront Plaza, Shipyards West and Metropolitan Park, along with legislation allocating $56 million in city portion of the Community Benefits agreement. We appreciate the collaboration between the city, the administration, the community and the Jaguars, for making them a priority.
We understand the city’s goal is to have the three destination parks largely complete by the time the Stadium is built, and the Riverwalk connected between them.
The funding adds to previously approved funding for other riverfront public spaces, such as Friendship Fountain Park, the Musical Park at the Times Union Center, the Riverwalk Extension to the Stadium, the park surrounding MOSH, and the RiversEdge parks.
The final 2024/25 COJ Operating Budget and 2025-29 COJ Capital Improvement Plan (CIP) were approved by the full City Council on Tuesday, September 24th and will take effect as the fiscal year commences on October 1st.
As shown in Riverfront Parks Now benchmarking and the Jessie Ball duPont Riverfront Activation Study, dozens of cities across the country have invested in downtown urban public spaces as a strategy to build economic vibrancy and quality of life. Jacksonville is playing catch up, so there is much to be done in a short amount of time.
Returns on investment of high quality public spaces are proven in numerous studies in peer cities to be 1:6 to 1:20 and greater. High quality, well designed urban parks complement other private and public initiatives and increase property values of surrounding private developments. Most importantly, bring people into our city’s cultural center making downtown it more vibrant and healthy, and a place people want to work, live and play. See the item on Friendship Fountain below – we have proof of concept right here right now!
Riverfront Parks Now is a coalition of fourteen nonprofit organizations who came together to advocate for the vision of a connected network of world class destination parks, trails and green space along the St. Johns River downtown. These public riverfront lands are among the last public and accessible riverfront along the 1000 mile Heritage river, and provide opportunity for community gathering, vibrancy, economic impact and resilience.
Let’s keep working together to make the parks something we are all proud of and can enjoy on a daily basis.