JaxPride Community Design Workshops

Jacksonville, Florida, United States of America

Like many cities in the United States, Jacksonville, Florida, has a number of neighborhoods in decline—neighborhoods with viable populations that remember better days and want them back. These areas face problems of traffic congestion, pedestrian access, inadequate public amenities, zoning and land use issues, code enforcement, and more. Jacksonville, however, does have an advantage in the guise of a nonprofit community organization, JaxPride: A Coalition for Visual Enhancement, whose focus is high-quality community design. JaxPride has been conducting community design workshops for several years. AIA Jacksonville, in celebration of AIA150, joined with JaxPride to conduct charrettes focusing on the Regency area of Jacksonville in the hopes of enhancing the issues addressed, tools available, and recommendations offered by these workshops

Project Overview

The Regency area is located centrally within the Arlington section of Jacksonville, Florida. Arlington has a rich history, dating back to Timucuan Indians and 16th-century French Huguenot settlers. Through the early 20th century, the area remained pastoral, with scattered plantations and farmsteads. Growth came to Arlington during the Florida Land Boom of the 1920s, and resumed after the interruption of World War II. In 1953, the Mathews Bridge (known to locals as the “Bridge to Nowhere”) was built across the St. Johns River, linking the area with downtown Jacksonville to the east. Within 10 years Arlington became the most populous portion of Southside Jacksonville, and just after city/county consolidation in 1968 more than 50 percent of city residents lived in Arlington.

In the 1980s, growth exploded along Atlantic Boulevard in the form of strip development and subdivisions of single-family houses. As new areas attracted residents, Arlington began to acquire a reputation as a neighborhood in slow decline. In recent years, however, the area’s optimal location, with easy access to urban amenities, has sparked interest in residential infill and new commercial development.

In 1967, Regency Square Mall was built at the intersection of Atlantic Boulevard and the Arlington Expressway. It was the first mall in Florida, and the largest air-conditioned mall in the Southeast. In 1981 the mall was doubled in size and now includes 1.4 million square feet of retail space. The last substantial investments in the mall occurred in the 1990s, with security upgrades, parking lot lighting, restroom renovations, and the construction of a 24-screen movie theater.

The Regency charrette was held in October 2007, with the intent of bringing together concerned community leaders, business owners, private citizens, and other interested parties to discuss the future growth of the area around the mall. An enthusiastic group of 26 residents and design professionals spent the day developing a vision for development and redevelopment in the greater Regency area.

In the charrette’s morning session, participants worked together to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the study area. During the afternoon session, participants broke into two teams, each assigned a JaxPride and AIA design professional to facilitate the process of determining potential design alternatives. At the end of the afternoon session, each design team presented its plan to the overall group. The resulting vision centers on revitalizing the existing Regency Mall area through actions such as:

• Creating stronger street and sidewalk connections within and to existing neighborhoods;
• Establishing a multi-modal transportation hub;
• Supplementing the open space and parks system;
• Encouraging pedestrian scale and mixed-use development that creates an interesting destination for both residents and passerby motorists;
• Transforming major roads into attractive parkways and other roads into walkable streets;
• Providing connections to area amenities such as the Jacksonville Arboretum; and
• Creating a template with the elements listed above to guide redevelopment of the mall itself.

The report is a useful tool that can now be distributed to city leadership, future developers, and property owners to aid in planning for future development and redevelopment of this vital community in Jacksonville.