Absolutely amazing.
Neighborhood decline in the form of brand new greenfield development
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I was driving through Atlanta today and got this classic view of the city.
I’m talking about the view of horrible stop and go traffic of course.
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Hence the reason I stay off the Connector when driving in Atlanta 
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what were you listening to on the radio?
Saw this floating around the internet yesterday and thought I’d put it on here. The Jacksonville Jaguars released a flashy new video on their new stadium yesterday. They were an expansion team too that came alongside into the NFL the same year as the Carolina Panthers and have been in their same stadium as long as the Panthers have been in their stadium.
What was interesting to me is instead of building a whole new stadium somewhere in the area, they plan on dumping around $2 billion into renovations of the existing stadium. The Jags owner has come out and said he wants to split that cost 50/50 with public and private funding. They’ll have to go play somewhere else for a couple seasons while this is being built out.
The entire cost of the project – including the development of the area around the stadium – could be as much as $2 billion, with the stadium improvements costing between $1.3 billion and $1.4 billion, according to Jaguars president Mark Lamping. Lamping also said constructing an entirely new stadium, whether that’s on the current site or somewhere else in the Jacksonville area, would cost an additional $1 billion.
Per a memorandum of understanding the city and Jaguars owner Shad Khan would split the cost of the entire project (including the development around the stadium) 50-50 and that the stadium renovation could take as long as four years.
Jaguars unveil renderings of proposed stadium renovation - ESPN
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I’ll be really disappointed if the city goes for the 50/50 split. It’s been more than a decade since I’ve been to Jacksonville, so maybe the tides have turned, but I just remember being struck by how obviously neglected and underutilized it was, especially downtown. Putting all of your eggs into a basket that only guarantees you nine or so busy Sundays a year seems so wasteful when you could instead use that money to invest in making the city a nice place to actually live in and visit.
Cards on the table, I’m not a huge fan of public funds for stadiums in general, unless there’s a very clear path toward consistent, year-round use. It’s insane to me that these absurdly wealthy franchise owners keep managing to lure in city leaders with beautiful renderings and promises of economic prosperity, throw in retractable roofs and giant aquariums, get taxpayers on the hook for hundreds of millions of dollars that will take decades to pay off, and then the final product sits empty most of the time (all while the residents themselves reap very few of the benefits). The NFL is arguably the worst at this, considering how few home games they play.
I love a state-of-the-art stadium, don’t get me wrong, and I’m all for government spending when the primary benefactors are the people that government represents. But the data seems to indicate that the franchises are generally getting the better end of the deal in these scenarios, not the people. If you want your privately-held business to have a fancy new facility, find yourself some investors and build one. Not like these guys don’t have the resources or connections.
Congress could pass a law tomorrow banning government subsidies on professional sports stadiums and I guarantee that every last one of these guys would still find a way to get these things built without a dime of taxpayer money. Put public dollars to better use.
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I agree with most of your post. I do think the Jax’ville proposal does try to deal with that by making the seating bowl itself far more flexible to accommodate a variety of uses.
Your main point is spot on. The board has discussed this a couple times, but often these stadiums just become under utilized white elephants that lead to dead space and zones when not in use.
When they enlarged my institutions on-campus stadium (even though we’d never sold out the smaller one) they tried to sell the faculty on how many uses there were for the 5th floor/club level - which is ok for meetings, but the athletic department charges rent, so nearly no one uses it.
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Hmm… is this somewhere in New England?
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Roxbury Massachusetts?
Mission Hill, Boston, MA
Hey they made a cartoon TV show about that on adult swim a long time ago when I still lived up there. Not the best area back then
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Yeah it’s more gentrified now and where a lot of rich Northeastern students live.
Me too! Enjoying the lack of smoke
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I see a lack of buses in the bike lanes…
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Finally got the chance to visit Medellin, Colombia last weekend. The neighborhood we stayed in, El Poblado, had some amazing night life. This was in no small part due to the local government’s decision to close off many of the streets in this area to car traffic entirely, leading so a small grid of pedestrian-only gathering spaces. It was full of life, everyone was having a great time, and the jungle scenery was very cool. (the streets in these pics used to be choked with car traffic!)
If they can (very, very successfully) do it there – in what was one of the most dangerous cities on the planet not long ago – I can’t think of any reason not to try it on Glenwood. I am more convinced than ever that we need to embrace the nightlife culture, get the cars out of there at least on weekend nights, and ultimately let folks open carry alcohol through the street.
In Medellin, the “entrances” to the ped area usually were gated off and had a police tent that you had to walk through with 1 or 2 officers standing there all night. It wasn’t overbearing but it kept anyone from bringing their drinks (or tomfoolery) outside the neighborhood and seemed to work very well.
If Raleigh could recreate but a fraction of the vibes they had going on here, it’d be a huge draw for the city.
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