The owners of the Jacksonville Jaguars have announced that they want to build a $2.5 billion complex that would include a high-end hotel, a convention center and hotel, a park, an upgraded marina, a 3,000-space parking garage, and “mixed-use entertainment buildings” with ground-floor retail … but not a stadium, all near its existing stadium. They would still want subsidies, though:
More info: Jags President Mark Lamping says Lot J/Sports Complex is NOT in lieu of overall Shipyards redevelopment, rather an expansion. Will ask for public dollars, but how much isn’t yet clear.
— Stephanie Brown (@SBrownReports) April 19, 2018
The Jaguars owners already got $45 million in city subsidies for stadium upgrades a little over two years ago, so maybe it was considered gauche to ask for more so soon? (Though their stadium is 23 years old now, that’s practically ancient in NFL years.) Anyway, according to WOKV radio, Jacksonville Mayor Lenny Curry intends to “put that proposal through his scorecard to ensure there will be a return for the citizens of Jacksonville,” so one hopes that his scorecard contains a reasonable algorithm and wasn’t written by, say, these guys.
Finally, I am so not commenting on what that cylindrical building proposed for the waterfront looks like:
That has to be a Cordish project.
Taxpayer subsidies? Check
Sports facility anchor? Check
Hotel? Check
Homogenized ‘mixed-use entertainment’ experience? Check
But where’s the racially coded dress code?
https://www.fieldofschemes.com/2014/03/27/7059/cardinals-ballpark-village-has-a-curious-list-of-things-you-cant-wear-at-its-bars/
Yeah, if you click through to almost if not all of original articles on dress code and ‘Rabbits’ at Cordish properties, you’ll find a lot of them have been removed from the web.
Talked to someone out of the NYAG offices who indicated that Charles Harder (of Hogan/Gawker) infamy was a lawyer for Cordish. There is one attorney in KC (I think) who is still pretty persistent in going after them for such practices (and maybe just had a case against them re-instated). As offensive as the discrimination is, all of those Live! projects suck up money from other local businesses. So a lot of that spending is getting sucked out of the local economy and local governments are effectively using tax dollars to decide the winners/losers in nightlife/entertainment. Yet small government Republicans seem to love these projects.
I’m not saying Democrats don’t. But they haven’t built their entire party mythos on ‘GOVERNMENT BAD!’
In fairness, I have always known that when GOP members talk about ‘bad’ government interference they are talking about government action to help the poor. I don’t think they’ve ever felt big government was bad when it lined their own pockets… in fact, as with the recent tax bill, they have repeatedly argued against government spending AT THE SAME TIME as they are arguing for bills that will fill their own/friends coffers with money that could and should be going to pay for social programs.
Ok, I may have used “fairness” out of context there…
Always include the fireworks!
Most likely, The Orb of Trump will be housed in the rooftop dome, opened only to allow power to emanate for third and long situations.
Doubt Trump would go anywhere near the Jags, since they are owned by a real self-made man from Pakistan who grew up in Illinois. Two places he does not like.
The yacht in the bottom left looks HUGE
That yacht is about to Caddyshack those smaller boats and the dock.
That is actually Khan’s personal yatch. He has to have a giant pair to put his multi-hundred million dollar yatch in a rendering for a project he is asking for millions of taxpayer funds to build.
I attended the Taxslayer Bowl this year at Jaguars Stadium. The area the stadium is located is bereft of development. There’s a nasty coffee processing facility, lots of vacant land and a mess of nothing else.
The nearest upscale hotel, the Hyatt, is a mile away. There’s no public transportation to speak of except a water taxi.
BTW, there is very little in downtown Jacksonville to attract anyone, except the Greyhound bus station.
But…. a stadium spurs economic development and growth and… and… everyone wins…
I should have added, there is a large condo building that construction was just stopped. It’s a messy situation that everyone going to the stadium will walk by. Just ugly waterfront non-development.
Why do billionaires seeking public funds for developments they will own or control always include searchlights signalling into space as part of the artist’s concept drawings?
Is there something to these reptilian/alien overlord stories after all?
To make it look interesting and exciting of course. If you did the rendering with what it would actually look like on a normal day no one would ever give a stadium project any public money.
That giant wang building will be a nice memento the citizens of Jacksonville will have after Shahid Khan moves the team to London.
Jacksonville is so ugly that even a giant glass phallus on the waterfront can only help things.