Residents had an opportunity to review design plans for the Emerald Trail’s City Center Link at a community meeting hosted by Groundwork Jacksonville and the City of Jacksonville on Wednesday, Sept. 9.
Following the presentation, meeting attendees were able to ask questions and share feedback during the meeting, which took place at Downtown Vision, Inc. offices.
This new link will move away from the riverfront, cutting through the downtown area along Hogan Street, stretching from Bay Street to the Rosa Parks Transit Center – spanning roughly 4,000 linear feet in the heart of downtown. Elements for this project include a shared-use path, sidewalk/plaza materials, plant materials, amenities, and, when possible, green infrastructure. The design for this link is at 60% completion.
“If you think about the Riverwalk on the Southside of downtown – this is through the heart of downtown and gets you up to what will be the northern part of the trail,” said Matthew Wilder, principal landscape architect at Pond and Company. “If you look at the full master plan, you can actually follow an entire loop around the city, and then there are some cut-throughs. The LaVilla Link is kind of a cut-through, the City Center Link is a cut-through of a big circle.”
Matthew Wilder details the project limits at the Sept. 9 meeting.
City of Jacksonville Director of Public Works Nina Sickler told meeting attendees a top priority of this link is connection and activation.
“We’ve been spending a lot of effort and time on our riverfront parks, and this is our connection from those parks through the heart of our downtown, and then connecting up to Hogan’s Creek and then into Springfield,” Sickler said.
As this City Center Link progresses along Hogan Street, it will move along both sides of the street: from Bay Street to Monroe Street, it will be on the west side of the street with updated sidewalks on the other side; it will transition to the east side of Hogan Street beginning at Monroe Street and remain on that side until it crosses and turns down State Street before continuing on the west side of North Laura Street.
Hogan Street will be reduced to one lane of northbound traffic within this City Center Link corridor, from Bay Street to Union Street.
Groundwork Jacksonville CEO Kay Ehas added that the trail will no longer feature its signature green stripe that people have come to recognize.
“We’re not using the green stripe anymore,” Ehas said. “We have to repaint that. We’re trying to figure out what’s long-term sustainable. So there’s going to be bronze medallions in the middle with the Emerald Trail logo, and then the green horizontal stripes – the green aggregate glass pavers – as you come up to an intersection that’s going to tell you you’re on the trail.”
Construction on this link is expected to begin next summer, with a construction time of 18 to 24 months. During that time, residents can expect a block-by-block progression of construction with advance notice given to affected business owners as work advances.
The same presentation was made to the Downtown Development Review Board at its September board meeting the following day, during which board members asked questions and shared feedback about the project.
“Urban trail systems bring vibrancy, economic development, density, all the things that we want to see in downtown. This segment of the Emerald Trail is monumentally exciting to see. This will be a crucial piece of downtown’s vibrancy, so it can’t happen soon enough,” said DDRB Chair Linzee Ott.
Click to view the presentation from the Sept. 9 community meeting.