{"id":382321,"date":"2026-08-27T05:40:18","date_gmt":"2026-08-27T05:40:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/382321\/"},"modified":"2026-08-27T05:40:18","modified_gmt":"2026-08-27T05:40:18","slug":"eight-years-after-the-jacksonville-landing-shooting-riverfront-plaza-has-officially-replaced-the-citys-landmark","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/382321\/","title":{"rendered":"Eight years after the Jacksonville Landing shooting, Riverfront Plaza has officially replaced the city’s landmark"},"content":{"rendered":"

Wednesday marked eight years since three people were killed and another 11 were injured when a gunman opened fire at a video game competition in downtown Jacksonville.<\/p>\n

The Landing closed less than a year later<\/a>, was demolished shortly after and replaced with Riverfront Plaza.<\/p>\n

This year, the new Riverfront Plaza was open<\/a> for the first time on the date of the tragedy.<\/p>\n

There’s more still on the way with Phase 2<\/a>, but for one former business owner at the Landing, it doesn’t matter how much it changes – being here will always remind him of what it used to be.<\/p>\n

“One of those ‘What if?’ kind of scenarios, because it could have been more of a direct impact on me,” said Former New Jax Gym Owner Tom Minette.<\/p>\n

On August 26th, 2018, Tom Minette had just closed up New Jax Gym for the day and headed home less than an hour before first responders were called to the Landing.<\/p>\n

One floor below his gym, a gunman opened fire at a Madden competition.<\/a><\/p>\n

Eli Clayton and Taylor Robertson were both killed.<\/p>\n

Eleven others were injured and the shooter was also found dead.<\/p>\n

“I think it changed how people felt about the Landing and more security within Jacksonville in general,” said Minette.<\/p>\n

Eight years later, and a park with a playground, event lawn and Riverwalk access have replaced the space Minette used to go to all the time for work.<\/p>\n

A cafe, beer garden, fountain and ramp connecting to the Main Street Bridge could be added to the mix by the end of next year.<\/p>\n

Along with that, a city spokesperson says the city is considering a plaque to honor the victims of the shooting, a touch Minette appreciates.<\/p>\n

“I think we need to recognize these kinds of events happen so we can learn from them and learn how to prevent them,” said Minette.<\/p>\n

That spokesperson says the plaque wouldn’t be installed until after phase two construction is done, which means it could possibly be in place by the 10-year mark of the shooting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Wednesday marked eight years since three people were killed and another 11 were injured when a gunman opened…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":382322,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[9000,153397,116,118,117,16629,153396,73842],"class_list":["post-382321","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-downtown-jacksonville","tag-gunman-opened-fire","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news","tag-riverfront-plaza","tag-tom-minette","tag-video-game-competition"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/382321","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=382321"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/382321\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/382322"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=382321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=382321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=382321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}