Jacksonville, Fl \u2014 Christmas kicked off along the St. Johns River with huge crowds at the new Riverfront Plaza, formerly the Jacksonville Landing. <\/p>\n
It\u2019s one of several greenspaces to open in recent weeks, activating the riverfront after months of construction and years of planning. <\/p>\n
Jacksonville Mayor Donna Deegan will visit Jacksonville\u2019s Morning News at 9:00 am for an in-depth conversation on these and other developments that are finally coming to fruition. <\/p>\n
Saturday\u2019s soft opening of the $38 million first phase of Riverfront Plaza included a Christmas tree-lighting ceremony and the Light Boat Parade on the St. Johns River.<\/p>\n
The first phase of the park includes a playground on top of a pavilion building, an event lawn, new bulkhead, improved Riverwalk and plaza space connecting to the Jacksonville Center for the Performing Arts.<\/p>\n
The initial phase is expected to be complete in early 2026, according to the city\u2019s I Dig Jax website<\/a>. <\/p>\n Construction of the second phase will begin by the end of this year and will include a beer garden and rain garden, plus a bicycle and pedestrian connection to the Main Street Bridge. <\/p>\n The RiversEdge<\/a> development last week saw the ribbon-cutting of a new park featuring an iconic sculpture and a flexible lawn bordered by a walking track and a pavilion. <\/p>\n There are future phases planned to inspire healthy living through art, exercise, gardens and interactive features.<\/p>\n \u25b6 Listen to Jacksonville\u2019s Morning News Interviews<\/a><\/p>\n The agenda for Congress is full. The clock is ticking to fully fund the government and figure out what to do with expiring health care subsidies, along with what may come of the multiple strikes against Venezuelan boats. Fox\u2019s Ryan Schmelz elaborates:<\/p>\n Pope Leo takes his first international trip. Fox\u2019s Jonathan Savage joins Jacksonville\u2019s Morning News to share what Leo says is an essential factor in the Israel-Palestine conflict.<\/p>\n Click here<\/a> to download our free news, weather and traffic app. And click here<\/a> to subscribe to our daily 3 Big Things newsletter.<\/p>\n \u00a92025 Cox Media Group<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jacksonville, Fl \u2014 Christmas kicked off along the St. Johns River with huge crowds at the new Riverfront…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":66816,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[796,39174,39173,794,28,116,118,30171,8539,117,795,349,16629],"class_list":["post-66815","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-796","tag-donna-deegan-on-jacksonvilles-morning-news","tag-donna-deegan-wokv","tag-duval","tag-florida","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-landing","tag-jacksonville-mayor-donna-deegan","tag-jacksonville-news","tag-ne-florida","tag-northeast-florida","tag-riverfront-plaza"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66815","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=66815"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66815\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/66816"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66815"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66815"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66815"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}