It looks like the Jaguars owner wants to build his own version of an IPF. Of course, being the NFL, it’s got to be a little more than just that.
Yeah, that’s three tiers. And it’s just part of what’s intended.
Speaking at at the Jaguars’ annual state of the franchise event, team owner Shad Khan and president Mark Lamping unveiled the construction plans aimed at revitalizing the Shipyards area, which spans about 48 acres of property owned by the city on the north bank of the St. Johns River. The project would bridge EverBank Field and the practice facility with the rest of the downtown area.
They have to get city approval, so it’s not happening tomorrow. But assuming it gets greenlighted, you’d have to think there would be some construction interference with the Cocktail Party surroundings.
And then there’s this:
Included in the Shipyards plans are renovations to EverBank Field, which the Jaguars have occupied since it opened in 1995 as Jacksonville Municipal Stadium. Club seating renovations are planned and will reduce the stadium capacity by nearly 3,000 to 64,107, the team said.
Three thousand fewer tickets. You wonder how Foley and McGarity would take that news. Part of me thinks they’d be understandably upset. Another part of me thinks they’d just use it as leverage to ask for a bigger check from the city to compensate for the inconvenience.
Get The Picture 
Shad Khan is an extremely successful businessman and a big thinker. The Jags franchise and the city are fortunate to have him. Now if they would only win some games.
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Less, seats, less supply is proportional to demand, and the most important thing… TV rights and less chance of NFL blackout will trump any cocktail party interests. They can gripe, but I don’t see it doing any good.
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I can’t imagine the City of Jacksonville approves this without obtaining assurance from UGA and UF that this project won’t put the WLOCP in jeopardy of moving. Something like this could make Glaser and Blank try to swoop in and convince the schools to move the game to Tampa and/or Atlanta, or push the schools to move the game to campus in a traditional home and home.
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Not denying the economic impact of the WLOCP, but I would guess it is a far distant 2nd priority behind keeping an NFL franchise.
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Reverend, you’re right about that, but the WLOCP is a part of the fabric of the city of Jacksonville. I can’t imagine the politicians allowing that piece of fabric to become unwoven.
People don’t decide they’re coming to Jacksonville for vacation (sure, a lot of people come to Ponte Vedra and Amelia for golf, the Players, and the beach, but that’s not Duval County). Unless you’re within an hour or two of Jacksonville, you don’t go see the Jags play on a Sunday afternoon.
The Cocktail Party is the only weekend of the year where Jacksonville is one of the centers of the sports universe and the city has a chance to show itself off to the rest of the country.
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Oh I agree with everything you’ve said, and clearly the preference for the city would be to keep both the Jags happy and keep the WLOCP. I’m just saying that if it ever did come to a situation of having to choose between the two, I think we’d come in a distant 2nd.
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this… 8 or so home games, NFL money and exposure trump one college game a year. I’m sure there would be some political arm wrestling, but that would be just for show.
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What exposure? Unless they’re playing some upper echelon team, a Jags home game gets shown in north Florida and southeast Georgia (unless it’s blacked out) and wherever the visiting team is from. The Jags at home are rarely a “national” game on Sunday.
The city gets more exposure on Cocktail Party weekend than it does the rest of the year especially if the two teams are highly ranked.
Ask the hotel managers and the restaurant and bar owners which is more important. I imagine they would say the Cocktail Party hands down is better for their business than the Jags are.
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NFL itself is the exposure, especially if the jags ever start winning.. it’s a much bigger stage than GA/FL. It’s still PR for the city just by having the name out there and being an NFL city. Business owners might not agree, but that doesn’t really matter to politicians. The elected will say it does, but it doesn’t. It’s about what’s bigger on the city’s resume.
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Your point … “if the jags ever start winning”
They’ve been there for almost 20 years now and haven’t been close to a consistent winner.
I understand that being an NFL city brings positive PR to the city that’s better than 1 weekend per year, but watch the business owners howl if the WLOCP were to leave Jacksonville.
I assume the city needs to tread very carefully because I would say Jacksonville would still be a bump in the road between DC and Miami if UGA and UF didn’t decide to play a football game there in the 1930s.
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All I’m saying is that NFL prestige will trump a college game every time, and I’m sure there will be plenty of bitching, but politicians are all about “the greater good” and that greater good is up to their own interpretation. I’m not saying I like that it’s that way, but thats’ just reality. Whose holding the most power? NFL wins.
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“…if they ever start winning…” The Falcons have been playing in Atlanta since 1966 (what’s that–49 years?) and have never been a consistent winner. That didn’t stop Arthur Blank and Rankin Smith from squeezing the city and state for money.
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That’s very true, but attendance in Jacksonville for the Jags is pretty pathetic to the point where they are having to remove seats.
The NFL hasn’t really brought Jacksonville additional prestige. It’s still looked at as the largest city in South Georgia and an Atlanta or Charlotte want-to-be. I don’t mean that badly toward Jacksonville because I like the city.
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I would be in favor if they moved the game to the new Falcons facility when it is finished in a few years.
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Meh.. I mean.. that place is cool and all, but I’d rather go to the beach and tailgate down there than downtown Atlanta.
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I lived in Jax for 5 years but moved away in 2005, so I don’t have a finger on the pulse of the local government there anymore, but I’d be surprised if the city didn’t jump all over this. Obviously it doesn’t benefit UGA or UF, but the Jags have been rumored to be leaving off and on for years now, this would show a solid commitment to stay as well as breathe some life into the revitalization they’ve been trying to do for years now in the downtown area.
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Your “another part of me………..” is spot on. Just give me the money!
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The shipyards has sat vacant for years, prime real estate on the banks of the river. The city even backed a developer pre-recession only to write off the entire investment. The movement to transform our downtown has reached critical mass because leaders realize that if it doesn’t get done in this cycle then it may never happen. Therefore, this project will receive the necessary support to make it a reality, with UGA and UF receiving appropriate consideration.
Khan has legit skin in the game, that will be the catalyst that convinces our city council and the downtown development authority to greenlight this.
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Yep, revitalizing downtown was the big topic when I left in 2005…..and as I understand it, not much has changed 10 years later. That housing crash just crushed everybody in FL. But you’re right, if they’re gonna do it, they need to find a way to get it done this cycle.
A lot of people talk down about Jax, but I actually really enjoyed living there. If they ever are able to realize the potential of the downtown area, it could be a great place to live.
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We attempted to move there from Atlanta 14 years ago to be close to my wife’s parents who had retired there (mother-in-law is a Jax native). The problem was at the time, the job market in Jacksonville was awful.
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Yeah I worked in transportation/logistics at the time, which actually was one of the stronger industries there, but overall I know what you mean. Not sure how it is down there now. I really enjoyed it there though, I mean between the river, intracoastal waterway, the beach, and all the creeks and tributaries in between, just water everywhere. I do like Greenville SC (current residence) more for several reasons, including being close for the UGA home games, and will likely never leave here. But if for some reason I had occasion to move to Jacksonville again, I wouldn’t be totally against it.
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Chuckling at myself, just realized “I wouldn’t be totally against it” isn’t exactly a ringing endorsement. I meant it more positive than it sounded. 🙂
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I was in public accounting at the time, and it’s the one place where when I was looking to jump, no one there wanted someone with 8+ years at a Big 6 at the time without a major pay cut. It was absolutely baffling to me.
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Yeah I definitely don’t remember financial services in general being a hot market in Jax. Lots of mid-level insurance type jobs, but yeah nothing like with your experience.
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I’ll take Greenville over FL any day but we lived in St.Pete.
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We fell in love with Greenville the first time we visited, for sure! I liked Jacksonville, but I love Greenville. 🙂
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How are 84,000 + those without tickets cramming into this spot for Ga-Fla if they build all of this stuff? This might be the convenient excuse that the schools need to go home and home. It would hurt the Glynn & Camden Counties and Fernandina/Amelia economies more than J’ville IMO.
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Less seats? Just raise the price of each ticket so you still make the same amount!
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Is there any reason that the city and some private donors between UGA and UF couldn’t just build a separate stadium in Jacksonville of their own making???
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I suspect one reason is that it would be so damn expensive to build an 84,000 seat stadium sufficiently filled with amenities to keep you happy to use one game a year.
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I’d hate to be a WR running a hot route to the back corner of the endzone on that upper field!
Project like this could make Jax a great “new” city if it where to spur additional growth and development throughout the downtown. But if, instead, the project overbuilds for interest/capacity and the area is surrounded by blight, it could be a colossal white elephant. Will be very interesting to see how this goes.
As for the WLOCP, assuming the middle field is the actual stadium, I’m sure the upper and lower fields will have large screen TV’s and standing room only tickets sold for $20 each to be a part of the game experience with capacity of over 100,000.
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Aus, it’s the proposed practice facility for the Jaguars. They would still play at EverBank.
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Doh! Zero reading comprehension prior to 10:00 am.
Thanks for the correction double E.
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Aus, go get another cup of coffee. It helps me with my comprehension skills before 10 a.m. especially this time of year. 🙂
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I hope they have a high budget for replacement footballs.. a lot of those puppies are going over the rail.
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The design is crazy. If they build this white elephant someone will have a serious fall from one of the 2 top fields and likely die leading to the closing of the facility.
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Looks really cool! Whether its practical is another issue but definitely has wow factor.
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Jacksonville has absolutely no business having an NFL team, and they should be spending their time finding a suitor elsewhere instead of continuing to put lipstick on a pig (ala the disastrous Miami Marlins new stadium).
The fact that they had to bring in cruise ships in order to meet the hotel room threshold when Jville hosted the SuperBowl a few years back tells you all you need to know about the area’s overall viability.
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3rdie, Atlanta has no business having an NFL team either. Yet the taxpayers of the city and the state continually fork over more dough to pay for whatever the owner wants. I say, let ’em move. If you want to be a Falcons fan you still can be one when they are the San Antonio Falcons or the LA Falcons.
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I understand the UGA-UF Jacksonville contract is up in 2016.
I would support going home and home for two years, possibly longer.
Schedule fall break the weekend the game is in Gainesville, and the off week before it is in Athens.
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^^This makes waaay too much sense to ever be adopted by B-M.
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Per some of the renderings, the upgrades to the stadium will include “beach boxes” — like a luxury box, but with sand in it.
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I can assure you that Shad Khan has thought about this…whether it’s important to him in the long run or not is another matter. He flew Foley and McGarity in last time when they did the pools to get their buy in. What they are talking about now though is much bigger than the WLOCP.
If this does happen Jacksonville becomes a legitimate option for another Super Bowl, Final Fours, etc…and I’m talking 10-15 years from now, not the near future. If they make the full project happen like he wants it then it will bring more businesses, hotels, etc..etc…
Jacksonville will keep Shad Kahn happy b/c as sad as it sounds he is the one person that can get things done in the city.
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Move the WLOCP to the new falcons stadium one year.
But what we all need to really focus on is getting the Tech game moved to the CFA kick off game and getting Auburn and Tech back on a home/away rotation instead of both being on the road or at home.
that 2017 kick off game in the new falcons stadium against tech would be great. 2018 we then play at tech in 2018 and auburn at home in 2018.
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This is a really good observation DP. People have forgotten that under the old scheduling rotation Georgia played Auburn at home in years when the Dawgs played Tech on the road and vice-versa. Now, because of “accommodating” the SEC and playing Auburn at Auburn 2 years in a row we have to play both Tech and Auburn away every other year.
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