PROJECT UPDATE
St. John’s Town Center Parcel
Taking a comparatively small parcel – a sub plot – within a master development of mixed use properties takes finesse and a professional civil engineer, if you want to avoid costly mistakes, misunderstanding existing constraints and a mythic timeline! This kind of project is tight – “like a knife fight in a phone booth… but in a good way!” – neighboring properties are established and working, utilites are in the ground, drainage still needs to be worked out and there is traffic passing by. It is not an easy assignment but highly rewarding and satisfying work.
We have been hired to create two buildings with parking to fit in between a major arterial road and a massive water retention pond that is already starting to have fish and become part of the natural landscape. Our mandate is to create a seamless addition to a well-established commercial and residential section of Jacksonville that is fully in use, already popular and well-trafficked. It is an ideal project for us: intricate and complex, with clients who welcome our advice and are clear in their goals and expectations.
Jacksonville Civil Engineering Consultant, James Johns, introcudes a current project at St. Johns town Center.
When a lot has already been permitted for one building, and you want to build two, there are a lot of things that get impacted. Among the most important is the landscape. In this case, much of the landscaping had already been installed, with the parking and a building pad. We determined that the best course of action would be to save as many of the trees planted as possible, and reuse them. You will see that in the background of this next video – trees set to one side near the fence so that we can put them back in the ground to flourish once the two buildings are complete.
Does this kind of assignment come up often?
“It happens all the time, especially in a growing economy like this. People are trying to maximize the benefits of a property. They will come to us and say – here’s what we have in the way of permits, what is the maximum size of building that we can fit on this property. We analyze all the possiblities and then revise the permits so that they can accomplish the best possible option.”
“Even two for the price of one, so to speak.”
The Advantages of Working With a Small Civil Engineering Firm
Local Experience vs. National Reach?
How long does it take a builders’ water retentiond pond in a new development or master planned community to become part of the natural environment?
And how does that work exactly?
When we step back from the construction site, there is still a lot to consider and plan. We have to fit in with the surrounding business establishments so that the center is cohesive as one connected community.
While the variety of plantings can be restricted in a Master Development, the spaces need to be differentiated, not identical. We work hard to ensure our constructed project fits, with logical transitions, so that the whole enterprise looks like it has been there from the beginning.
St. Johns Town Center
Opening in March 2005, St. Johns Town Center has always been intended as an upscale open-air mall that would serve the Greater Jacksonville area. The approximately 51 acre parcel of land is mixed use so as to enable condominiums adjacent to the shopping plazas and innumerable restaurants.
It was an Atlanta-based retail developer – Ben Carter – who conceived the idea for the Town Center back in 1999. He had just completed a Nordstrom installation and had heard that the retail store had put Jacksonville, Florida, on the list of good, target markets for their demographic. 9/11 came along in 2001 and that caused a stoppage in a lot of retail growth across the country for a while.
Florida Blue, Merrill Lynch and Deerwood Park commercial offices had already been established in 1999, but while there was the Avenues Mall to the South and Tinseltown to the North, there were no good spots for lunch, nor anywhere to go after work to unwind or grab a last minute gift/white shirt/etc.
Population growth in Jax in the decade 1995 – 2005 grew dramatically, with over 50% of that growth begin fmailies with incomes greater than $75,000: exactly what higher end stores like. Plus, if you can believe it, Ponte Vedra had reached “build-out” and single-famliy golf course communities were heading west, down the major arteries of Butler, Beach and Atlantic Boulevards. Kernan was seeing development, as was Pablo Creek Road. (think: Mayo)
Developer, Ben Carter, calls the Mall a “super-regional” center. “Not only did the Town Center succeed, its success reverberated.”
Steve Lear, a local real estate investment advisor, remembers ““What the Town Center did was create a synergy that gave the Southside a truer identity. It became a real live-work-play area — an entertainment shopping district that didn’t exist before.”
Today, the Town Center –– with its 150 stores and restaurants, 119-room hotel, condominiums and two mid-rise apartment complexes –– is the major shopping draw in Northeast Florida.
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