Bitter Editorial About All The Potential: Rob Middleton

Echoing a very widespread and angry feeling that has become common amongst the visionary class of Jacksonville, Rob Middleton vents a little steam about a City that has everything at its fingertips necessary to become a great city but chooses to stay a coal rather than become a diamond. Join us after the jump for some zeitgeisty rage.

Published February 18, 2016 in Opinion - MetroJacksonville.com

Welcome to Jacksonville. Finishing things is not really our style. It's no wonder that the effort to update the city's HRO was curtailed. Could any other outcome be more appropriate?

Let's take a tour of Jacksonville. I see you've noticed our skyway; it's hard to miss. Yes, it was built in 1989 -- pretty forward thinking! There are track stubs heading towards the stadium and down Riverside Avenue.

No plans to complete those extensions, it's enough that the potential is there.

Where in the world is the Jacksonville Landing?
Image from Bill Yates

That bright orange roof, that's the Jacksonville Landing! It started out with great fanfare but faded through the years.

About ten years ago one of the city's most successful land developers purchased it, announcing plans to refurbish it and open it up to Laura Street. I'm not sure that will ever happen but the plans were exciting.

I think he has new plans now. Plans are something Jacksonville loves.

It goes along with our city motto, "In Ten Years Things Will Be Great!!"

Yellow lines are conceptual extensions

Ready for completion...

Thanks for the moving video. No worries, we're not expecting anything more.

Let's head up Laura Street and I will show you jewels of Jacksonville architecture.

That marble bank and two Klutho buildings are part of what is known as the Laura Street Trio.

You should see the renderings for what might could be! People were pretty excited to dream about that.

What's that? Construction timetable?

Funding?

Completion date?

I don't think you understand Jacksonville yet....

This is what the Barnet Building is supposed to look like when it is finished. "Finished" has a different meaning in Jacksonville than it does everywhere else.

Across the street here is the old Barnett building.

Yes, they opened that one up during One Spark to talk about how it was going to be restored and turned into apartment buildings. That would be something! What an exciting thought!

Oh, One Spark? Yes, that was to be Jacksonville's game changer -- a huge festival invigorating residents and bringing the world's attention to our downtown.

It felt like a big deal at first… Isn't that enough?

Succeeding at something is not our way.

That's for other cities.

Like our skyscrapers here, they all represent businesses that either failed or moved away! Jacksonville leaders took things as far as local ambition would allow… then our most successful businesses were all folded into other, larger entities.

Where are those?

Oh, I think most of them are in Charlotte.

Yes, Charlotte sure has come out of nowhere to be a major powerhouse, hasn't it?

That's not Jacksonville's style. Let Charlotte have their corporate world headquarters and -- yes, of course it does have a modern HRO too -- don't those types of things go together? Not Jacksonville. That's not Jacksonville at all.

Yes, Charlotte has their Panthers too! Did you know our Jaguars and the Panthers began playing in the same season? Yeah, the Panthers have been to the Super Bowl twice… So what? That's not for us. No, Jacksonville has the team it deserves. The greatest achievements were all at the beginning, when it was first announced and in the first few seasons. Now we have settled into complacency and lowered expectations.

The Jacksonville way.

A map of of a vibrant "Uptown" Charlotte

A map of vacant property and unkept surface parking lots in Jacksonville's "promising" downtown...

One more thing I want to show you -- oh, we can't go this way, a portion of the street caved in last year and we decided just to rope it off.

Yes, here we are. Look up. See that? That's a partially built residential skyscraper.

It's been sitting there incomplete for many years now. I hope it stays up there forever.

It's a perfect monument to remind the whole populace of the things we cannot do.

Finishing things is not for Jacksonville.

Accomplishments are out of place here.

Rob Middleton

Now, Liberty St. is perfect. Who knew that a little bit neglect could add such character?

Berkman Plaza II, the perfect monument to Jacksonville's impotence

This article can be found at: http://dev.metrojacksonville.com/article/2016-feb-bitter-editorial-about-all-the-potential-rob-middleton