Our latest rehab, an adorable bungalow on College Street.

We had a really excited buyer under contract for this house, but unfortunately the economic climate hit her small business rather hard, and she had to back out!

The only good news in this is the opportunity for yet another person or household to fall in love with 2570 College Street (and the quirky guest house behind it!).

This home has two bedrooms, one bathroom, two sunrooms (!), plus the 1/1 guest house. The hardwood floors are in great condition, and the ceiling has some lovely historic details.

The house is within sight of John Gorrie, which should begin reconstruction within the year. That, and the possibility of rental income from the guest house makes this an incredibly good buy.

Town Hall Meeting - Wednesday in North Riverside

Okay, so this is a really busy week in the RADO universe. Bear with us.

Join us this Wednesday at 7pm at the City Rescue Mission (426 McDuff Avenue). We will be co-hosting a Town Hall meeting with the North Riverside Community Development Corporation and Councilman Warren Jones. We're interested in improving our community connections with our neighbors to the north, as we continue to work with the NRCDC to build quality affordable homes and improve the neighborhood's safety and vitality.

We've had the great luck to meet some avid community activists in North Riverside lately, and some of Historic Riverside's most passionate watershed activists are already partnering with them to clean up the lovely but neglected McCoy's Creek. More on that later...

We have a long way to go, but healthy connections are already growing. This meeting will be a nice jumping off point for another great year of partnership.

Land Use Map meeting - Monday night - be there or be disenfranchised/confused.

Join RADO and RAP and the Planning Department for an informational meeting on Future Land Use changes on Monday, August 18th at 7pm in Bettinger Hall at Riverside Presbyterian Church.

In their words,

“The Planning and Development Department is updating the City’s Comprehensive Plan, including the Future Land Use Map. This map helps to guide growth and development in the City.

Land Use is a general vision for the way residents would like to see their city develop. Decisions about Land Use should consider such questions as:

· What type of community do you want to live in?

· What type of amenities, such as transit, or park space, do you want near your home?

· Is your neighborhood urban, mixed-use and pedestrian oriented or rural?

In the Land Use planning process these broad statements are translated into a map to produce a visual representation of the intended development pattern for the City.”

This is a complex and extremely important policy process. If you care about the shape of your city, and have strong feelings about the way it ought to look, and what ought to be preserved, you must get involved in this process.

If you have any questions about why you should care about this meeting, please ask. There aren’t enough opportunities for citizens to express their opinions about development practices. This is one of them.

See you there.

PS. I can't guarantee that if you come to the meeting you will be less disenfranchised or less confused as the Comp. Plan change process unfolds, but at least you'll have more of a fightin' chance than you would otherwise.

A last minute yes to NNO.

National Night Out, that is.

We scrambled a few members at very short notice and hit the streets last night to spread the word about our neighbors' group. We met a number of new folks, and got the chance to just cover the ground together. It's so simple, but quite powerful to walk through your community with your neighbors. You notice a lot of beauty you'd previously overlooked.

Let us know if you want to join us!

I-heart-95?

For those of us who regularly bicycle between Riverside and downtown via the Riverwalk, the past several months have presented a slight, and constantly shifting challenge. The city has been landscaping the section of the Riverwalk extending from the southern edge of Fidelity's property underneath the I-95 overpass. I was annoyed when the tactics for protecting the ongoing work consisted of just closing off the paths. I could see from the multiple tire tracks around the barricades that I wasn't alone. This is a real transit route between two of the best parts of this crazy city! I thought to myself as I shoved the gigantic barrier barrels aside, resolutely.

To be honest, I was actually happy to see the evidence of this fact, which hard pavement can't show. As the path remained closed off, I could see the increasing impact of bicycle tires in the landscaping, creating new pathways and marking the presence of the two-wheeled contingent!

I started joining this trend when I realized that 1) my road bike really didn't like the bare sand and broken bricks where the sidewalk once was; 2) I could actually damage the work being done, which I didn't want; and 3) the barricades became much more assertive. Then, finally, some teenagers showed me that Fidelity had left their gate open, so we could use their side parking lot as a path.

Anyway, I wanted to post to the network to let you all know, if you haven't seen it yet, that not only has the path been open for a while now, but the entire landscaping under the arcade of the highway is pretty much complete! I saw it last night after dark, when the columns of the bridge are lit up. I returned this morning to take some photographs.

It just looks great. I'll even refrain from complaining at length about the use of cypress mulch...

If a city has to slap an interstate highway across the most viable neighborhoods it's got, it may as well take pride in the unique architecture such thing provides. The arcade is proud and welcoming. Good job, Jacksonville.

Enjoy!

Ghost Bike for Johnny - Repost from BikeJax

Artist and certified good neighbor Matt Uhrig has a great blog over at BikeJax. He actively promotes bicycle culture here in Jacksonville. Just this week he and the kind folks at Zombie Bikes in Springfield have been pivotal in drawing some much-needed attention to cyclist safety vs. cars. Unfortunately, this uptick in awareness comes in the aftermath of the tragic death of cyclist Johnny Jones on Atlantic Boulevard. The good news is that the City responded quite rapidly to the negative press, and rushed to the scene to investigate the faulty crossing signal that may have contributed to Johnny's fatal collision.

Click through to BikeJax for the full story.

John Gorrie daydreams, a few steps closer to reality.

Last week RADO, LISC, some architects, and Bill and Barbara Cesery took a tour of the giant John Gorrie Junior High School, which has long sat abandoned, right in front of our office. We look at it every day, often wondering what it could become. As I described to one of the architects, it is negative space in the composition of the neighborhood. Nobody even sees it anymore. Furthermore, it's a huge amount of negative space, which just makes its potential that much more exciting.

Cesery has made daydreams like ours come to life before. The company beautifully renovated a similar space in San Marco, now known as The Lofts. These historic school buildings are in perfect locations for promoting dense, healthy urban growth. Before we were quite as reliant on automobiles schools were located within walking distance of the children who attended them. The buildings have decayed beyond the capacity of the school district to repair them affordably, and risk being torn down. Thankfully, historic preservation rules prevent such a fate for John Gorrie. Still, the Duval County School Board is faced with selling off the immense property to the highest bidder this fall.

With the cheerleading support of RADO and the backing of LISC, we hope Cesery, or a developer with similar experience and local roots will lead the way. The building would likely be converted into condominiums, with a good portion being affordable and administered by RADO, with a bit of commercial space to boot. The school is just fraught with exciting potential.

Take a look through the photos I took while attempting not to pass out in the dozens of stuffy, dusty rooms. It's funny that the space is so inhospitable at the moment, given that John Gorrie's claim to fame was no less essential an invention than the air-conditioner.

Imagine the lovely hardwood floors restored, the walls repainted, and the whole space bustling with life. Imagine activity on College Street between Stockton and Barrs, instead of a wall of yellow-brick emptiness. Imagine the auditorium renovated and hosting concerts! Imagine shady trees in the courtyard...

We don't know what will develop here yet, but we can't wait to see it.