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Jacksonville veterans group leaders propose moving Veterans Memorial Wall in riverfront study

Florida Times-Union - 8/28/2021

The black granite Veterans Memorial Wall chiseled with more than 1,700 names has stood in Jacksonville's sports complex since 1995, surrounded by parking lots near TIAA Bank Field.

Metropolitan Park on the other side of Bay Street has acres of grassy lawn populated with shade trees.

As Jacksonville decides how to use riverfront land from Metropolitan Park to the Shipyards, leaders of the Duval County Veterans Council are floating the idea of renaming the site Veterans Memorial Park and relocating the memorial wall there.

"It would be a wonderful thing not only for Jacksonville as a community but also our veterans community," said David Trotti, chairman of the council.

The current site of the wall creates uncomfortably hot Memorial Day ceremonies, said Steve Spickelmier, past chairman of the Veterans Council of Duval County.

"That's really got to get out of the concrete over there," he said.

More: Jacksonville Memorial Day observance remembers those who gave "all of their tomorrows"

Whether anything comes of the suggestion, the relocation of Veterans Memorial Wall is one of many ideas being brainstormed for creating a new park on 11 acres of the western end of the Shipyards and connecting it with a riverwalk and green space all the way to 14 acres of Metropolitan Park.

The park space would flank new buildings proposed for that part of downtown — a relocated Museum of Science and History and a Four Seasons Hotel and Residences development proposed by Jaguars owner Shad Khan.

City Council members Matt Carlucci and Randy DeFoor heard the idea of renaming Metro Park when they convened a public meeting Wednesday about a conceptual plan being done by the Jessie Ball duPont Fund for the downtown riverfront.

DeFoor and Carlucci point to St. Petersburg as a model for how a Florida city uses waterfront parks as an attraction for its bayside downtown.

"We have so much [and] to play with and we have such a great opportunity to really change how we look at our parks and our river parks," DeFoor said.

The consultants hired by the duPont Fund said the amount of space is a big canvas for park design and activation. Jacksonville has "this wonderful river running through your downtown," but the riverfront largely isn't living up to expectations, said David van der Leer, principal of the DVDL firm.

"It could be so much more active, and even though some spaces are ready to go, it feels like it's not quite clicking," he said.

The duPont Fund is studying miles of downtown riverfront on the Northbank and Southbank, but much of the attention at this stage has gone on the vacant city-owned land known as the Shipyards along Bay Street.

The city has long planned to extend the Northbank Riverwalk through the Shipyards, but the consultants have gone above and beyond that approach.

They've come up with a plan that features a raised area they call "a resilience esplanade" because it would act as a buffer from floodwaters while also offering broad views of the St. Johns River. The esplanade, running parallel to the river, would have a path with shade trees and benches.

"You're not right beside the water, but you basically have a view of the whole river because you're set farther back and higher up," said Claire Weisz, principal-in-charge at WXY Architects.

A second way to move through the park would be on a pier promenade closer to the river. That promenade would run diagonally through the park and rise as people walk along it to a point where they can look up and down the river toward the Hart, Mathews, Main Street and Acosta bridges.

A third way to move through the park would be sidewalks along Bay Street. Weisz said when people go to parks, they want multiple ways to move through them and "most famous waterfronts have at least three layers."

The consultants also are looking at ways to take advantage of the piers that jut into the river.

One pier would be the dock for the USS Orleck if the nonprofit Jacksonville Naval Museum is able to bring it here for use as a floating museum.

That end of the Shipyards also could become the new home for a historic fire station that sits now on a nearby site that used to be a Kids Kampus playground. Iguana Investments, the company owned by Khan, wants to build a Four Seasons development on that land, which would require relocating the fire station.

The conceptual plan also has examined how to place a relocated Veterans Memorial Wall into the mix for what could be a "Heroes Park" recognizing first responders and the military.

The pitch by the Veterans Council of Duval County leaders would put the wall farther down the riverfront in a renamed Metropolitan Park.

"If you get that Heroes Park going on one side and Veterans Memorial Park going, that's starts developing known markers as a destination," Trotti said. "People will start coming to Jacksonville to visit special sites."

The duPont study also is looking at a variety of other features such as a restaurant, play spaces, pavilion, cultural center, "floating pool," floating restaurant on barge, food hall, water fountain, fishing pier, kayak portage and patio.

More: Jacksonville would need state approval for land swap to clear way for Four Seasons Hotel

"It's like a game of Tetra," said Mari Kuraishi, president of the Jessie Ball duPont Fund. "How do you make those little weird pieces fit?"

She said the duPont Fund's work will be conceptual and stop shore of going into detailed engineering specifications, and given the financial challenges, putting the concepts into action will likely be done in stages over a period of years.

But having the conceptual plan for the downtown riverfront will enable each piece of work on the riverfront to fit into a bigger picture, she said.

"It is our hope that that the conceptual plan creates a blueprint for people to work on together over time," she said.

The duPont Fund plans to unveil its riverfront activation plan on Oct. 1.

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