Jacksonville | Two walkable n'hoods + a waterfront bonus

[Cirrus]

I spent a day in Jacksonville around New Years, in its surprisingly walkable San Marco and Five Points neighborhoods. Here they are!

San Marco is clearly upscale, centered around a nice park with a fountain of lions in its center. It's really very pleasant. I haven't been to Miami, but San Marco might be the nicest non-downtown neighborhood in a Florida city I've visited.


















The streets, well it's Florida, they suck. But I love this mural!




On the opposite side of downtown, Five Points is just as walkable but gives off a younger, more indie vibe. If San Marco is where you go to buy stationery and fancy lattes, Five points seems to be where you go for vintage thrifting and late-night drinking.














Jacksonville's skyline as a facade mosaic is so good.




We spent a few minutes along the Southbank Riverwalk, across from downtown. It's pretty and I bet on a weekday in the summer it's hopping, but there wasn't much going on while we were there.

I hope "Skyline Babe" is living her best live. Does she know about SkyscraperPage, I wonder?


















Bye! Thanks for looking! Happy Valentine's Day!

[hauntedheadnc]

Jacksonville: Zenith city of the salted and unsalted seas!

[pj3000]

Cool, I'll have to check this area out sometime.

[ColDayMan]

Jacksonville has other neighborhoods with some solid NBDs as well though these two are the winners.

[edale]

These look like great neighborhood business districts! I didn't know Jacksonville had places like these. Thanks for sharing your photos!

[geomorph]

Thank you for the tour.

[hauntedheadnc]

I got curious about that fountain and looked it up. It was designed in the 90s to replace an older fountain, and the community loves their lions. Each lion is positioned to face a prominent nearby landmark, and they're dressed up for most holidays. In one article I found, they were wearing party hats to celebrate their 21st birthday in 2018. Another one showed them wearing pink tutus to mark breast cancer awareness in October.

[EastSideHBG]

I haven't been yet but know a little about it though discussions, as a friend has family there and goes there often and another friend just took a job there. Seems like a place flying under the radar but ripe for being another booming spot.

[JManc]

My niece just moved there a few weeks ago from South Florida and it's a pretty underrated city.

[xzmattzx]

Nice pictures! It's good to see some Jacksonville on here. Both neighborhoods seem interesting! I'll have to keep them in mind if I'm ever in town.

[Wigs]

Nice pics!

Fun fact: Jacksonville was voted best skyline in America 1776 times

[BnaBreaker]

Nice tour, thanks! I think Jax has an undeserved poor reputation, at least on this forum. Overall at has always seemed like a pleasant city to me... and close to great beaches too!

[Murphy de la Sucre]

always a myth, as jacksonville is the LARGEST city in florida

[Altoic]

In my opinion, Jacksonville is rated accordingly. Unfortunately outside of San Marco, Downtown, and Five points there isn't much. (Springfield has a nice section along N Main St but it's a bit sparse).

Compared to every city in Florida of it's size, it just lacks in a lot. Miami, Tampa Bay, and Orlando have walkable neighborhoods in the same nature seen here with more diverse and active downtowns, etc.

I appreciate Jacksonville for doing a lot to change the city in recent years. Lately the Friendship Fountain opened, they tore down a large section of the Hart Bridge ramp, and they're offering incentives for downtown.

Maybe my POV is limited as I haven't lived there myself, but that's just my observation.

[BnaBreaker]

Originally Posted by Altoic

In my opinion, Jacksonville is rated accordingly. Unfortunately outside of San Marco, Downtown, and Five points there isn't much. (Springfield has a nice section along N Main St but it's a bit sparse).

Compared to every city in Florida of it's size, it just lacks in a lot. Miami, Tampa Bay, and Orlando have walkable neighborhoods in the same nature seen here with more diverse and active downtowns, etc.

I appreciate Jacksonville for doing a lot to change the city in recent years. Lately the Friendship Fountain opened, they tore down a large section of the Hart Bridge ramp, and they're offering incentives for downtown.

Maybe my POV is limited as I haven't lived there myself, but that's just my observation.

Yeah you're probably right. I've only been there once so I'm operating off of extremely limited experience myself. I suppose a city it's size should be expected to have a couple halfway decent neighborhoods.

[Cirrus]

I mean, Jacksonville is quite a bit smaller than Miami, Tampa, or Orlando. Of course I mean according to a measure that matters, not the accident of municipal boundaries. Pound for pound I think it easily out hits Tampa or Orlando. Miami maybe not.

[ColDayMan]

Agreed. Jacksonville "feels" like the oldest major city in Florida, and that's a good thing. St. Johns Avenue in Avondale, Edgewood Avenue in Murray Hill, Main Street in Springfield, the aforementioned Riverside/Five Points and San Marco all feel more traditionally Southern NBD-wise ala Atlanta/Birmingham/Tennessee than what Orlando and Tampa offer overall.

[Altoic]

That's a fair point, I was thinking more of city populations but Jacksonville has annexed a lot.

But I don't think it's still pound for pound to Orlando or Tampa even considering MSA pops.
Tampa in 1985 had a similar MSA population and included Ybor city which is San Marco and Five Points combined in size. Hyde Park Village opened in 1985 and was fairly walkable and nice, although a bit car dependent. University of Tampa feels disconnected but altogether is walkable. This doesn't even include St. Pete with the Central Arts district. Even the bones of St. Pete and Tampa feel more connected than Jacksonville when overlooking both cities.

Orlando is also at a similar standing, albeit can be argued is pound for pound with Jacksonville.

My main point isn't to compare the neighborhoods of both cities, but it's fairly clear when seeing all 3, at least to me.

[Murphy de la Sucre]

Originally Posted by Wigs

Nice pics!

Fun fact: Jacksonville was voted best skyline in America 1776 times

The fact is not of fun if it's a real fact.

I personally vote Jacksonville skyline as among the ugliest, only better than Wichita, Corpus Christi

definition of an ugly skyline is that it's hard to find a proper angle to catch the well balanced skyline as a whole.

[cabasse]

je hebt gevoel voor humor nodig

there are definitely plenty of uglier skylines than jacksonville's, IMO. (new orleans, birmingham, memphis, fort worth, oklahoma city to name a few off the top of my head) i've always enjoyed driving through the city coming up on 95N, crossing over water and then hopping on 10W. street view jacksonville really has like 3 separate skylines - southbank, downtown and brooklyn/five points.

i agree with altoic here though - tampa bay's metropolitan district population was actually bigger than jacksonville's by 1940 (209k vs 195k) the main neighborhoods are just spread across both major cities in tampa. ybor city is probably the best example among any cities in florida of an urban retail district outside of downtown, as well. citynerd just put out a video covering the best parts of st pete. it's probably going to start getting expensive, quickly. (damnit) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOCHiisI9gY