Fleet Landing’s Vision for the Southbank Remains Unchanged

A Riverfront Vision That Welcomes Every Generation

By Josh Ashby, Chief Executive Officer, Fleet Landing and Ari Jolly, Chair, Board of Directors Fleet Landing

Jacksonville’s Southbank is one of the city’s greatest untapped assets, a stretch of riverfront that should invite life at every hour of the day. Since the beginning, the St. Johns River has shaped

Jacksonville’s identity, but too often we’ve let it separate where we live, work, and gather. The Duval Public Schools District Headquarters site offers the chance to reconnect the city with its river. Fleet Landing’s proposal sought to do exactly that: create a landmark community that combines architecturally distinctive design, inviting public spaces, and year-round economic activity. The project would have generated millions in annual property tax revenue for local schools and the city, supported hundreds of new jobs, and delivered riverfront amenities open to everyone without requiring a single dollar of taxpayer funding.

The School Board chose not to move forward, a decision we respect. Public service requires prudence, and the Board is right to be cautious when stewarding public assets. Yet some of the conversation surrounding the vote revealed a deeper civic challenge: the quiet notion that older adults should be kept apart from the city’s most visible and dynamic spaces.

That sentiment, however unintended, reflects a misunderstanding of what active senior living means today. The people who would call Fleet Landing Southbank home are not stepping back from life; they are entering its next, most engaged chapter. They are entrepreneurs, patrons of the arts, volunteers, and mentors, people who attend community events of every kind, dine downtown, and give generously to local causes. To suggest they don’t belong on the riverfront is not simply ageist; it is economically short-sighted.

The world’s most vibrant cities, from Charleston to Austin to Copenhagen, have learned that intergenerational vitality sustains great urban places. When people of every age live, work, and gather together, neighborhoods thrive.

Fleet Landing’s vision for the Southbank remains about inclusion and progress, a riverfront that reflects Jacksonville’s potential, creativity, and spirit of renewal. Whenever the Board elects to revisit the site’s future, we stand ready to partner in realizing that promise: a downtown where every generation has a place at the water’s edge.