seven years since the mass shooting at the Jacksonville Landing<\/a>, a tragedy that forever changed the city.\u00a0<\/p>\nThe iconic riverfront site was demolished in the years that followed, and after extensive construction, the space is being reimagined as Riverfront Plaza.<\/p>\n
The Riverfront Plaza project is moving forward in two phases. Phase 1, currently under construction and expected to open in early 2026, will feature an elevated destination playground atop a park pavilion, a large flexible event lawn, a new bulkhead and riverwalk, a plaza connecting the space to the Jacksonville Center for the Performing Arts, and park amenities including a caf\u00e9, restrooms, and storage.<\/p>\n
Phase 2, scheduled to begin construction in Fall 2025 and anticipated to be completed in 2027, will add a beer garden, a rain garden for both aesthetics and stormwater management, and a bike and pedestrian connection to the Main Street Bridge to improve accessibility.<\/p>\n
Locals hope the new space will recapture the sense of fun and community the Landing once provided.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThat really brought a dark cloud over it because it\u2019s a place where people go to have a good time, expect to just smile and be free for a little bit,\u201d Jacksonville native Dwanyi Shamobley said.<\/p>\n
Aaron Merritt from the Northside suggested, \u201cTry to put a little amusement park in there. We need something fun. We ain\u2019t got nothing fun for real.\u201d<\/p>\n
City officials say they will continue exploring ways to honor the victims of the 2018 shooting and will provide updates as Riverfront Plaza nears completion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jacksonville’s Riverfront Plaza aims to recapture community spirit with new amenities by 2027. JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 Today marks…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":178360,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5136],"tags":[5229,3188,723,7310,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-178359","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jacksonville","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-fl","10":"tag-florida","11":"tag-jacksonville","12":"tag-united-states","13":"tag-united-states-of-america","14":"tag-unitedstates","15":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","16":"tag-us","17":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115097886034369752","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178359","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=178359"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178359\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/178360"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=178359"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=178359"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=178359"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}