Cool Stuff in Other Cities

[HankStrong]

Wait.  So Andy went to drink heavily in San Diego?  A city like thousands of miles from here?  To think that I thought us po-dunk back-erd hillbillies never left Orlando?

 

DRINK ON ANDY!! DRINK ON!

[spenser1058]

14 minutes ago, HankStrong said:

Wait.  So Andy went to drink heavily in San Diego?  A city like thousands of miles from here?  To think that I thought us po-dunk back-erd hillbillies never left Orlando?

 

DRINK ON ANDY!! DRINK ON!

We only let the guys from the Shoe go out of town 'cuz they got class!

[dcluley98]

I hear they have the best fish tacos in the country in San Diego. Don't know about the burgers though.  

[AndyPok1]

Why yes, I did drink heavily.  And see concerts... while drinking heavily.

Jokes aside, I was super impressed with the city.  I literally stumbled into Petco Park (their baseball stadium) while trying to find a coffee shop to get some work done.  One of the first places I've visited where I could honestly see myself living that wasn't for some ulterior motive.

[spenser1058]

8 hours ago, smeagolsfree said:

Construction of note right now over 20 stories:

Vanderbilt Dorm  20 stories

Endeavor 12th and McGavock 20 stories

1200 Broadway 20 stories

Hyatt Regency 24 stories

BroadWest residential 34 stories

BroadWest Office 21 stories

Fifth + Broad residential 34 stories

Fifth + Broad Office 24 stories

Drury Plaza hotel 21 stories

The Joseph Hotel 21 stories

Kennect Nashville 20 stories

Due to start soon:

Embassy Suites 30 stories

Second & Demonbreun 40 stories

I thought it would be interesting to compare us to Nashville on a basis of towers going up right now thanks to the fine folks in their forum.

Nashville is growing, of course, like a house afire (13+%) as are we (17+%). Tennessee, however, is not growing nearly as fast (5.8%) as Florida (11.6%). Also, while Florida's other largest MSAs have double-digit growth (Miami 10.6%, Tampa 11.1%, Jax 11.8%), Nashville is the ball game in TN (vs. Knoxville and 'Nooga at 5% and Memphis taking a nap at 2%.) So, to the extent that growth is happening in the Volunteer State, it's likely to happen in Nashville.

As we know, downtown Orlando is vertically-challenged starting with real or unreal (depends on whom you ask) height restrictions imposed by Herndon airport. Also, while significant portions of Nashville's economy are downtown (music, tourism/conventions, state government, financial, some automotive offices in addition to the local government and lawyers we also have), more of ours is spread out, especially the tourism/convention  industries and tech, our biggest. We are also, sadly, not the state capital (hey, we tried.)

Now, looking at the list, there are several hotels. When building a hotel in Nashville, it makes sense to build it downtown because not only is that where a significant chunk of the businesses are (and state government), it's also where their tourism and convention activities are.

That's not the case for us: hotels are exploding in Orlando but in the attractions area. There's also the "cool" factor: much of what makes Nashville interesting to outsiders is downtown where the things that make Orlando well-known (the "half" they do know about) is southwest of town or at the beaches and KSC east of us.

Apart from our airport issue, Nashville has taller residential going up thanks to a factor we really don't have: the need for pied-a-terres for state legislators during session, folks in the music business and probably automotive folks regularly in town from Nissan, Bridgestone, GM, Ford, etc. Those (especially international visitors) looking for second homes in Orlando are more likely to buy homes in the attractions area rather than condos downtown and to bring the kids.

Finally, Vanderbilt's 20-story dorm makes sense given Vandy has already used much of the space they have. We're also building dorms in town but so far Creative Village has plenty of space (and there will probably be little difficulty going into Callahan if required.)

A caveat in all this: my purpose has been to focus on the difference between the two downtowns. To keep it from being (more) unwieldy, I've left out discussion of  Nashville's industrial plants (Nissan, Bridgestone, duPont, etc.) just as I haven't talked about Lockheed Martin or CFRP in Orlando. I should also mention there was a time in the '70's and early '80's when Nashville was headed in Orlando's direction with the Opryland theme park and the largest convention facility was the Opryland hotel, both out on Briley Parkway. Maitland Center-type office parks were proposed for places like MetroCenter and off I-24. The requisite suburban malls were also built. I like that today the Green Hills Mall relatively close to downtown is Nashville's premiere mall. Nashville was able to reel back some things to the core that we were not.

All in all, we see two incredibly fast-growing areas growing in different ways. Both cities are places where people want to be.

 

 

 

Edited September 23, 2018 by spenser1058

[JFW657]

On the other hand, in Nashville they have to look at...

...the Batman building everyday.

And we thought Sun Trust had a silly looking roofline.  

[AndyPok1]

On 9/23/2018 at 11:35 AM, spenser1058 said:

We are also, sadly, not the state capital (hey, we tried.)

I've heard rumours that at least once every few years it gets proposed to move it here because of the travel required from those down south (7+ hours in a car or plane expenses isn't really a good use of taxpayer money/time).  I just can't fathom the capital expenditures to build municipal buildings exists anymore.

[spenser1058]

11 minutes ago, AndyPok1 said:

I've heard rumours that at least once every few years it gets proposed to move it here because of the travel required from those down south (7+ hours in a car or plane expenses isn't really a good use of taxpayer money/time).  I just can't fathom the capital expenditures to build municipal buildings exists anymore.

The last serious effort was by Gov. Claude Kirk in the late 60's. Claude was not well-liked (he was the Donald Trump of his day) and after he lost election, Reubin Askew (a north Floridian) promptly set about building the new Capitol to disabuse anyone of such ideas in the future. Even today, there is a plaque in the new Capitol thanking Gov. Kirk for making the building possible. There's also the fact that legislators actually like the capital in Tally. They can get away with things they never would if they were closer to home. The NY Times has written about that syndrome regarding Albany several times over the years.

[JFW657]

One can only imagine how much different Orlando would be today if we were Florida's...

..."Capital City":

 

[HankStrong]

You never know how these things play out, but with the vast difference between N Florida and S Florida in politics (and Orlando being way more S than N in that regard) if the state were to ever get the traction to split in 2 it could happen.  Although, it would be the same problem with Orlando being really far from the middle of the new state.

[Dale]

15 hours ago, HankStrong said:

You never know how these things play out, but with the vast difference between N Florida and S Florida in politics (and Orlando being way more S than N in that regard) if the state were to ever get the traction to split in 2 it could happen.  Although, it would be the same problem with Orlando being really far from the middle of the new state.

I'm a huge fan of secession.

[HankStrong]

The new one for South Florida could reasonably be Sebring!

[JFW657]

If it were up to me to determine the new border separating North Florida from South Florida, I would draw it thusly:

NF would get Jacksonville, Daytona, Tampa/St Pete, Tallahassee & Pensacola.

SF would get Brevard, Orlando, Sarasota, Ft Myers, Ft Lauderdale, Miami & the Keys.

[JFW657]

Alternately, I could see swapping Orlando and Tampa...

Might make more sense.

[spenser1058]

10 minutes ago, JFW657 said:

Alternately, I could see swapping Orlando and Tampa...

Might make more sense.

The culture of North Florida really doesn't mesh with Orlando, Tampa or St. Pete (and truthfully a lot of urban Volusia) so I'm not sure exactly how you hit those demarcations - I'd definitely want the larger central Florida counties to go south.

[dcluley98]

I don't understand why you would separate Orlando and greater Tampa/St. Pete areas? Seems like Tampa/St. Pete and Orlando have more in common than the northern counties? 

Honestly, Florida is a pretty weird state. I have heard people say about Florida, "The further north you go in the state, the more southern they get".  Usually, though, it is kind of separated into Urban vs. Rural areas. The more urban areas tend to have more transplants and act differently than the less populated.  And then there's Miami/South Florida area, which could pretty much be it's own damn country (or planet for that matter). 

[spenser1058]

11 minutes ago, dcluley98 said:

I don't understand why you would separate Orlando and greater Tampa/St. Pete areas? Seems like Tampa/St. Pete and Orlando have more in common than the northern counties? 

Honestly, Florida is a pretty weird state. I have heard people say about Florida, "The further north you go in the state, the more southern they get".  Usually, though, it is kind of separated into Urban vs. Rural areas. The more urban areas tend to have more transplants and act differently than the less populated.  And then there's Miami/South Florida area, which could pretty much be it's own damn country (or planet for that matter). 

Miami is often referred to as the "6th borough" because of the cultural similarities with NYC.

[JFW657]

24 minutes ago, dcluley98 said:

I don't understand why you would separate Orlando and greater Tampa/St. Pete areas? Seems like Tampa/St. Pete and Orlando have more in common than the northern counties? 

Honestly, Florida is a pretty weird state. I have heard people say about Florida, "The further north you go in the state, the more southern they get".  Usually, though, it is kind of separated into Urban vs. Rural areas. The more urban areas tend to have more transplants and act differently than the less populated.  And then there's Miami/South Florida area, which could pretty much be it's own damn country (or planet for that matter). 

I was thinking in terms of equity vis-a-vis population, tax base, etc.

If Orlando and Tampa were both in SF, along with Miami, that would give SF a huge economic advantage over NF.

Alternately, if they were both in NF, along with Daytona and Jax, that would create an economic imbalance the other way.

Edited September 28, 2018 by JFW657

[spenser1058]

1 minute ago, JFW657 said:

I was thinking in terms of equity vis-a-vis population, tax base, etc.

If Orlando and Tampa were both in SF, along with Miami, that would give SF a huge economic advantage over NF.

Alternately, if they were both in NF, along with Daytona and Jax, that would create an economic imbalance the other way.

That certainly makes sense but I can't imagine politically the central Florida urban counties ever agreeing to go with north Florida. Truthfully, I doubt most of north Florida would want us, either. As we've learned in the age of Trump, culture really does matter. Given any change would be political, those sensibilities would have to be considered.

[spenser1058]

To show how politics gets involved in this stuff, Florida was originally supposed to come into the Union as two states (East FL - free, West FL - slave). Because of the pre-Civil War compromise at the time, for every free state entered, there had to be a corresponding slave state. Since Iowa was ready to come in as a free state, they had to bundle up Florida into one as a slave state.

[Dale]

21 minutes ago, spenser1058 said:

That certainly makes sense but I can't imagine politically the central Florida urban counties ever agreeing to go with north Florida. Truthfully, I doubt most of north Florida would want us, either. As we've learned in the age of Trump, culture really does matter. Given any change would be political, those sensibilities would have to be considered.

The "age of Trump" is just another name for what we've had, for a long time, with Trump just bringing it out.

[dcluley98]

In the original colonies, Florida was sceded to the British shortly before the American revolution with the Treaty of Paris in 1763.  The British divided the territory into West Florida and East Florida. West Florida was actually part of several other current states including portions of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and the panhandle. Its capital was Pensacola. East Florida was the rest of what is our current state with the capital of St. Augustine. After the revolution, the British gave Florida territories back to Spain, but the borders changed. Then in the time of 1795-1820, there were many wars and much dispute of who had claim to what. During the War of 1812, the portion of West Florida known as "the Mobile District" was surrendered to America and became part of the Mississipi territory. Spain still controlled the rest of what would become our modern-day Florida. Finally, in 1821, the Adams–Onís Treaty officially clarified what would become the Florida territory which was ceded to the United States. 

The history of back and forth between multiple countries during that time is fascinating. 

[Dale]

My gggg-grandfather was a Loyalist, living in SC at the outbreak of the so-called Revolutionary War. He fled SC, with a price on his head, to the sanctity of then British-controlled Florida, St. Augustine specifically. To this day, there is a plaque, in the downtown park, signifying that St. Augustine was a Loyalist stronghold.

[HankStrong]

I believe that an even better solution would be to simply cede the panhandle to Alabama.  The general mentality is similar and it would certainly clean up the state map in a big way.

 

Plus those 10 counties make up less than 1 million people.  You'd make Alabama go from 5M to 6M and only have Florida go from 21M to 20M.  But essentially you'd take 1M country folk from Florida and give them to the country folk of Alabama.

[JFW657]

1 minute ago, HankStrong said:

I believe that an even better solution would be to simply cede the panhandle to Alabama.  The general mentality is similar and it would certainly clean up the state map in a big way.

 

Plus those 10 counties make up less than 1 million people.  You'd make Alabama go from 5M to 6M and only have Florida go from 21M to 20M.  But essentially you'd take 1M country folk from Florida and give them to the country folk of Alabama.

I've considered on occasion, the benefits of freeing the rest of us from the political influence of the "Redneck Riviera" too.

I'd be all for it.