We can have a great waterfront park at the foot of Centre Street along the marina with a simple plan of only two parts.
First: Convert all the existing parking along the waterfront south of Centre to grassy parkland with minimal infrastructure and facilities.
Second: On existing city owned land just east of city hall, build a three story parking garage with more than 2x the lost parking space.
The result of these two actions is a large passive waterfront park in downtown Fernandina.
To make this work, there are some assumptions that need to be made and some actions need to be taken that will affect very few residents of Fernandina.
Two of the assumptions & policy changes that make this work:
[1] An new understanding about the purpose of the marina. And the actions needed that are consistent with this purpose and which support the best possible waterfront park.
[2] A new understanding that many special events need to be elsewhere.
[1] An new understanding about the purpose of the marina and actions needed.
The marina should be understood to be a visual ‘decoration’ or visual amenity for the citizens of Fernandina. The marina makes the downtown more attractive and it is a nice visual to an otherwise industrial waterfront.
We all like marina views, the docks, the boats and even some of the big ships on the westernmost dock. The ability to stroll in a waterfront park with these marina views and maybe take a picture with these boats in the background is all that the marina is. It’s a background. A very nice background and one that we should have.
The marina is not an income generating business and it never will be. Citizens of Fernandina have spent money on the marina for decades and have never received any financial benefit. We need to stop pretending this is a business. It is simply an expense center that makes the marina views possible.
With the understanding of what the marina is, we can make some changes that make a potential park better:
Close the boat launch ramp. Boaters can use the North end boat launch site.
Remove the retail fish store by the boat ramp (Atlantic Seafood). There is no shortage of nearby places for a good fresh fish store, maybe along 8th street.
Relocate the boater shower / laundry facility to a portion of the new parking building or to a small new facility at the north end of the remaining waterfront parking lot.
Convert the former shrimp museum / current boater lounge to a coffee shop / wine bar / snack bar facility with new restrooms in the rear. This would be appropriate for this kind of park. With lots of indoor and outdoor covered seating already in place.
These closed areas are converted to grass and the walk way on either side of this area is extended to connect with the other creating a walk along the entire southern waterfront. No need for a flood protection wall for use as a passive park, but nothing in this plan stops one from being created should it be found to benefit the citizens of Fernandina in some way.
[2] A new understanding that many special events need to be elsewhere.
Today, the hard surface southern waterfront areas are used for special events. Most of these events are inappropriate for a lawn in a park. Many of these could be moved to Central Park and some to Main Beach. There might be some effect on Centre Street businesses but Centre Street activity has grown so much that this periodic event activity is unlikely to be very meaningful in economic impact.
Not for this article, but perhaps in another is the discussion about parks for events for the benefit of citizens of Fernandina.
Fernandina has a population over 13,000. It is certain that thousands would use a waterfront park in any given year. Relative to this is the loss of use of the marina for a very few Fernandina citizens. The greater good is the conversion of the waterfront land to parkland. A new waterfront park over 1,000 feet in length.
For more than 2 decades, I’ve lived in Fernandina Beach. For longer than 2 decades there have been plans to improve the downtown waterfront especially with respect to more public spaces. There has been a lot of discussion about this recently in public comments from City Manager Martin, City Commissioner Chip Ross, and various other parties like Bob Allison.
And nothing ever happens. This commentary was written by me to suggest a simple plan that gets us a BIG waterfront park quickly.