JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — The Jacksonville Jaguars are revealing what they heard during four weeks of “community huddles” on the stadium renovation proposal.
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The team hosted 16 community huddles to answer questions about the proposed stadium project. The new report listed 35 topics of concern.
Action News Jax’s Annette Gutierrez spoke with some locals that shared their top concerns.
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One major issue for the community was parking in the area for games.
“Why build a bigger stadium if you can’t fit more people?” said Jacksonville resident Christian Schloth. “So yeah, a bigger parking lot would be needed.”
“All the real estate development there started to take [parking] away a little bit here and there, but they have to find opportunities to disperse the crowd,” echoed Conner Gregory, another Jacksonville resident.
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The team is also working with JTA to add more public transportation and is supporting ride-sharing with new infrastructure.
Another issue raised was pedestrian safety.
“The only issue you have is people crossing where you’re not supposed to cross, and usually, there are cops there telling them like, go down a little bit and cross down there,” said Parker Dufresne.
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Neighbors asked if there could be pedestrian bridges added to the design specifically to cross East Bay Street and Gator Bowl Boulevard.
“I think it’s a great idea because it’s kind of hard getting out of there with cars in certain areas with a creak over there,” said Gregory.
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Some people also asked about having neighboring counties help with the cost of the stadium.
Dufresne lives in St. Johns County and said he just wants the city to work it out with the team.
“Like, I don’t want to end up like St. Louis or San Diego that lost their teams. I want to keep them here,” he told Action News Jax.
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While we still need to hear what the city says about the proposals, many people Gutierrez spoke to said they hope to see these new plans come to fruition.
“I mean, we have so much space over here and so many historic buildings that have so much potential, but they’re just kind of being wasted right now,” said Jacksonville resident Caitlin Heene.
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