Nearly six years after the city demolished the former Jacksonville Landing, the “destination” public park Riverfront Plaza will have its soft opening Saturday on the Downtown Northbank.

In conjunction with the inaugural River Fest holiday celebration and annual tree lighting, the public will be able to walk the paths and event lawn in the park’s $33 million Phase I.

Daryl Joseph, the city’s director of Parks, Recreation and Community Services, says a full ribbon cutting will follow on Dec. 5 where Riverfront Plaza’s “signature” playground and splash pad will officially open.

“This has been something we’ve been working on for a while. The Landing was a monumental location for the city,” Joseph told Jacksonville Today while traveling the park’s walking path. “I think Riverfront Plaza will also be that.”

Riverfront Plaza’s debut comes just days after city officials and developer Preston Hollow Community Capital held a ribbon cutting Monday for four acres of public park space across the St. Johns River at the RiversEdge development site on the Southbank.

Riverfront Plaza years in the making

Construction began in Riverfront Plaza in early 2024, after going through years of design refinements with park architect Perkins & Will.

Entering the park from Forsyth Street and Independent Drive, visitors will see the playground that flows from the ground onto the rooftop of the park’s cafe building. It includes wooden towers with metal slides; soft turf; interactive sound and musical features; and the splash pad.

Moving toward the river, the event lawn connects to the Jacksonville Center for the Performing Arts with a walkout on the event hall’s east side. According to Joseph, that’s where a temporary stage can be set up for outdoor concerts. There are walking paths through the park that link the street to the Northbank Riverwalk.

Crews installed mostly native plants and trees, many that are more mature which Joseph says will help the tree canopy establish more quickly.

Joseph says the Riverwalk will reopen with the park, but the connections to the rest of the Northbank Riverwalk system won’t be complete until early 2026. That also coincides with the planned completion of the Music Heritage Garden on the waterfront side of the performing arts center. 

“There was a lot of planning and design work taking place prior to dirt turning,” Joseph said. “So, over the last few years, we’ve really been intentional about getting public comment to make sure we put things in the space that the community wanted to see and making sure this was a space that was also fun and exciting and something we didn’t (already) have here in Jacksonville.”

City officials say there is no timeline to resume plans for a riverfront restaurant originally planned for phase 1 of the park. Joseph says the city is working to program the restaurant site which is currently part of the park’s green space.

While workers for project contractor The Haskell Company put the finishing touches on Phase I, they’re already moving construction fencing to begin building the $45 million Phase II early next year.

This will transform the east side of the former Landing site with a biergarten, rain garden and a new physical pedestrian and bicycle connection to the Main Street Bridge.

Joseph says city officials are coordinating with developer Gateway Jax which plans to build a 17-story hotel and condominium tower with ground-floor lobby and restaurants on the northeastern corner of the Phase II site. The tower’s restaurant and retail spaces will also have a natural connection to the park space.

Health at the core of RiversEdge parks

On the Southbank, the RiversEdge development puts health as the theme of its parks that just opened to the delight of Jacksonville children and families.

RiversEdge opened its park space to the public during the city-led celebration Nov. 24. As officials and representatives of Preston Hollow cut the ribbon to open the parks, dozens of happy children in the background were already perched on jungle gyms and swings.

RiversEdge’s four parks are at 2010 Prudential Drive and feature a playground, large outdoor swings, interactive play equipment, cooling water misters, an outdoor gym, a yoga lawn and marsh boardwalk.

Now, those walking along the river boardwalk can make a continuous trek all the way from Friendship Fountain, near the former Museum of Science and History, to the RiversEdge area, which is east of the Duval School Board building.

During the ribbon cutting Monday afternoon, Jacksonville Mayor Donna Deegan described the parks as part of a larger mixed-use neighborhood that will bring homes, shops, restaurants, offices and a marina together.

“This park is designed with health, connection and quality of life at its heart. In other words, everything my administration is about,” Deegan said.

The city planted 200 trees in the park spaces, using money from its tree fund.  

Deegan told the crowd they turned “what was once an under-used (and) mostly vacant stretch of riverfront into a welcoming public park that belongs to everybody in Jacksonville.”

She says the idea is to turn the Downtown riverfront into the city’s “front porch.”   

The Rivers Edge development adds to Downtown’s growing public park space — Central Park, (the main gathering area), Heartbeat Park, The Gym (with playgrounds and yoga lawn), and Healing Garden which focuses on meditation. 

Four years ago, Preston Hollow broke ground on the 32-acre, $693 million Downtown Southbank megaproject.

The company’s CEO, Jim Thompson, said this completes the parks and boardwalk portion of the project and the restoration of the bulkhead.

“That was a very, very expensive and long project. It took a couple of years to get that bulkhead in. And so it’s really the bulkhead, the boardwalk and the parks that are complete.”

Thompson says vertical development comes next — a hotel, an office building and townhomes.

“Toll Brothers has done a great job getting these townhomes out of the ground, and I think they’re doing fairly well selling them. The rest of the land has been allocated or approved for multifamily condos, as I mentioned, hotel lot … and provisioning for office space,” Thompson said.

The developer will be reimbursed by the city for its work on the public park space — a piece of about $70 million in infrastructure at the site. The $22.88 million city portion is funded by property taxes collected within the Downtown Southbank Community Redevelopment Area. The developers’ CDD is paying for $45.91 million, and there will be $1.2 million in tree planting paid for by the city’s tree fund. 

Parents like Julie Ann Maszy who came out for the ribbon cutting showed enthusiasm about the RiversEdge recreation space.

“I have a seven-year-old daughter and we live right in the heart of Downtown, so to have places that we can go locally is just awesome for our whole family,” Maszy said.