A few months ago, not long after the first phase of Riverfront Plaza opened where the Jacksonville Landing used to be, my wife and I went downtown to the new park.
It was a beautiful day, so we decided to walk along the Northbank.
At that point, with construction in both directions, this involved zigging and zagging on and off the riverwalk. We headed to Independent Drive, went under the Main Street Bridge and, as we were nearing the Hyatt, came upon a couple, hunched over a phone, trying to figure out where they were and how to get somewhere.
They asked about the riverwalk and Riverfront Plaza.
We tried to explain how to get there. They asked what was past it.
Well, we said …
We explained that another park was being built. The riverwalk was blocked off. So you’d have to go around that section of the riverwalk. And even when you came back to it, you’d get to the corkscrew and discover that a pedestrian bridge was out.
We ended up suggesting they cross the Main Street Bridge and walk the Southbank Riverwalk from Friendship Fountain to the recently-opened park at Rivers Edge.
“That’s a nice walk,” I said, adding something like: “And someday this side of the river will be, too.”
Someday another park park will open, those gaps will be closed and the Northbank will have a continuous riverfront walk again, stretching for a couple of miles, through some new additions, over the new McCoys Creek channel, to the Fuller Warren Bridge and the shared-use path that has been a big hit ever since it opened in 2023.
That day was May 13, 2026.
Word of the day: progress
“We gather to celebrate progress,” Daryl Joseph, city of Jacksonville parks director, said at a ribbon-cutting Wednesday.
Progress. That was the word of the day, echoed by Mayor Donna Deegan and others who spoke.
The progress goes beyond a section of the Northbank Riverwalk, behind the Times-Union Center for the Performing Arts, that had been closed to the public for construction since July 8, 2024.
But this alone is worth celebrating.
That stretch of riverwalk reopened Wednesday morning as the Riverfront Music Garden, a park devoted to Jacksonville’s music history. It includes an interactive exhibit, a Walk of Fame honoring 30 acts with local ties and — something else worth celebrating — some additional trees.
After the ribbon-cutting, JJ Grey headed to some of the shade along the walk to check out the plaque for “JJ Grey & Mofro,” in the middle of a series paying tribute to a remarkable range of music past and present — from the Johnson brothers (James Weldon and John Rosamond) to the Allman Brothers, Ma Rainey, Ray Charles, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Limp Bizkit, Classics IV, 95 South, the Tedeschi Trucks Band (peers which Grey says deserve to be considered among the best anywhere, anytime) and more.
“What an honor,” he said.
Considering how much of his band’s music is intertwined with natural Florida — with lyrics and a sound that have led to Mofro’s music being described as “swamp funk” — it seems like a fitting place for that honor.
Not inside, in some air-conditioned room.
Outside, on the banks of the river that runs Jacksonville.
When I asked Grey about that, he said “100 percent” and pointed to water and said he started writing one of his songs, “This River,” not far from there, near the Cummer Museum, while looking out at the St. Johns.
“To me, the land creates the music,” he said. “I like to hypothesize that if aliens came here tomorrow and you gave them five types of music and five pictures of the places where the music came from, something would match up.”
Not that Jacksonville music can be defined by one genre. But, Grey said, so many types of music — and he grew up listening to his mother’s classical music, his father’s country and his sister’s disco before getting his first album, Skynyrd’s “Gold & Platinum” — have soul. And a sense of place.
The last time he was in this precise place, it was for the symphony. And when he was looking out the windows near the river, he wondered what was being built there.
A few days before the ribbon-cutting, he found out there was a paver with his name on it.
As Grey checked that out, not far away Carlos Spencer from 95 South (which has to be one of the best local band names ever) found the plaque for his band, which in 1993 gave us “Whoot, There It Is.”
He said that growing up in Jacksonville, he was heavily influenced by Lynyrd Skynyrd and Limp Bizkit, not so much musically but more as an inspiration that you could make it to the top from Jacksonville.
“If those groups could do it, we could do it,” he said.
And yet even after making it big far beyond Jacksonville, the pull to come back often is strong. Just listen to Susan Tedeschi singing “Back to the River.” Or JJ Grey’s “This River,” the song he started writing on the Northbank, just up the river from the new park.
‘Brighter Days’
By itself, the Riverfront Music Garden is a nice addition.
But what really makes this worth celebrating is the bigger picture, the linear connection that is vital to making our riverfront great — and the progress.
There has been a lot of that lately. There are still holes, still pieces that need to be connected (like the Shipyards on the Northbank), still valid concerns about the future of downtown.
But I’ll save those for another day and mention that on this day, JJ Grey brought up that the river in front of him was responsible for another song. Maybe more. But definitely one in particular, with a title that seemed fitting for the mood of those who were enjoying the new park and renewed riverwalk.
“Brighter Days.”
mwoods@jacksonville.com
(904) 359-4212
This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Brighter Days on Jacksonville’s riverfront with progress on parks
Reporting by Mark Woods, Jacksonville Florida Times-Union / Florida Times-Union
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
