Discover Jacksonville is our vision for a modern visitor center experience that is brochure-less, immersive, engaging, entertaining and useful. After 6 months of bouncing around ideas, building partnerships, researching equipment, testing VR experiences and fighting against the status quo – we are proud to share our concept with you, in an effort to spur the creativity and innovation.
Our team created Discover Jacksonville, a full-service tourism management agency that is also the name of the destination venue – a shared space between public and private entities, engaging business and leisure tourists, supporting Jacksonville’s economy and providing relocation services to individuals and their families moving to the river city.
Retail Experience
Guests enter into the visitor center and are welcomed into a retail space that’s designed to have the St. Johns River divide the room in half, both through the use of color on the floor and with the use of custom lighting on the ceiling – helping tell the story of the City and its geography from the moment visitors walk in.
The retail space offers a taste of Jacksonville through self-service craft beers, cold brew coffee, locally packaged and produced foods, local apparel and merchandise brands, as well as local sports team memorabilia. The goal for the retail experience is to welcome, to engage and to directly impact Jacksonville businesses, getting their products in front of visitors and helping drive those visitors out to taste and experience more of the City.
Relocation Services
Visitors can follow the river as it snakes through the retail experience and bends into the entrance of the relocation services component, tucked behind the tourism space. Discover Jacksonville’s relocation services will be primarily focused on local companies looking to recruit top talent in our City, and for individuals and families moving to Jacksonville looking for guidance from the knowledgeable Discover Jacksonville team.
Discover Jacksonville will serve as the welcoming committee, educating individuals and families moving to Jacksonville, Baldwin and to the beaches, about the City’s variety of neighborhoods, the real estate market, school systems, attractions, churches, events and happenings in those neighborhoods, in order to guide them into making the best decision for themselves and kick off their move to Jacksonville with ease. The relocation team’s efforts directly impact local companies and their ability to recruit top talent, as well as affecting those moving to the area by providing the insight and guidance most never receive when they come to our City.
The Tourism Space
Visitors can follow the river from the relocations services into an open tourism space, creating a seamless integration of components within the building. Within this space, visitors can build their own adventure using a custom built web app or fly around the city unbound with the Oculus Rift virtual reality kiosk. The kiosk is setup in front of a 75″ 4K LED screen and lounge seating to allow a group experience within the center.
