St. Johns Marina Boat Ramp in Downtown Jacksonville to Close for Two Years

The City of Jacksonville will close the St. Johns Marina boat ramp on the Southbank for a major reconstruction project that will keep the public facility offline for approximately two years. The closure, announced July 21, makes way for improvements including rerouted vehicle access, new trailer parking beneath the Acosta Bridge, channel dredging, and a replacement ramp built to accommodate larger vessels.

The city's Parks, Recreation and Community Services Department expects the upgraded ramp to reopen in summer 2028, with progress updates posted at JaxParks.com. During the closure, boaters will need to use alternative launch sites including the Arlington Road Boat Ramp at 5103 Arlington Road and the Arlington Lions Club Boat Ramp at 4322 Richard D. Gatlin Road, both on the Southside.

What's happening

The St. Johns Marina boat ramp, located on the downtown Southbank near the Acosta Bridge, will undergo a complete renovation during the closure period. The scope of work includes four major components: rerouting vehicular access to the facility, constructing new boat trailer parking spaces under the Acosta Bridge structure, dredging the approach area to improve water depth at the ramp, and replacing the existing boat ramp with a longer version designed to handle larger vessels.

The city has not disclosed the project budget or construction contract details in the announcement. The Department of Parks, Recreation and Community Services, which manages more than 400 parks and recreational spaces across Duval County's one million residents, is overseeing the project. Questions about the closure and construction timeline can be directed to the city's 630-CITY information line.

Impact on downtown river access

The two-year closure removes the most convenient public boat launch point for downtown Jacksonville and the lower St. Johns River for recreational boaters who live or work in the urban core. The St. Johns Marina ramp sits on the Southbank within sight of the downtown skyline, providing direct access to the river's navigable main channel and proximity to both upstream destinations like the Ortega River and downstream routes toward the Intracoastal Waterway and the Atlantic.

The designated alternate ramps in Arlington are both approximately seven to nine miles east of the Southbank facility via Arlington Road and Arlington Expressway, adding 15 to 20 minutes of towing time each direction for boaters who previously used the downtown ramp. Both Arlington facilities offer St. Johns River access on the Southside, but are situated miles downstream from the urban core. Boaters heading upriver to popular fishing and recreation areas around Doctor's Lake, Julington Creek, or the Buckman Bridge will face longer on-water runs from the Arlington locations.

The closure also affects tournament fishing events and recreational fishing access to the river's urban reach, which holds spotted seatrout, redfish, flounder, and seasonal tarpon. Downtown riverfront restaurants and fuel docks that serve boaters launching from St. Johns Marina may see reduced midweek traffic during the construction period.

Construction impacts and Southbank development context

Rerouting vehicular access and building trailer parking under the Acosta Bridge will require coordination with traffic patterns on the Southbank, an area that has seen increasing residential and commercial development in recent years as the city and Downtown Investment Authority push activation of the riverfront. Construction equipment, lane restrictions, and periodic closures of access roads serving the marina site are typical of projects that reconfigure circulation and parking layouts.

Dredging the approach area to the boat ramp will involve removing accumulated sediment from the river bottom to maintain navigable depth for vessels using the new, longer ramp. In the St. Johns River, which flows north and carries sediment from upstream tributaries and stormwater outfalls, boat ramp approaches require periodic maintenance dredging. The work will likely require permits from the St. Johns River Water Management District and potentially the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, depending on the volume of material and placement site. Dredging operations generate noise and temporarily increase turbidity in the immediate work area.

The design decision to build a longer ramp capable of handling larger vessels reflects the evolving recreational boating market, where center-console fishing boats in the 25- to 35-foot range have become increasingly popular. A longer ramp allows these deeper-draft, heavier boats to launch and retrieve across a wider range of river stages and tide levels, particularly important on the St. Johns River where seasonal water-level fluctuations of a foot or more are common and tidal influence extends well upstream of downtown.

Trailer parking and urban infrastructure

Relocating boat trailer parking to the space beneath the Acosta Bridge utilizes otherwise underused right-of-way under the elevated bridge structure, a common strategy in urban areas where surface parking consumes valuable riverfront land. The Southbank has limited open space, and placing utilitarian trailer parking under the bridge deck frees the waterfront perimeter for public amenities or commercial activation, consistent with the city's long-term Southbank development vision.

Trailer parking areas require different design standards than standard car parking: longer stalls to accommodate trucks with boat trailers attached, wider drive aisles for maneuvering, and reinforced pavement to handle the point loads of tandem-axle trailers. Parking under a bridge also requires drainage infrastructure to handle runoff and adequate clearance height for taller vessels on trailers. The number of trailer spaces the new layout will provide has not been disclosed, but capacity is a frequent point of weekend congestion at popular urban boat ramps.

What happens next

The city has not announced a construction start date or contractor selection, but the summer 2028 reopening target implies work will begin in the coming months to allow the full two-year construction window. Projects of this type typically move through design, permitting for dredging and in-water work, and bidding phases before construction mobilization.

Updates on the project timeline and construction milestones will be posted at JaxParks.com, the Department of Parks, Recreation and Community Services' online hub. Boaters should expect the closure to last the full duration through summer 2028 and plan accordingly for trips requiring a launch site on the lower St. Johns River. The city has not indicated whether public meetings or input sessions will be held regarding the project scope or design.

The St. Johns Marina reconstruction joins a broader wave of public infrastructure upgrades in Jacksonville as the city works to keep pace with population growth and increased demand for recreational amenities. Downtown riverfront improvements and expansions of boat ramp capacity align with the city's efforts to leverage the St. Johns River as an economic and quality-of-life asset in one of Florida's fastest-growing metro areas. When the upgraded facility reopens in 2028, the longer ramp and expanded trailer parking will test whether the city's investment matches the trajectory of recreational boating demand on Northeast Florida's signature waterway.