Arlington, Jacksonville

Arlington is a Jacksonville neighborhood along the St. Johns River, at the heart of the City's Greater Arlington/Beaches planning district.

The City's Greater Arlington/Beaches Vision Plan (2010) describes a district of almost 42,000 acres, about 62 square miles, with more than forty residential neighborhoods. Its predominant physical characteristics are the St. Johns River along the western and northern borders, the Intracoastal Waterway and beach communities to the east, Craig Airport and Naval Station Mayport, and colleges including Jacksonville University, Jones College and Florida State College at Jacksonville.

Jacksonville University, established in 1934, describes its campus as set in Jacksonville's historic Arlington neighborhood, with a half-mile stretch along the St. Johns River. The university's own About page gives two campus sizes: 235 acres in its introduction and 260 acres in its fast facts. Old Arlington is the older riverside core; the City places Norman Studios "in the heart of Old Arlington."

Fort Caroline was the French colony founded on the St. Johns River in 1564 and attacked by Spanish troops in the fall of 1565.

The National Park Service writes that two centuries of Spanish and French colonial rivalry in North America began there in 1564, when Admiral Gaspard de Coligny envisioned Fort Caroline as a French challenge to Spanish colonies, a potential commercial venture and a shelter for Huguenots. Rene de Goulaine de Laudonniere led the attempt, and the group of 200 named the area La Caroline after King Charles IX. The local Timucua initially helped the French build the fort.

Spain answered quickly. King Philip II sent an armada under Don Pedro Menendez de Aviles, whose troops attacked the fort in the fall of 1565, killing most of the settlers they found. In April 1568 the French sent Dominique de Gourgues, who landed at Fort San Mateo (Fort Caroline) and captured and burned the fort. The NPS notes that the exact site of the fort is unknown and that visitors see a large-scale model based on contemporary drawings.

Today Fort Caroline National Memorial memorializes the short-lived French presence in sixteenth century Florida and hosts the visitor center for the entire Timucuan Preserve, at 12713 Fort Caroline Road. Current NPS operating hours for the Fort Caroline grounds are 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., Wednesday through Sunday, closed on Thanksgiving, Christmas Day and New Year's Day. The City's Vision Plan adds that, rivaled only by St. Augustine, Fort Caroline is a monument to one of the oldest colonies in Florida and the United States.

The key dates run from the 1564 French colony to the 2015 creation of the Renew Arlington Community Redevelopment Area.

Arlington Road holds the Norman Studios complex, built for the Eagle Film company and bought by Richard Norman in 1922.

The National Park Service lists Norman Film Studios at 6337 Arlington Road in the National Register (reference number 14001084), managed by the City of Jacksonville. It says the complex was originally developed in 1915 by the Eagle Film Company on the site of a cigar factory and served as the headquarters of the Norman Film Manufacturing Company from 1922 to 1928. Norman's early westerns encouraged him to purchase the old Eagle Film studio in Arlington in 1922; later films were shot on location in Jacksonville, many Arlington residents appeared in scenes, and all post production work was done at the Arlington studio.

The Florida Department of State announced on December 5, 2016 that the studios had been designated a National Historic Landmark, calling them the last remaining complex of buildings from a time when Jacksonville was a leader in the silent film industry, and the only preserved film studio in the nation that once specialized in silent films starring African Americans. The release gives the founding as 1916, as Eagle Film City, and says Jacksonville boasted more than 30 movie studios in 1916.

The City of Jacksonville bought the studio on December 19, 2002. Its JaxParks page lists a production building, a generator building, a small cottage for visiting actors and a prop shed, and notes that The Flying Ace (1926) is the only Norman film to have survived. The Department of State says the City has worked since 2002 to partially restore the site with three historic preservation grants from the Florida Division of Historical Resources and city matching funds, while the nonprofit Norman Studios Silent Film Museum works to reopen it.

Arlington grew fastest in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, after the Mathews Bridge and the Arlington Expressway tied it to downtown Jacksonville.

The Florida Department of Transportation historic bridge survey describes the Mathews Bridge as a steel through truss bridge built in 1953 and lists it among the Duval County bridges originally financed by tolls. The Jacksonville Transportation Authority timeline records that tolls at the Mathews Bridge, Fuller Warren Bridge, Hart Bridge, Trout River Bridge and J. Turner Butler Boulevard were removed in 1988, and that the Dames Point Bridge, officially the Napoleon Bonaparte Broward Bridge, opened to the general public in 1989.

The City's Vision Plan sums up the effect: the Greater Arlington/Beaches district experienced its greatest growth during the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, following the construction of the bridge and the Arlington Expressway. Growth tapered off in the 1980s and accelerated again in the 1990s. Using decennial census counts, the plan reports a district population of 186,072 in 2000, up 26 percent from 147,927 in 1990, which made it the second most populous of Jacksonville's six planning districts. Those figures cover the whole district, beaches included, not Arlington alone.

Transit followed the growth. JTA lists 2009 as the year its first Community Shuttle began service in Arlington, and the community comments recorded in the Vision Plan call for landscaping the foot of the Mathews Bridge as an entry point into Arlington and for studying the Arlington Expressway.

Renew Arlington is a City of Jacksonville Community Redevelopment Area covering three commercial corridors: University Boulevard, Merrill Road and Arlington Road.

The City of Jacksonville says the CRA Redevelopment Plan is the result of a decade of community efforts and is intended as a framework for guiding development of the area over the next 20 years. The City lists the 2007 Old Arlington Neighborhood Action Plan, the 2010 Greater Arlington/Beaches Vision Plan and a 2015 Finding of Necessity Study as its background, and enabling legislation 2015-0738. All 19 members of the Jacksonville City Council serve as the Renew Arlington CRA Board, and the City posts performance measures for FY 24-25.

Historic sites are part of the picture. The Vision Plan names Fort Caroline, the Timucuan Preserve, the Ribault Monument, Norman Studios and historic homes and cemeteries as resources that can guide renewal, and lists Old Arlington homes such as the John S. Sammis House and the Charles P. Judson Residence, along with Arlington Elementary School.

Green space sits inside the neighborhood as well. Tree Hill Nature Center, a nonprofit at 7152 Lone Star Road, describes more than 50 acres of trails, a Florida Natural History Museum, butterfly and hummingbird gardens and native animals, and posts hours of Monday through Saturday, 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

Last verified: October 18, 2026, by re-reading the Renew Arlington CRA page and the 2010 Vision Plan on jacksonville.gov, the JaxParks Norman Studios page, three National Park Service pages and its Timucuan hours page, the Department of State landmark release, the FDOT bridge survey, the JTA timeline and the Jacksonville University and Tree Hill pages.