Riverside and Avondale in Jacksonville: Parks, Arts Market and Museum Guide

Riverside and Avondale are neighboring historic neighborhoods on the west side of the St. Johns River, southwest of Downtown Jacksonville, that grew from an 1869 Riverside plat and a 1920 Avondale subdivision.

Riverside came first. The 1869 plat of Riverside set aside fourteen acres for a park, and after the land was donated the city started building what became its second-oldest park in the early 1890s, with walk paths, a carriage lane and two spring-fed lakes (City of Jacksonville).

Avondale followed half a century later. City of Jacksonville preservation guidelines from January 1992 record that in the summer of 1920 a group of investors headed by Telfair Stockton put together a large tract taking in all of Edgewood and the adjoining riverfront, at a cost of over $500,000, and developed an exclusive subdivision that Stockton named Avondale (City of Jacksonville).

Today the City COA page lists Riverside Avondale as a historic district with its own Riverside Avondale Design Guidelines, and in 1985 its buildings were surveyed and listed as contributing or non-contributing on district property lists (City of Jacksonville). The City adds that some modest contributing properties may seem independently unimpressive, but each structure is valuable to the historic charm of the neighborhood and should be protected (City of Jacksonville). The 1992 City guidelines describe the Riverside Historic District as southwest of downtown Jacksonville on the west side of the St. Johns River (City of Jacksonville).

Three city parks anchor the area: Memorial Park on the St. Johns River at 1620 Riverside Avenue, Riverside Park at 753 Park St and Boone Park at 3700 Park Street in Avondale.

Memorial Park, which the City calls the scenic focal point of Riverside, lies between Riverside Avenue and the St. Johns River. The Jacksonville Rotary Club proposed it in 1918 to honor the 1200 Floridians who died in World War I, the City bought the land in 1919, and after thirty-one civic groups helped plan and fund it, the park was dedicated on Christmas Day, 1924 (City of Jacksonville). The Olmsted Brothers firm designed it, it features the bronze sculpture Life by Charles Adrian Pillars, and the park has an accessible fishing dock on the St. Johns River (City of Jacksonville).

Riverside Park has a dog park: the City lists a basketball court, playground, bike racks, the spring-fed lake and a dog park among its amenities (City of Jacksonville). Boone Park, in the Avondale area, holds the tennis and pickleball courts. Its tennis clubhouse opened in 1950, the park hosted the City's major public tennis tournaments for decades, and 4 pickleball courts joined the tennis complex in 2022 (City of Jacksonville).

Each of the three has a back story visible on the ground. Ornamental stone bridges and camphor trees beautified the early Riverside Park, and the Men's Garden Club and the city created a camellia garden there in 1967 (City of Jacksonville). At Boone Park, the small house on the grounds dates to 1937, when it was built for the Girl Scouts, and the City bought most of the land in 1926 from William Elijah Boone and four other owners; Boone bought and rebuilt locomotives, which he leased to local industries in North Florida and South Georgia (City of Jacksonville).

Both riverside parks were hit in 1997. A 1997 storm cost Riverside Park fifty-two trees (City of Jacksonville), and a tornado devastated Memorial Park the same year before the City and the Memorial Park Association restored it (City of Jacksonville).

The Riverside Arts Market runs every Saturday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., rain or shine, under the I-95 Fuller Warren Bridge at 715 Riverside Ave in Riverside.

Riverside Avondale Preservation, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, produces the market, which it describes as featuring more than 150 artists, farmers, makers and entrepreneurs and drawing an average of more than 5,000 weekly visitors (Riverside Avondale Preservation). It was founded in 2009 and includes the River Stage, where local music and dance are free to watch (Riverside Avondale Preservation).

In a release dated July 2, 2025, Riverside Avondale Preservation announced a $20,000 commission for a water-themed mural, about 17 feet tall by 90 feet wide, on the JEA pump station at the same 715 Riverside Ave site (Riverside Avondale Preservation).

One address detail is worth knowing before entering it into a map app. The Riverside Avondale Preservation press release gives 715 Riverside Ave (Riverside Avondale Preservation), while the same group's historic parks page lists the market at 729 Riverside Ave (Riverside Avondale Preservation); the group's site footer pairs 715 Riverside Ave with the line Under the I-95 Fuller Warren Bridge.

The Cummer Museum at 829 Riverside Avenue is open every day except Monday, with the longest hours on Thursday, 11 a.m. to 8 p.m.

The museum posts that weekly schedule on its visit page, and it says the Cummer Gardens close at museum closing time or at dusk, whichever comes first, or in bad weather (Cummer Museum). Members get in free every day (Cummer Museum).

Parking changed in September 2026. The Cummer lots sit across Riverside Avenue from the entrance and at the corner of Riverside Avenue and Post Street, and from September 1, 2026, the ParkMobile self-paid system applies in all of them (Cummer Museum). The same page still carries a banner promoting its 2025 hours, and on October 15, 2026 it showed two different lines for that Thursday, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. and 11 a.m. to 8 p.m., so a Thursday evening visit is worth confirming with the museum (Cummer Museum). The museum also lists holiday closures on Independence Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Year's Eve and New Year's Day (Cummer Museum).

Two bodies share the job: the City of Jacksonville Historic Preservation Section, which publishes the Riverside Avondale Design Guidelines, and Riverside Avondale Preservation, the 501(c)(3) nonprofit based at the Buckland House on Herschel Street.

The City side is regulatory. Its Historic Preservation Section publishes separate design guidelines for Springfield and for Riverside Avondale and reviews changes to buildings in the district (City of Jacksonville). The guidelines still posted for Riverside and Avondale date from January 1992 (City of Jacksonville), and the City also posts a 2026 COA Matrix showing which scopes of work qualify for administrative review rather than review by the Historic Preservation Commission (City of Jacksonville). The 1992 document itself is titled for the Riverside and Avondale Historic Districts, in the plural.

The nonprofit side is hands-on. Riverside Avondale Preservation lists its office at the Buckland House, 2623 Herschel Street, phone 904.389.2449 (Riverside Avondale Preservation), and the City credits it with improvement work at Riverside Park and Boone Park, including renovations at Boone Park between 1997 and 2003 (City of Jacksonville, City of Jacksonville).