Jacksonville's
winning bid for a federal empowerment zone will mainly target
downtown and the northwest part of the city, but it also will
benefit three other areas -- Cecil Commerce Center, Imeson
Industrial Park, and the upper end of Philips Highway in the
Southside, officials said yesterday.
The inclusion of the Philips Highway section runs counter to the
city's usual push to direct economic development assistance to areas
north and west of the St. Johns River. But city officials decided
that part of the Southside fit the profile for an area that's
struggling for jobs and can use federal tax incentives as a
springboard for a turnaround.
Mayor John Delaney and Lt. Gov. Frank Brogan yesterday joined Roy
Bernardi, the assistant secretary for community planning and
development at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development,
to formally announce HUD's selection of Jacksonville as an
empowerment zone city.
Over the next decade, Jacksonville and six other cities will have
access to up to $17 billion worth of federal tax breaks aimed at
encouraging businesses to add jobs where neighborhoods most need
them. Delaney predicted that will equate to millions of dollars
flowing into Jacksonville from the federal government to help
hard-pressed communities.
But there is no set amount that businesses in Jacksonville or any
other city will get. The incentives will depend on how active
businesses are in filing applications with the Jacksonville Economic
Development Commission, which will take the lead in generating
interest.
"Now you have to use the tools," Bernardi said, urging the city
to spread the word to the 9,000 existing businesses in the
empowerment zone by "knocking on the doors, bringing them in."
Bernardi spoke at a spiffy storefront shopping center on Myrtle
Street in front of The Oaks at Durkeeville, a town house development
recently built by the Jacksonville Housing Authority.
"We picked this location because this row of shops is a great
example of what economic development can do for a neighborhood
that's been long-neglected," Delaney said. "Jacksonville is only as
strong as its weakest neighborhoods."
The main empowerment zone, which includes Durkeeville, covers a
part of the city where the unemployment rate is 13.6 percent,
officials said, a rate that is more than double the countywide
average. Forty-one percent of the people in the area live in
poverty, compared with 12.8 percent countywide.
In the current economic slowdown, "those kinds of communities are
the hardest hit, so any kind of stimulation goes further," said
Carlton Jones, president of Renaissance Design Build Group, who
attended the announcement ceremony.
Jones said he might use the empowerment zone to help build a
small shopping center.
The three other target areas are smaller than the main
empowerment zone. Cecil Commerce Center on the Westside is a former
Navy base that officials want to make into a major employer for
high-paying manufacturing jobs. Imeson Industrial Park in north
Jacksonville already offers such jobs. In the Philips Highway area,
the exact boundaries remain to be drawn.
Brad Thoburn, an aide to Delaney, said including that Southside
area will not make businesses there eligible for local economic
development incentives, which often take the form of property tax
abatements for development north and west of the St. Johns River.
The assistance from the empowerment zone would only apply to federal
tax incentives.
Staff writer David Bauerlein can be reached at (904)
359-4581 or via e-mail at dbauerlein.
