Mayor
John Delaney has a clear goal for downtown Jacksonville. He wants it
to "be unrecognizable in the next three years."
To that end, the second-term mayor, who leaves office in three
years, has announced an ambitious $435 million capital building
program to speed that transformation. In addition, he points to
numerous smaller efforts -- like extending the Riverwalk,
subsidizing downtown residences and beautifying streets and
sidewalks -- as components of his vision.
Jacksonville, like many cities across the nation, has refocused
attention on downtown, in part to reverse decades of decay and in
part to combat the perceived ills of suburban sprawl.
City officials note a sense of optimism about the possibility for
change; however, downtown remains a work in progress, with optimism
still outpacing results.
Downtown remains the area's government and legal center and has
the largest concentration of jobs on the First Coast. But except for
occasional entertainment events, it lacks a consistent draw to lure
non-workers.
"We've failed to form any kind of nexus of activity," City
Councilman Jim Overton said.
At times, City Hall has spread its attention -- and limited
resources -- too broadly, instead of concentrating them within a
limited area and building out from that success, Overton said.
That's a strategy that officials in Nashville, Tenn., took along its
Second Avenue and Denver took with the part of its downtown known as
LoDo (for Lower Denver).
Overton cites the slow, intermittent efforts to rebuild LaVilla,
a part of former Mayor Ed Austin's River City Renaissance. It's an
example of a "failure to create a success and support it in one
place. You've got to have success going someplace," Overton said.
Nonetheless, Delaney, remaining positive, sees recent building in
LaVilla as a sign that a "critical mass" of change is taking hold.
Many city officials take their cue from the mayor and have adopted a
glass-half-full outlook.
Gaining support
"I'm a huge proponent of downtown development," said City
Councilman Reggie Fullwood, whose district includes the core city.
"For the city as a whole to be more successful, we need to have a
strong downtown."
Fullwood noted that the Jacksonville Chamber of Commerce's annual
leadership conference to Denver last October gave city business and
political leaders the belief that a once-abandoned and derelict
downtown could be restored to a prominent, central role in city
life. Denver "kind of paralleled what we want to do," Fullwood said.
Construction of new public buildings -- a county courthouse,
library, baseball stadium and arena -- should provide a boost toward
giving downtown a more prominent role in the far-flung city,
officials said. There was never any question that these public
buildings needed to go downtown, the mayor said.
"If you have one of anything, other than a landfill or an
airport, you want it downtown," said Delaney, adding that his
thinking about the prominence of the central core has evolved during
his five years running the city.
Delaney also has been influenced by his reading on the subject.
His office bookshelf is filled with tomes more likely to be read by
a graduate student in urban planning -- with titles like Stuck in
Traffic, Land Use in America, Cities: Back from the Edge, the Death
and Life of American Cities, and Smart Growth -- than a Florida
mayor.
A good deal of that optimism can be attributed to confidence in
the proposed Downtown Master Plan, which City Council approved at
its last meeting. The 10-year blueprint calls for making the city
more pedestrian friendly, creating parks along Hogans and McCoy's
creeks, and establishing distinctive business, residential,
cultural, sports and retail districts within the center city.
The plan calls for the city to spend about $12.5 million in the
next two years. Some of the project funding -- including more than
$7 million to extend the Riverwalk -- already has been set aside by
the administration, said Susan Wiles, the mayor's top political
aide.
"I'm excited about the Downtown Master Plan. I don't think it
will solve all our problems, but it's a giant step forward," said
City Councilwoman Suzanne Jenkins.
At whose expense?
Yet downtown advocates said the plan lacks enough low- or
moderate-income housing, does not address linking the city with
distressed areas of Springfield or East Jacksonville and may not
provide enough economic opportunities for small- or medium-sized
businesses.
In short, does a downtown building boom, funded in part by a
regressive sales tax increase, mean development for the haves at the
expense of the have-somes and have-nots?
The master plan "is really going to be driven by the big projects
and rents that make it impossible for the small guy to get started,"
said Michael Bryant, a self-described "champion for the underdog,"
who runs the urban core program for Springfield-based Fresh
Ministries.
Yet many, like Fullwood, think the master plan addresses the
right mix of issues and that other problems, like revitalizing East
Jacksonville, deserve separate attention.
Another point of progress is downtown housing, with projects
including townhouses near the St. Johns Episcopal Cathedral and
luxury riverfront apartments already breaking ground.
Paul Krutko, Downtown Development Authority executive director,
has preached housing as the first step toward long-term vibrancy.
"We'll see retail follow residential, just as we've seen
residential follow hotel," said Mike Weinstein, executive director
of the Jacksonville Economic Development Commission, referring to
the 966-room Adam's Mark hotel, expected to be finished in February,
that received $23 million in city-approved subsidies.
And when stores and restaurants come downtown, they need to be in
settings more appealing and more integrated into the community than
The Jacksonville Landing, Overton said. "The Landing has been a
great experiment, but it has its back on downtown; it's an
[isolated] enclave," he said.
Weinstein said that a combination of a good overall economy and
City Hall policy to target downtown as a location for tax and other
subsidies has supported its early steps toward rejuvenation.
"First and foremost is a good economy. Florida continues to grow
regardless of anything else," Weinstein said.
Plus, Jacksonville has "government and business policy that
encourages investment, both public and private," he said, adding
that incentives and subsidies will still need to be used to force
development downtown and to other targeted areas.
A 24-hour downtown
John Haley, a business recruiter for the Jacksonville Chamber of
Commerce, said he's seen more interest recently in downtown among
firms that want to relocate, although he's not sure what's behind
the change.
In the next eight months, Weinstein foresees that there may be as
many as 12 different downtown construction sites, which could be a
step toward a 24-hour downtown.
Yet BellSouth executive Michael Stewart, active in establishing
Downtown Vision, which will provide enhanced services in the office
core, sounds a more cautious note. "My early goal is to make
downtown active for 12 to 15 hours," he said, adding that an 18- to
24-hour downtown is a long-range goal.
But overall, Stewart, like other downtown advocates, said he
feels a sense of excitement. That's a feeling that local politicians
know they have to seize upon if they want to raise money for
downtown projects and bring plans on paper to fruition.
Delaney said the City Council is more dedicated to the center
city, what he calls Jacksonville's "economic hub," than any time in
recent memory.
"In the early 1990s, the sense was why spend money on downtown
when people live and work in the suburbs," said the mayor, who has
spent his career working in the center city but who lives in Neptune
Beach. "The sense now is that we need good growth management and
what's good for the city is good for the suburbs."
And whether Delaney can provide that leadership on downtown could
go a long way toward determining the legacy of the mayor, who has
political ambitions beyond the city.
