J Magazine Spring 2019
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THE MAGAZINE OF THE REBIRTH OF JACKSONVILLE’S DOWNTOWN<br />
F u t u r e<br />
I S S U E<br />
MOSH 2.0<br />
DISPLAY THROUGH MAY <strong>2019</strong><br />
$6.50<br />
MUSEUM OF SCIENCE & HISTORY<br />
MAKES PLANS FOR THE FUTURE<br />
P16<br />
SPRING <strong>2019</strong>
In 2018, we served 112,307 people and<br />
provided $2,106,259 in financial assistance<br />
to strengthen our First Coast community.<br />
Join us in our efforts this year as we become one of the most military-friendly Ys in the country,<br />
provide hunger relief for families experiencing food insecurity, make kids of all ages safe in the<br />
water, and help teens become leaders. Your support is vital to the important work we are doing<br />
across the First Coast. Thank you.<br />
LEARN MORE AND DONATE TODAY AT<br />
FCYMCA.org
WE’RE MAKING A GREAT PLACE TO WORK<br />
EVEN BETTER.<br />
Better Wages. Better Benefits. Better Work-Life Balance.<br />
We value our employees and appreciate all that they do for our members. And we believe that our employees deserve the very<br />
best when it comes to workplace satisfaction and personal benefits.<br />
In addition to being eligible for excellent medical, dental, vision, life, disability and best-in-class company-matched 401(k)<br />
benefits shortly after the first day of employment, our employees will now enjoy brand new benefits, including:<br />
• Increased minimum wage of $15 per hour<br />
• Childbirth and Family Care Leave<br />
• Child adoption assistance<br />
• Student loan payoff stipends<br />
• A day off to celebrate your birthday<br />
• Enhanced, up-front tuition reimbursement<br />
• A day off to volunteer and a donation to the organization<br />
• Free medical insurance options<br />
• Fitness membership reimbursement<br />
• New waterfront workspace with employee lounge, gym and more<br />
If you have a passion for helping others and the desire to provide outstanding service<br />
to the community, we encourage you to browse through our current career offerings<br />
at vystarcu.org and consider joining our team.<br />
Programs, services, rates, terms and conditions are subject<br />
to change without notice. ©2018 VyStar Credit Union.<br />
vystarcu.org
THE MAGAZINE OF THE REBIRTH<br />
OF JACKSONVILLE’S DOWNTOWN<br />
GREATER<br />
TOGETHER<br />
H<br />
THE MAGAZINE OF<br />
THE REBIRTH OF<br />
JACKSONVILLE’S<br />
DOWNTOWN<br />
H<br />
PUBLISHER<br />
Bill Offill<br />
GENERAL MANAGER/<br />
CREATIVE DIRECTOR<br />
Jeff Davis<br />
EDITOR<br />
Frank Denton<br />
ADVERTISING<br />
Liz Borten<br />
WRITERS<br />
Michael P. Clark<br />
Roger Brown<br />
CONTRIBUTORS<br />
Carole Hawkins, Charlie<br />
Patton, Denise Reagan,<br />
Lilla Ross, Marilyn Young<br />
MAILING ADDRESS<br />
J <strong>Magazine</strong>, 1 Riverside Ave., Jacksonville, FL 32202<br />
CONTACT US<br />
EDITORIAL:<br />
(904) 359-4307, frankmdenton@gmail.com<br />
ADVERTISING:<br />
(904) 359-4099, lborten@jacksonville.com<br />
DISTRIBUTION/REPRINTS:<br />
(904) 359-4255, circserv@jacksonville.com<br />
WE WELCOME SUGGESTIONS FOR STORIES.<br />
PLEASE SEND IDEAS OR INQUIRIES TO:<br />
frankmdenton@gmail.com<br />
No part of this publication and/or website may be reproduced, stored in a<br />
retrieval system or transmitted in any form without prior written permission<br />
of the publisher. Permission is only deemed valid if approval is in writing. J<br />
<strong>Magazine</strong> and Times-Union Media buy all rights to contributions, text and<br />
images, unless previously agreed to in writing. While every effort has been made<br />
to ensure that information is correct at the time of going to print, Times-Union<br />
Media cannot be held responsible for the outcome of any action or decision<br />
based on the information contained in this publication.<br />
© <strong>2019</strong> Times-Union Media.<br />
All rights reserved.<br />
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contents<br />
Issue 1 // Volume 3 // SPRING <strong>2019</strong><br />
40<br />
A WAREHOUSE<br />
OF CREATIVITY<br />
BY FRANK DENTON<br />
16 24 34 46 51<br />
WHAT’S NEXT<br />
FOR MOSH<br />
BY FRANK DENTON<br />
OKLAHOMA CITY<br />
TRANSFORMED<br />
BY MIKE CLARK<br />
ACTIVATING<br />
THE RIVER<br />
BY LILLA ROSS<br />
LURING ARTISTS<br />
TO THE CORE<br />
BY CAROLE HAWKINS<br />
CULTURAL<br />
REVOLUTION<br />
BY CHARLIE PATTON<br />
64 70 76 82 88<br />
MYSTERY OF<br />
MAXWELL HOUSE<br />
BY MIKE CLARK<br />
THE GREAT<br />
HOtEL BOOM<br />
BY FRANK DENTON<br />
RISE AND<br />
GRIND<br />
BY CAROLE HAWKINS<br />
THE URBAN<br />
PIONEERS<br />
BY ROGER BROWN<br />
REMAPPING<br />
DOWNTOWN<br />
BY MARILYN YOUNG<br />
BOB SELF<br />
6<br />
J MAGAZINE | SPRING <strong>2019</strong>
J MAGAZINE<br />
PARTNERS<br />
DEPARTMENTS<br />
9 FROM THE PUBLISHER<br />
11 BRIEFING<br />
12 PROGRESS REPORT<br />
14 RATING DOWNTOWN<br />
32 THE BIG PICTURE<br />
54 12 VIEWS DOWNTOWN<br />
60 CORE EYESORE<br />
93 QUESTIONS & ANSWERS<br />
98 THE FINAL WORD<br />
THE MAGAZINE OF THE REBIRTH OF JACKSONVILLE’S DOWNTOWN<br />
F U T U R E<br />
I S S U E<br />
DISPLAY THROUGH MAY <strong>2019</strong><br />
$6.50<br />
MOSH 2.0<br />
MUSEUM OF SCIENCE & HISTORY<br />
MAKES PLANS FOR THE FUTURE<br />
P16<br />
SPRING <strong>2019</strong><br />
ON THE COVER<br />
The new master plan for the<br />
Museum of Science and History<br />
envisions a cutting-edge campus for<br />
experiencing, learning, exploring<br />
and family fun. // SEE PAGE 16<br />
STORY BY FRANK DENTON<br />
ILLUSTRATION BY GYROSCOPE
Excellence in motion.<br />
Dames Point Bridge<br />
today<br />
yesterday<br />
Jacksonville Regional Transportation Center at LaVilla<br />
tomorrow<br />
Ultimate Urban Circulator<br />
autonomous vehicle<br />
jtafla.com
FROM THE PUBLISHER<br />
Jacksonville on<br />
the threshold of a<br />
great revitalization<br />
Bill Offill<br />
PHONE<br />
(386) 681-2276<br />
EMAIL<br />
boffill@<br />
gatehousemedia.com<br />
n early January, my wife Stephanie<br />
and I moved to Jacksonville.<br />
I<br />
As recent empty nesters (except<br />
for our beloved 12-year-old puppy, Sammie),<br />
we chose for the first time in our lives<br />
to live in a high-rise. We have an incredible<br />
view of the beautiful Downtown skyline<br />
that seems to rise up out of the St. Johns<br />
River. It’s a short walk to numerous excellent<br />
restaurants.<br />
We’ve attended shows at the Florida Theatre and<br />
Daily’s Place. We’ve visited the amazing beaches on<br />
Amelia Island and at Atlantic Beach. We’ve shopped<br />
at the St. Johns Town Center. Almost daily, we walk the<br />
Riverwalk. Maybe the greatest attribute of Jacksonville is<br />
the people who are so friendly and welcoming.<br />
Our introduction to Jacksonville could not have gone<br />
better. We’re sold, we love Jacksonville.<br />
I spent most of my career in Houston, where I<br />
worked for the Houston Chronicle. During the 1980s<br />
and ’90s, downtown Houston was not a great place<br />
to visit. It was a place people worked. By 6 p.m., the<br />
sidewalks could be rolled up because the place emptied<br />
out. Today, downtown Houston is a vibrant place. Bars,<br />
restaurants, shopping, entertainment — it’s a fun place<br />
to visit.<br />
Downtown Jacksonville seems to be on the verge of a<br />
great revitalization. I’ve lived through it once, and I am<br />
looking forward to living through this kind of resurgence<br />
again. I believe that J <strong>Magazine</strong> contributes to that resurgence.<br />
We will continue to chronicle the transformation<br />
of Jacksonville’s Downtown and point out obstacles<br />
and solutions.<br />
J <strong>Magazine</strong> is a unique publication in that it is an<br />
extension of the editorial page and not the newsroom.<br />
This allows the staff and free-lancers to take a point<br />
of view and be analytical in pushing for Downtown<br />
revitalization. I am very appreciative of the sponsors<br />
and advertisers who make this magazine possible. As<br />
you flip the pages of this issue, please take notice of<br />
these fine companies. They are not only supporting this<br />
magazine, but they are huge cheerleaders of Downtown<br />
Jacksonville.<br />
When GateHouse Media bought The Florida Times-<br />
Union, the Times-Union building was not a part of that<br />
purchase, and a search was made for a new home. We<br />
chose to be a part of the redevelopment of Downtown,<br />
and in April we will be moving into the Wells Fargo<br />
Center in the heart of Downtown. This move has our<br />
employees energized. We can’t wait to move into our<br />
new digs. Our reporters will be within walking distance<br />
of City Hall, the Courthouse and other important<br />
functions. All of our employees will be supporting the<br />
numerous restaurants that serve lunch.<br />
Being in the newspaper business these days is challenging,<br />
but I love what we do. I felt the same way when<br />
I started in this business 35 years ago, and all these years<br />
later, I love and appreciate it even more. I can’t think of<br />
anything that I’d rather do to earn a living.<br />
For the past 5½ years, my wife and I lived in Daytona<br />
Beach where I was the publisher of The Daytona<br />
Beach News-Journal. In October, I was promoted to<br />
group publisher overseeing Daytona, The St. Augustine<br />
Record and The Florida Times-Union. With each visit to<br />
Jacksonville, we became more intrigued by this city, so<br />
much so that Stephanie and I decided that this would<br />
be the place to be headquartered and to call home. We<br />
have two boys, Matt and Austin. Matt is a senior at The<br />
University of Texas, and Austin is a junior at Texas A&M.<br />
Both have already visited us in Jacksonville and can’t<br />
wait to come back to this “cool city.”<br />
Thank you, Jacksonville, for the warm welcome.<br />
Thank you to my new co-workers, the talented people at<br />
the Times-Union. Thank you for supporting J magazine,<br />
the Times-Union and journalism. Hello, Jacksonville!<br />
Bill Offill is the publisher of The Florida Times-Union<br />
and T-U Media. He is also group publisher overseeing<br />
The St. Augustine Record and the Daytona Beach<br />
News-Journal. He lives Downtown.<br />
SPRING <strong>2019</strong> | J MAGAZINE 9
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$516,060,000<br />
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DIGITS<br />
The amount of<br />
ground coffee<br />
sales Maxwell<br />
House had in<br />
2018, trailing<br />
only Folgers who<br />
sold $1.09 billion.<br />
Starbucks was<br />
the third largest<br />
performer, selling<br />
$448 million in<br />
ground coffee<br />
last year.<br />
BRIEFING<br />
By The Florida Times-Union Editorial Board<br />
Thumbs down to the<br />
Duval County<br />
school district’s<br />
relative lack of interest<br />
in even looking into<br />
moving its administrative<br />
offices elsewhere<br />
and putting its current<br />
building, on prime<br />
Southbank waterfront<br />
property, on the market.<br />
Thumbs up to the<br />
partnership between the<br />
City Hall, the JSO,<br />
the Sulzbacher<br />
Center and the<br />
Mental Health<br />
Resource Center<br />
to create the Urban Rest<br />
Stop, a facility inside the<br />
Sulzbacher’s Downtown<br />
campus that will provide<br />
a welcoming daytime<br />
location for the city’s<br />
transient population.<br />
Thumbs down to the<br />
reality that it will be<br />
a long time before<br />
Downtown Jacksonville<br />
will once again host a<br />
Super Bowl. Jaguars<br />
President Mark Lamping<br />
said we’ll need to see<br />
major Downtown<br />
development projects<br />
like Lot J, the District<br />
and others come to life<br />
first before the National<br />
Football League would<br />
consider our city as a<br />
future Super Bowl site.<br />
HITS & MISSES<br />
Thumbs up to the<br />
progress being made to<br />
convert historic Brewster<br />
Hospital in<br />
LaVilla — once the<br />
city’s hospital for African-American<br />
citizens<br />
and a school for black<br />
nurses — into the new<br />
headquarters for the<br />
North Florida Land Trust.<br />
Thumbs up to the<br />
planned expansion of the<br />
Winston Family<br />
YMCA on Riverside Avenue.<br />
Plans are to build<br />
an 8,000-square-feet<br />
rooftop addition to keep<br />
up with the Winston<br />
YMCA’s phenomenal<br />
membership growth.<br />
Thumbs up to another<br />
great edition of The<br />
Longest Table, the<br />
annual Downtown event<br />
that brings people from<br />
all over the community<br />
to sit, talk and eat together<br />
at a table that extends<br />
along Independent<br />
Drive from Main Street<br />
to Newman Street. Some<br />
600 people took part in<br />
the latest Longest Table,<br />
which is sponsored by<br />
the JAX Chamber.<br />
Thumbs up to DT10K,<br />
an initiative being<br />
undertaken by JAX<br />
Chamber with the goal<br />
FIRST PERSON<br />
of having at least 10,000<br />
residents living Downtown<br />
in the next two<br />
years. Now, according<br />
to JAX Chamber CEO<br />
Daniel Davis, there are<br />
about 4,000 to 4,500<br />
residents.<br />
Thumbs down to the<br />
fact that while there is<br />
plenty of parking Downtown,<br />
there isn’t enough<br />
information that easily<br />
points motorists to<br />
where it is. The lack<br />
of parking information<br />
is part of the<br />
disconnect that holds<br />
Downtown back.<br />
Thumbs up to the fact<br />
that when VyStar<br />
completes its process of<br />
converting the SunTrust<br />
Tower on South Laura<br />
Street into its new headquarters,<br />
it will bring<br />
some 900 more workers<br />
into Downtown.<br />
Thumbs up to the<br />
efforts by Axis<br />
Hotels, a St. Augustine-based<br />
development<br />
company, that is working<br />
to transform the<br />
long-vacant Ambassador<br />
Hotel on North Julia<br />
Street into a site that<br />
includes a 120-room<br />
hotel and a 220-unit<br />
apartment complex.<br />
“(MOSH can be a) destination for learning unlike<br />
anything in this region: hands-on learning, intergenerational<br />
experiences, technology and ideation processes.”<br />
MARIA HANE, MUSEUM OF SCIENCE AND HISTORY PRESIDENT (PAGE 16)<br />
WINTER SPRING 2018-19 <strong>2019</strong> | | J J MAGAZINE XX 11
J MAGAZINE’S<br />
PROGRESS REPORT<br />
MONROE<br />
BREWSTER<br />
HOSPITAL<br />
Jacksonville’s first<br />
hospital for African-<br />
Americans was built in 1885. The city<br />
spent $2.3 million restoring and moving<br />
the building to 843 W. Monroe St., then<br />
leased it to North Florida Land Trust.<br />
STATUS: DIA and DDRB approved<br />
renovation plans costing $540,000, and<br />
work has begun.<br />
AMBASSADOR HOTEL<br />
A St. Augustine developer is restoring<br />
the historic Ambassador Hotel into<br />
a La Quinta and, on the rest of the<br />
block, plans to build 200 apartments and retail space.<br />
STATUS: Work is underway and the hotel expects<br />
to open in 12 months.<br />
HEMMING<br />
PARK<br />
BEAVER<br />
ASHLEY<br />
CHURCH<br />
DUVAL<br />
ADAMS<br />
HOUSTON<br />
FORSYTH<br />
LAVILLA<br />
DAVIS<br />
Laura Street Trio &<br />
Barnett Bank Building<br />
A $79 million renovation of the iconic<br />
MADISON<br />
JEFFERSON<br />
BROAD<br />
buildings into residences, offices, a Courtyard<br />
by Marriott, commercial/retail and a UNF campus.<br />
STATUS: UNF opened its space, and the entire building is to<br />
be finished by the early second quarter. The Trio renovation<br />
is still BAY getting permits but should begin by this summer.<br />
CLAY<br />
PEARL<br />
JULIA<br />
HOGAN<br />
LAURA<br />
MAIN<br />
OCEAN<br />
OAK<br />
PARK<br />
OAK<br />
PRIME OSBORN<br />
CONVENTION<br />
CENTER<br />
BROOKLYN<br />
STATION<br />
The “jughandle” that<br />
allowed big trucks access<br />
to the Times-Union will be removed,<br />
and a land swap with the city at Leila<br />
and May streets will allow expansion of<br />
the shopping center anchored by the<br />
Fresh Market.<br />
STATUS: The redevelopment agreement<br />
has cleared the DIA and City Council.<br />
N<br />
MAY<br />
BROOKLYN<br />
FOREST<br />
MAGNOLIA<br />
UNITY<br />
PLAZA<br />
RIVERSIDE<br />
JACKSON<br />
WATER<br />
RIVERSIDE AVE.<br />
RESIDENCE INN<br />
A six-story, 135-room hotel<br />
is planned for Oak Street<br />
near Forest and Magnolia in<br />
Brooklyn, across from Unity Plaza.<br />
STATUS: The land has been purchased,<br />
and DIA and DDRB have approved.<br />
Construction pending.<br />
HYATT PLACE hOTEL<br />
Main Street LLC bought the parcel at Hogan<br />
and Water and plans to build a nine-story<br />
hotel with 128 rooms and a rooftop<br />
restaurant and bar.<br />
STATUS: The Downtown Development Review Board has<br />
approved the design. The developer is now seeking an air<br />
rights easement, as the balconies will extend over sidewalks.<br />
MCCOYS CREEK<br />
The city’s capital<br />
improvement plan calls for<br />
$15 million over five years to<br />
restore and improve 2.8 miles of the creek<br />
ending at the St. Johns, with greenways,<br />
kayak launches and a new pedestrian bridge.<br />
STATUS: Planners are contemplating a<br />
partnership to include the Times-Union site.<br />
ACOSTA<br />
BRIDGE<br />
TIMES-<br />
UNION<br />
CENTER<br />
ST. JOHNS<br />
RIVER<br />
TIMES-UNION<br />
As the T-U offices<br />
move to the Wells Fargo<br />
Center, the previous<br />
owner is planning redevelopment<br />
of the 19-acre site at 1 Riverside Ave.<br />
Tentative thinking is for green space<br />
along McCoys Creek, two 12-story<br />
apartment buildings, retail, a hotel<br />
and offices.<br />
STATUS: Representatives are talking<br />
to the city about infrastructure<br />
issues, says the Daily Record.<br />
PRUDENTIAL DR.<br />
JACKSONVILLE<br />
LANDING<br />
MAIN STREET<br />
BRIDGE<br />
FRIENDSHIP<br />
FOUNTAIN<br />
SAN MARCO BLVD.<br />
JACKSONVILLE LANDING<br />
Finally! After years of sparring and suing, Sleiman Enterprises<br />
agreed to give up its long-term lease to the city for $15 million.<br />
The city plans to buy out tenants’ subleases for $1.5 million.<br />
STATUS: City Council will be asked to approve that deal and another<br />
$1.5 million to raze the copper-topped structure and prepare the site for<br />
redevelopment, perhaps the park the mayor suggested last year.<br />
RIVERPLACE<br />
MARY<br />
12<br />
J MAGAZINE | SPRING <strong>2019</strong><br />
FULLER WARREN BRIDGE
JONES BROS. FURNITURE<br />
An $11 million adaptive reuse of<br />
the historic building would bring 28<br />
apartments plus retail space and office<br />
space to a block of Hogan Street near City Hall.<br />
STATUS: The DIA approved almost $2.4 million in city<br />
assistance, and City Council approved the development<br />
agreement. The developer is going through permitting<br />
and has started cleaning up the property.<br />
SPRINGFIELD<br />
PALMETTO<br />
Lot J & Shipyards/METRO PARK<br />
Shad Khan’s proposed Shipyards/Met Park development will<br />
begin on Lot J next to the stadium with an entertainment<br />
complex, office towers and a hotel.<br />
STATUS: Work on taking down Hart Expressway ramps to make room<br />
for the project may be delayed until after football season. The deadline for<br />
Khan’s Iguana Investments to produce a redevelopment agreement for the<br />
Shipyards was extended to June 30, 2020.<br />
NEWNAN<br />
MARKET<br />
LIBERTY<br />
NORTHBANK<br />
HEMMING PLAZA APARTMENTS<br />
Downtown pioneer Ron Chamblin plans to<br />
renovate the building next door to his Chamblin’s<br />
Book Mine into a ground-floor restaurant and four<br />
apartments above, two with balconies overlooking Laura Street.<br />
STATUS: DDRB approved. Work should start this month and<br />
finish in about eight months.<br />
WASHINGTON<br />
BAY<br />
CATHERINE<br />
VETERANS<br />
MEMORIAL<br />
ARENA<br />
ADAMS<br />
Old city hall &<br />
county courthouse<br />
The city spent $8 million to raze the<br />
empty buildings and clear the site for a<br />
possible new convention center, though that has been<br />
placed on hold.<br />
STATUS: The old City Hall Annex was imploded, and<br />
the old courthouse is being dismantled floor by floor.<br />
A. PHILIP RANDOLPH<br />
BASEBALL<br />
GROUNDS<br />
GEORGIA<br />
FRANKLIN<br />
SPORTS<br />
COMPLEX<br />
USS ADAMS<br />
The Adams, a retired U.S. Navy<br />
GATOR BOWL BLVD.<br />
TIAA<br />
BANK FIELD<br />
DAILY’S<br />
PLACE<br />
guided-missile destroyer, was to be<br />
anchored as a museum ship in the St.<br />
Johns off Berkman II, connected to the proposed family<br />
entertainment center.<br />
STATUS: The Navy sank the donation of the Adams, and<br />
proponents said they are looking elsewhere for another<br />
ship, maybe one that another city no longer wants.<br />
FLAGLER<br />
BERKMAN PLAZA II<br />
The new owners plan a $150 million<br />
312-room hotel, 500-car parking garage<br />
and a “family entertainment center.”<br />
STATUS: A lawsuit has been settled and the skeletal<br />
structure cleared for reuse. The redevelopment<br />
agreement with the city is almost resolved.<br />
KIPP<br />
HENDRICKS<br />
KINGS<br />
SOUTHBANK<br />
HOTEL INDIGO<br />
A developer bought the old Life of the<br />
South building at 100 W. Bay to convert<br />
it into a seven-story, 89-room boutique<br />
hotel with a rooftop restaurant and bar.<br />
STATUS: The developer says he is finalizing design and<br />
financing. The hotel is to open this year.<br />
ONYX<br />
MONTANA<br />
ST. JOHNS RIVER NODES<br />
City Council member Lori Boyer is leading the effort<br />
to activate the river, including a nightly sound and light<br />
show framed by Friendship Fountain, the Times-Union<br />
Center and the Main Street and Acosta bridges, as well as live-stream<br />
event projections of T-U Center events or movies on the CSX facade.<br />
STATUS: The Moment Factory, which produces such shows, is<br />
planning the sound-and-light program, but first the fountain and the<br />
bulkhead next to the T-U Center have to be repaired.<br />
The District<br />
Peter Rummell’s community concept will have up<br />
to 1,170 residences, 200 Marriott hotel rooms and<br />
285,500 square feet of office space, with a marina<br />
and public spaces along an extended Southbank Riverwalk.<br />
STATUS: Engineering and design work is being done. The developers<br />
are studying options for retailers and housing. They expect the<br />
bonds for financing will be nailed down and construction started<br />
late spring or early summer.<br />
JEA HEADQUARTERS<br />
JEA is planning to build a new HQ, and six Downtown<br />
proposals have been reduced to three.<br />
STATUS: Three companies are submitting final offers,<br />
and the JEA board plans to pick the final site the week of April 8.<br />
SAN MARCO<br />
DOWNTOWN<br />
JACKSONVILLE<br />
TRACKING DEVELOPMENT IN THE URBAN CORE<br />
SPRING <strong>2019</strong> | J MAGAZINE 13
POWER<br />
RATING DOWNTOWN<br />
By The Florida Times-Union Editorial Board<br />
Downtown development drives<br />
strong opening quarter of <strong>2019</strong><br />
7<br />
8<br />
6 6<br />
MIN<br />
MAX<br />
MIN<br />
MAX<br />
MIN<br />
MAX<br />
MIN<br />
MAX<br />
PUBLIC SAFETY<br />
LEADERSHIP<br />
HOUSING<br />
INVESTMENT<br />
Serious crime remains low, and<br />
Hemming Park has virtually<br />
eliminated even minor offenses<br />
(at least until late night). Soon<br />
all those new apartments will fill<br />
up and put more and more solid<br />
citizens on the streets.<br />
PREVIOUS: 7<br />
A search firm is looking for a new<br />
DIA CEO, who will have a much<br />
needed larger staff. Meanwhile, City<br />
Council member Lori Boyer leads<br />
on river activation and simplified<br />
zoning. And Mayor Curry fulfilled<br />
his promise to resolve the Landing.<br />
PREVIOUS: 7<br />
All those new apartment buildings,<br />
open or under construction or<br />
credibly planned, will close in<br />
on the critical mass of 10,000<br />
people we need living Downtown.<br />
We want more of them to be<br />
unsubsidized.<br />
PREVIOUS: 6<br />
Local investors are being joined<br />
by long-distance money as<br />
they perceive that Downtown<br />
Jacksonville is finally on a fast<br />
rise. Public subsidies are making<br />
investment decisions easy.<br />
PREVIOUS: 6<br />
5 5 5<br />
4<br />
MIN<br />
MAX<br />
MIN<br />
MAX<br />
MIN<br />
MAX<br />
MIN<br />
MAX<br />
DEVELOPMENT<br />
EVENTS & CULTURE<br />
TRANSPORTATION<br />
CONVENTION CENTER<br />
Retail? Keep an eye on<br />
Brooklyn Station. On one side,<br />
the 10-story Vista Brooklyn<br />
will include 14,000 square<br />
feet of retail. On the other,<br />
more retailing will replace the<br />
“jughandle” at Leila.<br />
PREVIOUS: 4<br />
We lost the USS Adams to<br />
Navy nervousness, and the Landing<br />
restaurants soon will be gone.<br />
Top acts still fill Downtown venues,<br />
but we’re looking forward to<br />
Lot J and the family entertainment<br />
center planned for Berkman II.<br />
PREVIOUS: 6<br />
A road diet will make the<br />
Southbank more walkable and<br />
bikeable, while the North Florida<br />
Smart Region Coalition is pushing<br />
forward on what it calls the<br />
BayJax Innovation Corridor to<br />
revolutionize Northbank traffic.<br />
PREVIOUS: 4<br />
The old City Hall and courthouse<br />
are down and being<br />
cleared, but the city has put the<br />
whole idea of a convention<br />
center on hold, whether there<br />
or at the Shipyards.<br />
PREVIOUS: 4<br />
OVERALL RATING<br />
It’s really 6.5, but we’re rounding up in honor of<br />
the soon-to-be complete Barnett Bank, the<br />
ubiquitous construction cranes and those new<br />
apartment complexes everywhere. Demolition<br />
of the Landing will be a great symbol.<br />
PREVIOUS: 6<br />
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10<br />
JEFF DAVIS<br />
14<br />
J MAGAZINE | SPRING <strong>2019</strong>
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16 J MAGAZINE | SPRING <strong>2019</strong>
FIRST LOOK:<br />
What’s next<br />
for MOSH<br />
The Museum of Science and History<br />
has grand plans to transform itself into<br />
a cutting-edge museum of the future<br />
BY FRANK DENTON<br />
ILLUSTRATIONS BY Gyroscope<br />
SPRING <strong>2019</strong> | J MAGAZINE 17
magine the Southbank blooming and booming,<br />
from the stolid, almost waste of a riverfront whose best appeal might be its view<br />
of the Northbank, into a grand campus teeming with people of all ages exploring,<br />
experiencing and learning.<br />
Imagine that big concrete monolith of the Museum of Science and History<br />
expanding, opening up to the park surrounding Friendship Fountain and<br />
creatively embracing the grand river that virtually defines this city.<br />
Imagine that place, as the new MOSH master plan does, becoming “an ideas<br />
lab that nurtures innovation, as a dynamic platform for learning, a center of<br />
Icommunity and a champion of social and environmental stewardship.”<br />
18<br />
J MAGAZINE | SPRING <strong>2019</strong>
Imagine … Well, first imagine for a moment<br />
being a child in Jacksonville in the 1930s when there<br />
was no MOSH. You couldn’t conceive of anything<br />
like television, and there was not even a sciencefiction<br />
notion of an internet. You learned what you<br />
could about your world from stale textbooks and<br />
word of mouth.<br />
All else you had was looking forward to going<br />
Downtown once a month and experiencing<br />
the displays in the windows of the Barnett Bank<br />
building, produced by three school teachers<br />
dedicated to finding a new way to stimulate<br />
children’s learning.<br />
Creating a real museum<br />
Even for the time, it was very limited and static,<br />
so the teachers interested a group of people who<br />
created the Jacksonville Children’s Museum in a<br />
small space on the second floor of the Duval County<br />
Armory.<br />
After World War II broadened Americans’<br />
horizons, the Jacksonville Journal reported that “the<br />
museum had grown to such an extent and attracted<br />
so much community interest (that) it was able to<br />
open its own building,” taking over a 44-year-old<br />
former private home in Riverside. By the early 1960s,<br />
the museum was drawing 80,000 visitors a year.<br />
So, again, the community responded and raised<br />
$1 million to build a much larger and modern<br />
museum on MOSH’s current site overlooking<br />
Friendship Fountain on the Southbank.<br />
At the opening in 1969, one national authority<br />
called it “the finest, most modern, beautifully<br />
equipped children’s museum in the entire United<br />
States.”<br />
Quickly, its community appeal broadened to<br />
include all ages, so in 1977 its name was changed<br />
to the Museum of Arts & Science, then in 1988 to<br />
MOSH, reflecting that Jacksonville already had two<br />
art museums nearby and really needed a museum<br />
dedicated to helping us understand where we came<br />
from and the world we live in.<br />
MOSH had a major expansion in 1988, including<br />
the planetarium, and various renovations, and<br />
today the museum stands as ... an awkward<br />
building offering exhibits and experiences that are<br />
interesting, educational and fun, even fascinating<br />
and important, but collectively fall short of<br />
appropriately stimulating a major 21st century city<br />
and a Downtown with our ambitions.<br />
Now the community is being asked to buy into<br />
a vision worthy of those ambitions. The new master<br />
plan envisions MOSH transforming into a campus of<br />
experiencing, learning, exploring and family fun that<br />
will cost $80-90 million.<br />
Consider some context<br />
Before you roll your eyes at that price tag and<br />
change the subject, think about how museums have<br />
changed since the first one you visited, at a time<br />
when, according to the Association of Children’s<br />
Museums, “exhibits were only static displays, not<br />
interactive engagements; education meant exposure<br />
to edifying examples and occasional curios, not<br />
the sparking of true learning and the introduction<br />
to wonder; the display of the collections was more<br />
important than the experience of the visitors.”<br />
Today, among national trends identified<br />
by museum consultant Jeanne Vergeront,<br />
museums are finding new ways to engage visitors;<br />
accommodating informal learning; collaborating<br />
with others; utilizing technology throughout;<br />
displaying real-world, authentic objects and<br />
developing “maker spaces” in which visitors can<br />
create their own learning.<br />
Vergeront emphasized the power of place:<br />
“As daily life becomes more global, museums are<br />
recognizing that being local is increasingly valued.<br />
Experiences grounded in place connect with what<br />
an audience finds distinctive and meaningful,<br />
build on local knowledge and deepen a sense of<br />
connection and identity.”<br />
MOSH, in hindsight astoundingly, was designed<br />
as a virtual fortress, with its entrance off a side street<br />
“As daily<br />
life becomes<br />
more global,<br />
museums are<br />
recognizing<br />
that being<br />
local is<br />
increasingly<br />
valued.<br />
Experiences<br />
grounded in<br />
place connect<br />
with what<br />
an audience<br />
finds<br />
distinctive<br />
and<br />
meaningful,<br />
build on local<br />
knowledge<br />
and deepen<br />
a sense of<br />
connection<br />
and identity.”<br />
JEANNE<br />
VERGERONT<br />
MUSEUM<br />
CONSULTANT<br />
WINTER SPRING 2018-19 <strong>2019</strong> | J MAGAZINE 19 57
and its massive concrete walls isolating it from the<br />
city. Though they are contiguous, you can barely<br />
see the fountain, the park and the river from the<br />
museum, and vice versa. You pretty much have to<br />
walk around MOSH to find the riverfront park and<br />
fountain, and not that many people do.<br />
As for the museum itself, “MOSH has outgrown<br />
its facilities, limiting its capacity to serve,” the master<br />
plan says. “But even more important, the museum<br />
has outgrown its service model. Today’s audiences<br />
demand something different than visitors of<br />
previous generations.<br />
“Those who have grown up with social media<br />
expect to be actively engaged in shaping their own<br />
learning. The old model of museum as textbook<br />
will no longer suffice. The new model envisions the<br />
museum as the center of a community of lifelong<br />
learners that reaches from the museum’s youngest<br />
visitors through the region’s amateur naturalists to<br />
its professional scientists and engineers.”<br />
Developing a<br />
strategic plan<br />
Over the past five years, recognizing that MOSH<br />
was falling short of its opportunities, its leaders<br />
worked through a series of analyses and plans,<br />
including community workshops. As a whole,<br />
they recommend: integrating MOSH, the park,<br />
the fountain and the river; expanding MOSH<br />
into a cultural anchor to increase and broaden<br />
its audience; making MOSH a “visual beacon”<br />
“MOSH has<br />
outgrown<br />
its facilities<br />
... Today’s<br />
audiences<br />
demand<br />
something<br />
different<br />
than visitors<br />
of previous<br />
generations.”<br />
MOSH<br />
MASTER PLAN<br />
and activating the park with programming and<br />
amenities to draw people.<br />
“MOSH has a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity<br />
to develop Friendship park with family-oriented,<br />
fun, educational experiences, and in doing so, will<br />
increase its own visibility and attendance,” the<br />
master plan says.<br />
By expanding its building and programming<br />
and integrating the park and riverfront, the plan<br />
says, “MOSH will draw a broad local and regional<br />
audience that will benefit Jacksonville culturally and<br />
economically. With careful planning and financial<br />
resources, MOSH can become a world-class<br />
destination.”<br />
Here are the six strategies the master plan<br />
proposes to transform MOSH:<br />
Place-based learning. MOSH would<br />
use the river to develop “authentic, place-based<br />
environments and experiences,” including an<br />
outdoor/indoor “river” into the museum.<br />
Indoor and outdoor connectivity.<br />
Complete integration of the museum, the park,<br />
the river and the fountain would provide “multiple<br />
perspectives” and create “an emotional connection”<br />
to the 15-acre site.<br />
Making as a way of knowing. MOSH<br />
would join the Maker Movement and provide tools<br />
and space as a learning environment for people<br />
to participate in “open-ended problem-solving<br />
through the process of creating something original<br />
with one’s own hands.”<br />
20<br />
J MAGAZINE | SPRING <strong>2019</strong>
Platforms for change. The museum<br />
would develop physical platforms that are flexible<br />
to allow different uses for different experiences at<br />
different times — for example, a river platform to<br />
offer “many different types of experiences such<br />
as experimenting with buoyancy, fluid dynamics,<br />
board design, river currents and many others.”<br />
Human-centered design. Museums<br />
are learning to offer what visitors need and want<br />
as opposed to what curators think they need to<br />
know (such as those Barnett Bank windows). It<br />
means listening to visitors and offering “a wide<br />
range of experiences from traditional, collectionsbased<br />
displays to demonstrations, immersive<br />
environments, full-body activities, hands-on<br />
exhibits” and art installations that integrate music,<br />
popular culture and technology to connect to young<br />
people.<br />
Partnerships. MOSH would expand<br />
its collaboration with other public and private<br />
organizations to create a “community of learners”<br />
around subjects of common interest.<br />
Especially, MOSH says the expansion will<br />
“amplify service to schools, teachers and students<br />
through a dynamic range of new educational<br />
programs and interactive learning environments.”<br />
To accomplish all that, the master plan proposes<br />
an ambitious and dramatic development of MOSH<br />
into a true campus with an expansion, renovation<br />
and reorientation of its building, integrating it with<br />
the parking surrounding Friendship Fountain.<br />
“With careful<br />
planning<br />
and financial<br />
resources,<br />
MOSH can<br />
become a<br />
world-class<br />
destination.”<br />
MOSH<br />
MASTER PLAN<br />
Now the city is giving MOSH a leg up by its<br />
own plans to repair, upgrade and transform<br />
St. Johns River Park, the real name of the park<br />
commonly known as Friendship Park because of the<br />
prominence of the fountain. (See the story on page<br />
34.)<br />
For its part, MOSH proposes a redesign, a<br />
three-story expansion and renovation of the current<br />
building, from 78,000 square feet now to 120,000-<br />
125,000 square feet with a “glass building” addition<br />
fronting the park and an imposing new public<br />
entrance.<br />
A visit to the<br />
envisioned MOSH<br />
Museum visitors now find the front door off<br />
the corner at Museum Circle. After the expansion,<br />
visitors would enter the newly integrated campus<br />
via an outdoor “river zone” that leads to a grand<br />
new entrance with a large curved façade facing the<br />
park and the river. They’d be greeted by “vibrant<br />
signage, landscaped public way, highly visible art<br />
installations, wayfinding and landmark architecture.”<br />
Whereas now MOSH is an incognito building, the<br />
new, three-story façade would stand proud of itself,<br />
with “monument signage” visible from the Main<br />
Street bridge and a “large LED video sphere with<br />
programmable graphics visible from the Northbank.”<br />
The envisioned museum would be designed<br />
around ecosystems. Visitors would enter through the<br />
natural ecosystem, with the river and experiences<br />
SPRING <strong>2019</strong> | J MAGAZINE 21
around the interdependence of water, plants,<br />
animals and people.<br />
The expanded second floor would house the<br />
innovation ecosystem, featuring the “Makerspace”<br />
and Jacksonville’s entrepreneurial culture, and<br />
major traveling exhibits.<br />
The third floor would offer the cultural<br />
ecosystem, which includes history, diversity and<br />
pop culture and more makerspace. Recognizing<br />
the size of Jacksonville, “250 neighborhoods”<br />
would be “an ongoing visitor-contributed display<br />
that showcases the unique qualities of each<br />
neighborhood — the people, cultures, foods,<br />
festivals and ceremonies that shape each area.”<br />
The third floor also would open out onto a “green<br />
roof event space” overlooking the park, the fountain<br />
and the river.<br />
Of course, the expanded MOSH would maintain<br />
its planetarium, which it bills as “one of the largest<br />
single-lens digital dome planetariums” in the U.S.<br />
The expansion would double the space available<br />
for exhibits, quadruple the outdoor program area<br />
and increase the areas for school groups by 185<br />
percent.<br />
The price of progress<br />
All that would cost between $80 million and $90<br />
million. Museum President Maria Hane believes<br />
$60-70 million of that can be raised from federal<br />
“The<br />
museum<br />
experience<br />
will be<br />
transformed<br />
into the<br />
way we’re<br />
going to use<br />
museums in<br />
the future.”<br />
MARIA HANE<br />
MOSH PRESIDENT<br />
grants, state and city grants and appropriations, and<br />
perhaps revenue bonds.<br />
That leaves $20 million to be raised from<br />
donations, and MOSH is powering up its fundraising<br />
capability.<br />
If you kick in, she says, you’ll be helping build<br />
“a new museum destination for learning unlike<br />
anything in this region: hands-on learning,<br />
intergenerational experiences, technology and<br />
ideation processes … The museum experience will<br />
be transformed into the way we’re going to use<br />
museums in the future.”<br />
She said the larger benefits of the new MOSH<br />
will be to help develop the 21st century workforce,<br />
add another major “complementary” component<br />
to Downtown development and enhance tourism<br />
and our own quality of life.<br />
“This will be an iconic symbol of Jacksonville’s<br />
aspirations.”<br />
Or the symbol can remain the city’s last major<br />
public building project, the $350 million Duval<br />
County Courthouse whose function is to deal with<br />
the downside of life — criminal justice and civil<br />
disputes.<br />
Are we willing to invest a fourth of that into an<br />
institution of learning for our future?<br />
Frank Denton, retired editor of The Florida Times-Union, is<br />
editor of J. He lives in Riverside.<br />
22<br />
J MAGAZINE | SPRING <strong>2019</strong>
24 J MAGAZINE | SPRING <strong>2019</strong> TRANSFORMED<br />
DOWNTOWNS<br />
If Oklahoma City<br />
can be revived,<br />
it can happen<br />
anywhere
Meet Mick Cornett, the former mayor of<br />
Oklahoma City, who, with leadership,<br />
determination and vision, transformed his<br />
midsize city into a thriving community<br />
BY MIKE CLARK<br />
CHRIS LANDSBERGER<br />
SPRING <strong>2019</strong> | J MAGAZINE 25
During Mick Cornett’s 15 years as Oklahoma City mayor, the city was transformed into a vibrant, growing community.<br />
If Oklahoma City can be revived, it can happen anywhere.<br />
That’s the message of Mick Cornett, mayor of Oklahoma City from 2004 to 2018.<br />
In his book “The Next American City: The Big Promise of our Midsize Metros,” Cornett<br />
tells the Oklahoma City story as well as success stories of other mid-size metros.<br />
Cornett makes a convincing case. Oklahoma City was little more than a truck stop,<br />
battered by an oil recession with the locals feeling pretty bad about themselves.<br />
A series of mayors persuaded the citizens to vote for temporary sales taxes to start<br />
making visible improvements to the city’s facilities and schools. Cornett, however, took<br />
Ithe local improvements to a new level.<br />
THINKSTOCK<br />
26<br />
J MAGAZINE | SPRING <strong>2019</strong>
extend image<br />
CHRIS LANDSBERGER<br />
Listening to a local activist, he agreed to turn<br />
a dry creek bed into a canoeing, sculling and<br />
kayaking hotbed. Suddenly a place that once<br />
was being mowed was playing host to national<br />
activities. And then it became a magnet for<br />
redevelopment.<br />
This isn’t an accident. Cornett sees great<br />
opportunities for midsize cities to attract the smart<br />
young people who are turned off by the high cost of<br />
living in cities like New York and Los Angeles. Give<br />
them some amenities, and they will come.<br />
A Brookings Institution study showed that from<br />
2010 to 2016, New York City lost 900,000 people,<br />
Los Angeles lost 375,000 and Chicago lost 400,000.<br />
Richard Florida, the proponent of attracting<br />
the creative class, describes this in a forward to<br />
Cornett’s book.<br />
“The 20th Century was the century of suburbanization:<br />
the flight from cities of people and industry,<br />
commerce and jobs as far from downtowns as<br />
our cars and highways could take us.<br />
“But now, shockingly, the 21st Century has been<br />
deemed the ‘century of the city.’ The creative class has<br />
streamed back to cities in ways no one anticipated.<br />
And even start-up companies are abandoning their<br />
tech-driven ‘nerdistans’ in suburban office parks for<br />
the vibrancy and hubbub of urban centers.<br />
“And as our largest urban centers become<br />
increasingly expensive, unaffordable and divided,<br />
they price out and drive away the very diversity that<br />
powered their innovativeness and growth to begin<br />
with. … Smaller places that cultivate innovation and<br />
creativity, have abundant natural or urban amenities<br />
and connect to larger centers in the United States<br />
and the world are thriving.”<br />
Successful cities must mobilize, of course, but<br />
Cornett’s point is that every city has something to<br />
work with, you just need to find it.<br />
“Large and small, they create a genuine quality<br />
of place that all can see and feel,” Cornett writes of<br />
cities on the move.<br />
“This is a story about finding a hidden asset<br />
and unleashing its potential. … Sometimes the<br />
missing link is the passion of the person with the<br />
idea. Take another look at the most recent crazy<br />
idea to emerge in your community. Maybe it’s not<br />
so crazy.”<br />
“Old-fashioned buildings, eyesores and oldfashioned<br />
industries can be refreshed to make your<br />
city great again. Sometimes traditions are the best<br />
foundations to build on. Your city has its untold<br />
stories that need to be told. … And believe it or not,<br />
the world is listening.”<br />
One of the things former<br />
Oklahoma City mayor Mick<br />
Cornett will be remembered<br />
for is the arrival of the National<br />
Basketball Association’s Thunder.<br />
“When (the NBA) selected us for<br />
a permanent franchise, it sent a<br />
message to the rest of the country<br />
that something special was going<br />
on here,” Cornett said.<br />
SPRING <strong>2019</strong> | J MAGAZINE 27
Just a short walk from downtown<br />
Oklahoma City, Bricktown is a<br />
former warehouse district filled<br />
with restaurants hotels, event<br />
venues and attractions.<br />
Here is how Cornett describes Oklahoma City:<br />
“What was once a hopeless place on the brink of<br />
collapse has become a vibrant, growing, diverse<br />
American city. … The reinvention of Oklahoma<br />
City has been nothing short of a miracle. We rebuilt<br />
every school in the inner city. We revived the<br />
‘downtown ditch the grownups called the river.’ We<br />
redesigned our city and downtown around people<br />
rather than the automobile, constructing enough<br />
sidewalks and trails to walk to Dallas. We changed<br />
in a matter of years from a wounded city with no<br />
national brand to a truly big league city.”<br />
It took determination first, then a vision, then<br />
activation.<br />
“When times are tough, good places with great<br />
people dig deep and find a way to blaze a trail to the<br />
future.”<br />
Oklahoma City, like Jacksonville and so many<br />
others, had been built with the automobile in mind.<br />
It was a great place if you were a car, Cornett wrote.<br />
“Downtown was dead. People got in their cars<br />
and flew down the one-way streets to the onramps<br />
and the interstate highways, and made the<br />
20-minute ride to their homes.”<br />
So Oklahoma City deliberately started changing<br />
its one-way streets to two-ways in order to make<br />
people the priority, not their cars. Jacksonville<br />
has plans for converting one-way streets, but little<br />
action.<br />
The people of Oklahoma City are conservative,<br />
but they agreed to a series of temporary sales tax<br />
increases that invested over $5 billion in public<br />
and private money in a new baseball park, rebuilt<br />
every school, built a new main library, rebuilt the<br />
performing arts center, built a convention center<br />
and fairground and produced the Bricktown<br />
entertainment district.<br />
During his 14 years as mayor, Cornett helped<br />
lure the Oklahoma City Thunder pro basketball<br />
team, created a world class venue for canoeing,<br />
First, it takes leadership.<br />
Built in the Boathouse District,<br />
RiverSport Rapids is Oklahoma<br />
City’s whitewater rafting and<br />
kayaking center. The area features<br />
an abundance of outdoor fun<br />
including whitewater rafting and<br />
kayaking, adventure courses, zip<br />
lines, rock walls, cycling, high speed<br />
slides, flatwater kayaking and stand<br />
up paddle boarding.<br />
28 J MAGAZINE | SPRING <strong>2019</strong><br />
enticed 20 hotels downtown, expanded corporate<br />
headquarters and attracted nearly $6 billion in<br />
private money.<br />
Oklahoma City has a tradition of pragmatism.<br />
After all, the shopping cart and parking meter were<br />
invented there.<br />
But the energy crisis hit hard. Then the bombing<br />
of the Murrah federal building in 1995 seemed to<br />
put a tombstone on the city.<br />
Marketers studied the Oklahoma City image<br />
and discovered that outsiders really didn’t have one<br />
but the people of Oklahoma City did — and it was<br />
negative.<br />
“Brands are great for cities but personalities are<br />
better,” Cornett wrote. “And the personality of a<br />
place grows from a city’s history and informs a city’s<br />
posture toward the present and future.”<br />
When Cornett looked around, he discovered<br />
that every city has a story, it just needs to be told.<br />
“I see a great future for this country and for the<br />
millions of Americans who call fast-growing cities<br />
like mine home.”<br />
“The middle is where the action is.”<br />
“Our country’s middle class is moving from<br />
megametros to smaller, more livable and manageable<br />
places. … The pragmatic, productive, visionary<br />
politics in smaller cities like my own is getting things<br />
done and raising standards for millions of public<br />
servants at the local level.”<br />
“Better housing prices, lighter traffic and the<br />
ASASASASASAS Oklahoma City Convention & Visitor Bureau (TOP); CHRIS LANDSBERGER (BOTTOM)
Oklahoma City Convention & Visitor Bureau<br />
proliferation of top-tier restaurants are all part of<br />
the story.”<br />
Cornett also realized that the people had to be<br />
energized, too. When Oklahoma City was named<br />
the fattest city in America, he began a weight loss<br />
campaign for residents to lose 1 million pounds. It<br />
took about four years, but it worked.<br />
Honesty is one of the keys to urban<br />
redevelopment. Cornett and his constituents had<br />
to lose some pounds, so they admitted it and went<br />
to work.<br />
Sounding like a civic evangelist, Cornett<br />
preaches that any city can be reinvented. He has<br />
seen it elsewhere.<br />
“I assure you the reinvention of Middle America<br />
is real,” Cornett writes. “We are in the early days of<br />
a new golden age for the American city, where 100<br />
cities, maybe more, will find their way to a future<br />
brighter than they could have imagined. How it<br />
works, who’s in charge and where it is happening<br />
fastest may surprise you just as much as it has<br />
surprised me.”<br />
What are the lessons for<br />
Jacksonville? We have been<br />
preaching them in our eight<br />
editions of J magazine as well as<br />
the Sunday Reason section.<br />
Jacksonville has been great at planning but<br />
poor at execution since the Better Jacksonville Plan<br />
of 2000. Peer cities like Charlotte, Nashville and<br />
Oklahoma City have passed us in redeveloping<br />
their downtowns.<br />
Cornett’s book offers obvious prescriptions<br />
Bricktown has become Oklahoma<br />
City’s premiere entertainment<br />
district with the Bricktown Canal<br />
serving as the area’s focal point.<br />
SPRING <strong>2019</strong> | J MAGAZINE 29
BEAUTIFUL.<br />
MADE AFFORDABLE.<br />
PROUDLY SERVING JACKSONVILLE SINCE 1977<br />
351 BLANDING BOULEVARD<br />
904-276-1400<br />
VISIT US AT WWW.CARPETONE.ME<br />
8956 PHILIPS HIGHWAY<br />
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3670 US HIGHWAY 1 SOUTH<br />
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Oklahoma City Convention & Visitor Bureau<br />
for Downtown redevelopment that relate to<br />
Jacksonville:<br />
• Tell our story, honestly: Jacksonville has a great<br />
story to tell but we have been too shy or ashamed<br />
to admit that it has not always been Chamber of<br />
Commerce material. Much of it involves race.<br />
Other Southern cities have turned their civil rights<br />
histories into tourist attractions. Jacksonville has<br />
great nationally known civil rights leaders. All we<br />
need to do is embrace their history.<br />
• Turn from cars to people: Planning for urban<br />
trails is underway by Groundwork Jacksonville.<br />
That should be impetus to create more twoway<br />
streets Downtown to foster more retail and<br />
services.<br />
• Cut red tape: Redevelopment is underway<br />
Downtown, but developers must slog through a<br />
swamp of regulatory hurdles. We need to bring a<br />
group of agencies into one room and work out the<br />
regulations in a more efficient manner. It’s mystifying<br />
that a Republican-dominated city still is hampered<br />
by regulations.<br />
Cornett is convinced that if Oklahoma City<br />
can redefine and rebuild itself, any city can do it.<br />
Jacksonville, a similar city, should be making more<br />
progress than it is.<br />
Mike Clark has been reporting and editing Downtown for<br />
the Jacksonville newspapers since 1973. He and his family lived<br />
in San Marco for most of that time and now live in Nocatee.<br />
The Oklahoma City National<br />
Memorial honors the victims,<br />
survivors, rescuers and all who<br />
were affected by the Oklahoma<br />
City bombing on April 19, 1995.<br />
“We have taken a city that had<br />
been branded by tragedy and<br />
built it into a cosmopolitan,<br />
job-creating powerhouse, that is<br />
also known for its compassion,”<br />
former mayor Mick Cornett said.<br />
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CHOW DOWN<br />
A brand new community designed for playful living<br />
in the heart of the Florida Lowcountry<br />
wildlight.com<br />
SPRING <strong>2019</strong> | J MAGAZINE 31<br />
RAY-025a_chow_down_ad_7.25x4.875.indd 1<br />
2/14/19 12:24 PM
THE BIG<br />
PICTURE<br />
FORMER CITY<br />
HALL ANNEX<br />
IMPLODED<br />
PHOTO BY WILL DICKEY<br />
At 8 a.m. on a cloudy morning<br />
on Jan. 20, Jacksonville’s 15-story<br />
former City Hall Annex building was<br />
reduced to a pile of rubble in less<br />
than 10 seconds. The mid-century<br />
modern building at 220 E. Bay St.<br />
opened in 1960, a time when it was<br />
the fifth-tallest building in Jacksonville.<br />
That site along with the one<br />
next door, the former Duval County<br />
Courthouse, are being cleared for<br />
eventual Downtown redevelopment<br />
along the riverfront.<br />
TIMES-UNION ARCHIVE<br />
Construction of the City Hall Annex ]<br />
was completed in 1960.<br />
32<br />
J MAGAZINE | SPRING <strong>2019</strong>
SPRING <strong>2019</strong> | J MAGAZINE 33
From Montreal’s colorful Jacques Cartier Bridge<br />
to breathtaking outdoor ‘wallcasts’ in Miami<br />
Beach, Jacksonville is looking at similar ways<br />
to invigorate the Downtown river experience<br />
ACTIVATING<br />
THE RIVER<br />
BY LILLA ROSS // PHOTO BY julien perron-gagné<br />
34 XX J J MAGAZINE | | SPRING <strong>2019</strong>
Montreal’s Jacques Cartier Bridge,<br />
is illuminated each evening with<br />
lighting that changes with the<br />
season and how often Montreal is<br />
mentioned on Twitter.<br />
SPRING <strong>2019</strong> | | J J MAGAZINE XX 35
There’s been a<br />
lot of talk in<br />
recent years<br />
about making the St.<br />
Johns River central to<br />
the city’s identity and<br />
brand, developing its<br />
recreational<br />
and economic opportunities and valuing it as<br />
a natural resource that needs to be protected.<br />
And now, we’re starting to see some action.<br />
Much of the focus has been on multimillion-dollar<br />
developments to add<br />
residential and retail establishments like The<br />
District on the Southbank and Shad Khan’s<br />
vision for the Shipyards on the Northbank.<br />
But another effort — low-budget in comparison — has been<br />
in the works, spearheaded by City Councilwoman Lori Boyer, to<br />
rethink the ways existing components are used. Rather than brickand-mortar,<br />
these projects are about structural creativity.<br />
Starting this spring and for the next two years, work will be underway<br />
on the Northbank and Southbank Riverwalks and McCoys<br />
Creek to help people connect with the river. Some of the work —<br />
bulkheads and plumbing, for instance — isn’t very sexy, but it will<br />
set the stage for the creation of a multimedia entertainment zone<br />
between of the Acosta and Main Street bridges.<br />
Think of it as a Wow! Zone.<br />
It will be part of Boyer’s legacy. The two-term District 5<br />
councilwoman, who represents San Marco, has championed the<br />
activation of the river as chair of the Jacksonville Waterways Commission,<br />
chair of Waterway/Waterfront Activation, member of the<br />
Tourist Development Council and council liaison to the Downtown<br />
Investment Authority.<br />
Her goal has been to make the river easier to get to and to give<br />
people — residents and tourists — more reasons to get there. Boyer’s<br />
term on the City Council ends in June, but she leaves knowing<br />
that her efforts to activate the river are bearing fruit.<br />
Better access to the river<br />
To improve access, a new shared-use path is under construction<br />
on the Fuller Warren Bridge. When it is completed by the fall<br />
of 2020, pedestrians and cyclists will be able to cross the river via a<br />
12-foot-wide path with ramps at the Riverside Arts Market on the<br />
Northbank and Nemours Children’s Hospital on the Southbank.<br />
NEW WORLD SYMPHONY<br />
36<br />
J MAGAZINE | SPRING <strong>2019</strong>
SoundScape Park in Miami Beach broadcasts movies and live concerts — including this one by the New World Symphony — on a 7,000-square-foot projection wall.<br />
It’s a major piece of a loop that is planned to meander through<br />
San Marco, linking the Northbank and Southbank Riverwalks.<br />
There are some gaps in the path — notably The District on the<br />
Southbank that will eventually include a Riverwalk extension —<br />
but it will give walkers and cyclists better and safer access.<br />
Cross-river transportation also will improve with the addition<br />
of docks at Jackson Street in Brooklyn and Post Street in Riverside<br />
and a kayak launch at Ed Gefen Park. Finger docks also are going<br />
in on the Southbank near the Riverplace Tower.<br />
This spring, wayfinding signs are being installed along the Riverwalks.<br />
These will provide “you are here” type information, Boyer<br />
said, but they will include the necessary wiring so that interactive<br />
signage with more information can be added later.<br />
Riverplace Boulevard on the Southbank is undergoing a road<br />
diet to slow down traffic, create more green space and improve<br />
access to the Southbank Riverwalk. The $6 million project will<br />
reduce the street from five lanes to three and add bike lanes,<br />
crosswalks and wider sidewalks and 36 on-street parking spaces.<br />
And 200 parking spaces will soon be available under the Acosta<br />
Bridge.<br />
All of those projects will make the Riverwalks easier to find and<br />
navigate, and soon people will have new reasons to come.<br />
But first things first. The aging Northbank bulkhead, which<br />
was further weakened by Hurricane Irma, will be repaired and<br />
upgraded starting this summer. The $3 million project is expected<br />
to be completed in 2021.<br />
As that project winds down, work will begin on a new riverfront<br />
Visit Jacksonville welcome center in the southeast corner of<br />
SPRING <strong>2019</strong> | J MAGAZINE 37
“Friendship<br />
Fountain is<br />
in our front<br />
yard, and<br />
the way our<br />
building embraces<br />
the<br />
park creates<br />
connectivity<br />
both visually<br />
and<br />
programmatically<br />
to<br />
Downtown.”<br />
MARIA HANE<br />
PRESIDENT OF<br />
THE MUSEUM<br />
OF SCIENCE<br />
AND HISTORY<br />
the Times-Union Performing Arts Center, paid<br />
for with $850,000 from the Tourist Development<br />
Council.<br />
‘Wallcasting’ on<br />
the Northbank<br />
Visitors to the welcome center will have reason<br />
to linger. Just outside will be a sensory garden and<br />
children’s space highlighting Northeast Florida’s<br />
diverse musical heritage. The various components<br />
of the musical garden will develop over time, as<br />
funding is available, Boyer said, but the plan is<br />
to make it interactive. Visitors might hear music<br />
by Frederick Delius, whose “Florida Suite” was<br />
inspired by his time in North Florida; James Weldon<br />
and John Rosamond Johnson, composers of<br />
“Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing,” and Southern rockers<br />
Lynyrd Skynyrd.<br />
The TDC has allocated $1.2 million to create<br />
a “wallcast” venue. Never heard of a “wallcast?”<br />
Think of a more sophisticated version of a drive-in<br />
movie with the facade of the CSX building serving<br />
as a livestream screen. It’s being done in Sound-<br />
Scape Park in Miami Beach where the New World<br />
Symphony broadcasts live concerts and movies<br />
on an outdoor 7,000-square-foot projection wall.<br />
Boyer envisions people watching movies or<br />
concerts from lawn chairs or boats and ordering<br />
food and drinks from food trucks or a proposed<br />
café in the Performing Arts Center.<br />
Activating Friendship<br />
Fountain<br />
That’s the plan for the Northbank. The plan for<br />
the Southbank will begin shortly on plumbing and<br />
wiring repairs and upgrades to Friendship Fountain,<br />
which already are in the city budget.<br />
The fountain has needed repairing for years,<br />
but Boyer wants to use the opportunity to make<br />
the fountain and surrounding St. Johns River Park<br />
more of a destination.<br />
The fountain will become an entertainment<br />
venue for synchronized light, music and projection<br />
shows. Fluidity Design of Los Angeles, which<br />
specializes in water and music projects, is designing<br />
the fountain upgrades. Boyer said work should<br />
begin in late spring and be done by fall.<br />
The area around the fountain will be transformed<br />
into a garden echoing naturalist William<br />
Bartram’s exploration of Florida in the 18th century.<br />
Expect landscaping with native plants and a<br />
picnic area.<br />
A play area will harken to the 16th century and<br />
the adventures of French colonizer Jean Ribault,<br />
who explored the St. Johns River and established<br />
Fort Caroline. The centerpiece of the playground<br />
will be a 16th century French galleon, a Timucuan<br />
hut and a splash pad.<br />
Some of the inspiration for the park comes from<br />
the new Gathering Place in Tulsa, Okla., a 100-acre<br />
riverfront park that was voted USA Today’s Best<br />
New Attraction. Funded by philanthropist George<br />
Kaiser, the park is billed as a playground for all<br />
ages with trails, a concert venue, restaurants and a<br />
European-style playground that engages children<br />
of all ability levels.<br />
The funding is in place for the garden and picnic<br />
area, and work on those elements could begin<br />
this spring, Boyer said. The playground design is in<br />
the bidding process.<br />
Maria Hane, president of the adjoining Museum<br />
of Science and History (MOSH), said the<br />
plans for the Friendship Fountain will enhance the<br />
museum’s plans for expansion. See story page 16)<br />
“Friendship Fountain is in our front yard, and<br />
the way our building embraces the park creates<br />
connectivity both visually and programmatically to<br />
Downtown,” Hane said. “Synergy is happening at<br />
the site. The city’s investment and our investment<br />
are so cohesive, and they will create a seamless<br />
experience whether you start in the museum and<br />
go to the park or start in the park and come to the<br />
museum.”<br />
Sound and light show<br />
But that’s only two sides of the quadrangle. Miller<br />
Electric and the Moment Factory, a multimedia<br />
studio based in Montreal, are working on developing<br />
a light and music show using the Acosta<br />
and Main Street bridges, the fountain and the T-U<br />
Performing Arts Center.<br />
The Moment Factory has developed productions<br />
all over the world but none more spectacular<br />
than the one it did in its own backyard — the<br />
Jacques Cartier Bridge. The iconic bridge, which<br />
opened in 1930, is illuminated each evening<br />
with lighting that changes with the season. The<br />
intensity, speed and density of the light changes<br />
depending on how often Montreal is mentioned on<br />
Twitter.<br />
The Downtown Investment Authority has contracted<br />
with Miller Electric and the Moment Factory<br />
to develop a concept for a multimedia show<br />
highlighting Jacksonville’s unique history, culture<br />
and ecology. The design proposal and estimate<br />
of operating costs are expected this spring, but an<br />
early estimate puts the annual operating costs at<br />
between $250,000 and $500,000. For Downtown<br />
that’s a pretty affordable wow!<br />
The Performing Arts Center and Friendship<br />
Fountain projects are the first of about a dozen<br />
“nodes” that are proposed along the Riverwalks<br />
that will serve as green space, activity zones and<br />
transportation access points. They are envisioned<br />
from the Sports Complex to Riverside and will be<br />
developed as plans for new development firm up.<br />
Jewel in the<br />
Emerald Necklace<br />
Another element of the river activation is the<br />
restoration of McCoys Creek. What it lacks in glitz, it<br />
more than makes up for in impact both social and<br />
environmental.<br />
McCoys Creek is a neglected waterway that<br />
38<br />
J MAGAZINE | SPRING <strong>2019</strong>
Don Burk<br />
empties at the St. Johns River under the Florida<br />
Times-Union building and meanders for almost<br />
three miles through the Lackawanna, North Riverside<br />
and Brooklyn neighborhoods to Hollybrook<br />
Park. Once upon a time, it was a place to fish and<br />
swim, but then industry took over the area and the<br />
creek was bulkheaded and channelized, cutting off<br />
its natural flow. The creek is polluted, overgrown<br />
and prone to flooding.<br />
Shannon Blankinship of the St. Johns Riverkeeper<br />
said they are hoping the McCoys Creek<br />
project will help improve water quality, enhance<br />
the natural environment and provide recreational<br />
opportunities.<br />
“This is a tremendous opportunity. That whole<br />
area will look different and there could be real ecological<br />
benefits,” she said. “There would be better<br />
public access. You could put a kayak in at Stockton<br />
Street and paddle to the river.”<br />
Groundwork Jacksonville has partnered with<br />
the city to spearhead the redevelopment of McCoys<br />
Creek as part of its Emerald Necklace project that<br />
will connect the S-Line, Hogans Creek and the Riverwalks.<br />
Groundwork recently received a $250,000<br />
grant for the project.<br />
Groundwork’s goal is to clean up and naturalize<br />
the creek and create bike and walking trails while<br />
the city focuses on infrastructure improvements to<br />
reduce flooding.<br />
McCoys Creek restoration has been on the<br />
city’s agenda for at least a decade. The stormwater<br />
management and flood mitigation plan divides<br />
the project into two phases east and west of Myrtle<br />
Avenue.<br />
The work would include demolishing two bridges,<br />
raising the Stockton and King street bridges,<br />
restoring the bulkhead and reshaping the banks to<br />
improve water flow, removing McCoys Creek Boulevard,<br />
performing ash remediation and providing<br />
economic incentives for development.<br />
The entire project is expected to cost about $60<br />
million. The funding is in place for the design of<br />
Phase 1, demolishing the bridges and doing the<br />
ash remediation. Work is expected to begin before<br />
summer.<br />
The one unknown is plans by Morris Communications<br />
for the Times-Union property. Organizers<br />
of the McCoys Creek restoration are hoping the<br />
company is open to “daylighting” the creek so that it<br />
can be restored as a waterway that will help activate<br />
the river.<br />
Lilla Ross was a reporter and editor at The Florida Times-<br />
Union for 35 years. She lives in San Marco.<br />
Plumbing and wiring upgrades<br />
to Friendship Fountain on<br />
Downtown’s southbank are<br />
already in the city’s budget.<br />
Other enhancements call for a<br />
synchronized light and music show<br />
along with a landscaped garden and<br />
play area.<br />
SPRING <strong>2019</strong> | J MAGAZINE 39
Built in 1912, the Union Terminal<br />
Warehouse was for decades,<br />
Jacksonville’s largest industrial<br />
building. The warehouse originally<br />
supplied service to Jacksonville’s 32<br />
wholesale grocery firms.<br />
40<br />
J MAGAZINE | SPRING <strong>2019</strong>
Tucked away in a little-visited industrial corner of Downtown, a<br />
massive warehouse is undergoing a transformation that developers<br />
hope leads to a thriving live-work-play community of creators<br />
BY FRANK DENTON // PHOTOS BY BOB SELF<br />
SPRING <strong>2019</strong> | J MAGAZINE 41
Byron Caplan works on his piece, “Venus No.4,” in his fourth-floor studio space inside the Union Terminal building.<br />
Driving out East Union Street from the<br />
Downtown core, you have to be careful to<br />
take the Union exit, or you’ll find yourself<br />
on the Mathews Bridge into Arlington. So<br />
take the exit, then an unmarked left and a<br />
right to stay on what’s left of Union.<br />
There, in a gritty, grimy, obscure<br />
industrial corner of Downtown<br />
cattycorner from the rundown Old<br />
City Cemetery with all its Confederate<br />
graves, you’ll find the massive Union<br />
Terminal Warehouse, a piece of<br />
Jacksonville industrial history that<br />
could become part of its creative future.<br />
42 J MAGAZINE | SPRING <strong>2019</strong><br />
In 1986, the 320,000-square-foot Union Terminal building was on the market for $2.7 million.<br />
TIMES-UNION ARCHIVES
IONIA ST.<br />
JEFF DAVIS (MAP)<br />
Behind its aged steel doors, scores of pioneer<br />
artists and makers have carved out their own<br />
studios in creating the third piece of what one<br />
called the “golden triangle” of arts districts, joining<br />
CORK in Riverside<br />
and the Phoenix Arts<br />
PIPPIN ST.<br />
UNION ST.<br />
Hogans Creek<br />
District in <strong>Spring</strong>field.<br />
Now they’re waiting,<br />
with a mixture<br />
of eagerness and<br />
nervousness, as new<br />
owners envision the<br />
warehouse as the next<br />
piece in Downtown<br />
revitalization, on the<br />
eight acres alongside<br />
Hogans Creek between<br />
the Cathedral District<br />
to the west and the<br />
Sports Complex to the<br />
east, within walking<br />
distance of Veterans<br />
Memorial Arena and<br />
even TIAA Bank Field.<br />
Despite those neighbors,<br />
the warehouse is just outside the official<br />
Downtown boundary.<br />
The century-long link between the warehouse<br />
and its planned adaptive reuse into a live-workplay<br />
community of artists, crafts people and other<br />
creators is the powerful concept of authenticity.<br />
As you read in the fall issue of J, urban centers<br />
that have authentic charm and sense of place are<br />
especially effective at attracting new residents,<br />
particularly millennials. Richard Florida, in his<br />
2012 update to his important book The Rise of<br />
the Creative Class, said people in his research defined<br />
authentic as the opposite of generic. “They<br />
equate authentic with being real, as in a place<br />
that has real buildings, real people, real history. A<br />
place that’s full of chain stores, chain restaurants<br />
and chain nightclubs is seen as inauthentic. Not<br />
only do those venues look pretty much the same<br />
everywhere, they offer the same experiences you<br />
could have anywhere.”<br />
“Places are … valued for their authenticity and<br />
uniqueness,” Florida wrote. “Authenticity comes<br />
from several aspects of a community — historic<br />
buildings, established neighborhoods, a distinctive<br />
music scene or specific cultural attributes.<br />
It especially comes from the mix — urban grit<br />
alongside freshly renovated buildings …”<br />
A piece of<br />
industrial history<br />
While many of Jacksonville’s historic buildings<br />
were lost to the Great Fire of 1901 and to 20th<br />
century “urban renewal,” the Union Terminal<br />
Warehouse is a living part of local history. Highway<br />
signs now proclaim Jacksonville as “America’s<br />
Logistics Center,” and that may have had roots in<br />
this warehouse that was innovative in its time and,<br />
N<br />
ARLINGTON EXPRESSWAY<br />
PALMETTO ST.<br />
Veterans<br />
Memorial<br />
Arena<br />
UNION<br />
TERMINAL<br />
WAREHOUSE<br />
700 E. Union St.<br />
Baseball<br />
Grounds<br />
DUVAL ST.<br />
A Philip RANDOLPH BLVD.<br />
for decades, the city’s largest industrial building.<br />
The warehouse was built in 1912 by C.B. Gay as<br />
a supply service to the city’s 32 wholesale grocery<br />
firms, Kristen Pickrell wrote for metrojacksonville.<br />
com in 2014. Before the<br />
invention of the tractor-trailer,<br />
groceries —<br />
and, later, other goods<br />
— were shipped to this<br />
central warehouse on<br />
adjacent rail lines and<br />
via water on Hogans<br />
Creek connecting to the<br />
St. Johns River.<br />
Gay’s facility saved<br />
its tenants money by<br />
reducing their insurance,<br />
shipping and<br />
distribution costs.<br />
The building, Pickrell<br />
wrote, featured more<br />
than 3,000 feet of rail<br />
siding, two subways, a<br />
sprinkler system, freight<br />
elevators, an internal<br />
phone system and the Union Terminal Lunch<br />
Room for employees.<br />
“In its glory days,” she wrote, “the Union Terminal<br />
Warehouse Company originally offered a<br />
plethora of amenities to railway users,” including a<br />
“pool car distribution system” allowing shippers to<br />
save money through efficient sharing of cars.<br />
Today, the rail sidings are gone, and the aged<br />
building is reduced to simple warehouse space,<br />
occupied by a number of diverse small businesses<br />
— Hof’s Printing, A&B Asphalt Repair, Jacksonville<br />
Reclaimed Wood — and those eager and nervous<br />
artists.<br />
There are about 10 large art studios in the<br />
building, each subdivided for individual artists,<br />
plus individual studios for another 10 independent<br />
artists and craftspeople, making a total of<br />
“The idea<br />
of the loft<br />
would be<br />
to do what<br />
you want<br />
so long as<br />
you’re not<br />
bothering<br />
your<br />
neighbor.”<br />
DILLON BAYNES<br />
DEVELOPER<br />
Artist Nathan Eckenrode works<br />
inside his studio space on the<br />
third floor of the Union Terminal<br />
complex. Eckenrode enclosed a<br />
space inside a larger space used by<br />
a number of artists in the historic<br />
commercial building.
Artist Nathan Eckenrode inside perhaps 100 creative people occupying about 45<br />
his studio on the third floor of percent of the warehouse space.<br />
the Union Terminal complex.<br />
The building now houses rental<br />
A renaissance,<br />
offices, warehouses and artists’<br />
minor or major<br />
studio space. The owners plan<br />
It is the authentic combination of the historic<br />
to develop it into retail, dining<br />
and entertainment location for building, the almost-Downtown location and the<br />
creatives.<br />
native energy of the creators already staking a claim<br />
that has led to a plan by an Atlanta-based developer<br />
to redevelop the warehouse for residences,<br />
commercial, retail and maybe dining and entertainment.<br />
Columbia Ventures, which calls itself “the<br />
Southeast’s premier social impact developer,”<br />
bought the building in December, using a $4.5<br />
million loan from the Jacksonville branch of LISC,<br />
the Local Initiatives Support Corp., and may invest<br />
more than $30 million in the project, with federal<br />
Historic Tax Credits.<br />
Dillon Baynes, managing partner, said Columbia,<br />
with a local architect, will spend the first six<br />
months of this year planning, including studying<br />
the venerable building and its considerable deferred<br />
maintenance to determine whether to do a<br />
minor or major renovation.<br />
44 J MAGAZINE | SPRING <strong>2019</strong><br />
If the latter, he said there could be three floors<br />
of residential, probably workforce apartments, one<br />
floor of “makerspace” and one of commercial. “But<br />
we would be agnostic as to the use; we wouldn’t<br />
ban anyone from a certain floor. The idea of the loft<br />
would be to do what you want so long as you’re not<br />
bothering your neighbor.”<br />
A loft is different from an apartment in that it has<br />
an open floor plan with a bathroom and a kitchen<br />
but otherwise open space for the occupant to organize<br />
and use as he or she wishes, for living or work<br />
or both. Think of a section of a warehouse, with the<br />
original big windows restored.<br />
“For people who are merely looking for a new<br />
apartment, there are lots of places in Jacksonville,”<br />
Baynes said. “We will create a loft experience.”<br />
For a comparable project, he pointed to Studioplex<br />
in Atlanta, where Columbia renovated an old<br />
industrial building into rental lofts, with commercial<br />
and restaurants. (www.studioplexlofts.com)<br />
“In Studioplex today, we have restaurants, we<br />
have artists, we have doctors and lawyers, we have<br />
an entire creative class of people. We just finished<br />
adding 30,000 square feet of retail to the community,<br />
and we’ll continue to add over time. We have
three separate buildings with different identities.”<br />
Studioplex was rental from its redevelopment in<br />
1998 until 2007, when the units were converted to<br />
condominium ownership. “Our vision for the Jacksonville<br />
project is rental,” Baynes said. “Perhaps that<br />
could change in a decade, perhaps not. All of the<br />
renovated spaces we’ll refer to as ‘lofts,’ and yes, if<br />
we add residential, we’ll target workforce incomes.”<br />
The artists now<br />
in residence<br />
You can understand the artists already working<br />
at the Union Terminal Warehouse having mixed<br />
emotions about such grand plans.<br />
Nathan Eckenrode, who works on large abstract<br />
“motion paintings” via splatter techniques<br />
(akin to Jackson Pollock), found the loft idea<br />
compelling. “I hope we get to stay here,” he said.<br />
“I’d love to live here and create, have raw space,<br />
with a bedroom and a kitchen and a little bitty<br />
space to sleep.”<br />
He said the warehouse is ideal because what<br />
artists need is “space. And some place to wash<br />
your brushes. Space is a really big thing for an<br />
artist. You got to have space. You have to create<br />
separation from the messy creative stuff and<br />
home.”<br />
Eckenrode earns his living as a union stagehand<br />
and thinks all the creators in the warehouse<br />
have regular jobs to support themselves and<br />
afford the rent, commonly $75-150 a month for<br />
their parts of the space.<br />
One floor above, Byron Kaplan does cut-out<br />
“dazzle painting,” derived from a technique to<br />
camouflage British and American ships during<br />
the world wars (look it up; it’s fascinating). He<br />
makes his living as a TV news videographer and<br />
said, “Most people here have regular jobs. They’re<br />
here mostly weekends and nights.”<br />
Kaplan said he values the working arrangement<br />
because of the creative environment and<br />
opportunity to collaborate. “Other artists and I<br />
can bounce ideas off each other.”<br />
His hope for the new owners: “Not raise rent.<br />
And I hope our group can get air-conditioning,”<br />
the lack of which can stifle summertime creativity.<br />
Eckenrode’s studio landlord is Tammy McKinley,<br />
a real-estate agent as well as a photographer<br />
who rents one of the large studios then sublets<br />
spaces to 12 other artists, with a waiting list of 35.<br />
She said the artists and other creative people<br />
who have settled in the warehouse have established<br />
a real arts district. “We are Jacksonville’s<br />
dirty little secret. Everybody has been there, but<br />
no one wants to admit it.<br />
“We love it, we absolutely love it.”<br />
McKinley said she has discussed Columbia’s<br />
plans with Dillon Baynes, and “I’m keeping my<br />
fingers crossed he’ll make it possible for us to stay<br />
there. I’m absolutely keeping my fingers crossed.”<br />
Investment in the warehouse could lead to<br />
a rent increase. “I am a little concerned about<br />
that. Artists, we don’t make a lot of money. What<br />
attracted us to the building in the first place was a<br />
large amount of square footage for low rent. But if<br />
the property becomes more of a cultural destination,<br />
that would increase our profits and help pay<br />
for any rent increases.”<br />
As for Baynes himself, he is careful about being<br />
too firm, until Columbia’s study over the next<br />
few months shows what needs to be done and can<br />
be done with the warehouse.<br />
But he said, “We recognize the importance of<br />
having artists and craftspeople in the community.<br />
They’re already there. And this is an era where<br />
people focus on artisanal products.”<br />
Not a new idea<br />
It must be said that the Union Terminal Warehouse<br />
project is not a new idea. Other companies<br />
proposed very similar developments for the big<br />
building in 2015 and 2017, only to have them fall<br />
apart.<br />
And Columbia Ventures itself looked at the<br />
property five years ago but decided it and Jacksonville<br />
weren’t ready then.<br />
Now, both are. “Jacksonville’s Downtown and<br />
in-town neighborhoods have had amazing growth<br />
over the past few years,” Baynes told the Times-<br />
Union. “We … wanted to get in and be part of<br />
Jacksonville’s growth path.”<br />
“We love what’s happening next door in <strong>Spring</strong>field<br />
on Main Street and love the quality of emerging<br />
businesses there,” Baynes told J. “We would<br />
want to target a restaurant or café.”<br />
Asked for his degree of certainty that the project<br />
will happen this time, Baynes said: “Highly likely.”<br />
Union Terminal Warehouse is a tired, deteriorated<br />
structure in a rundown, forgotten subsection<br />
of town, but it is filled with creative and caring<br />
people and now with ideas and, apparently, capital.<br />
Underneath the big projects like The District and<br />
the Shipyards, it is focused projects like this that will<br />
bring Downtown to life.<br />
Frank Denton, retired editor of The Florida Times-Union,<br />
is editor of J. He lives in Riverside.<br />
“I hope<br />
we get to<br />
stay here.<br />
I’d love to<br />
live here<br />
and create,<br />
have raw<br />
space, with<br />
a bedroom<br />
and a<br />
kitchen and<br />
a little bitty<br />
space to<br />
sleep.”<br />
NATHAN<br />
ECKENRODE<br />
JACKSONVILLE<br />
ARTIST<br />
SPRING <strong>2019</strong> | J MAGAZINE 45
George Saoud outside the Bryan<br />
Building at Hogan and Monroe<br />
streets he is transforming into an<br />
artist’s collective called The Lark.<br />
46<br />
J MAGAZINE | SPRING <strong>2019</strong>
Local real estate investor George Saoud<br />
wants to see art studios in the heart of<br />
Downtown. That’s exactly what his latest<br />
venture – The Lark – aims to accomplish.<br />
Drawing<br />
artists<br />
to the<br />
heart of<br />
the core<br />
By CAROLE HAWKINS // PHOTOS BY BOB SELF<br />
Take one look at Five Points, Riverside,<br />
with its bohemian cluster of<br />
vintage shops and eclectic eateries,<br />
and you’ll know you’re in a creative<br />
urban neighborhood. Punctuating<br />
that point is CORK on Riverside’s King Street, with<br />
its 80,000 square feet of warehouse space converted<br />
into artist studios.<br />
Take one look at Downtown Jacksonville, and<br />
you’ll see public art — ground-to-rooftop murals<br />
painted on parking garages and high-rise buildings<br />
— showing off the urban core’s own unique<br />
character.<br />
Soon, that street art will be joined by an enclave<br />
of artists working in studio space just off Hemming<br />
Park. Punctuating the core as a creative urban<br />
district too.<br />
Owner George Saoud is undertaking a $120,000<br />
renovation of the second floor of the historic Bryan<br />
Building at the corner of Hogan and Monroe streets<br />
for a collective studio space for a dozen working<br />
artists. The Downtown Investment Authority contributed<br />
a $55,000 grant to the effort.<br />
“There’s not been a city that I’ve worked in that<br />
didn’t have an arts community that helped to drive<br />
its downtown revival,” former CEO Aundra Wallace<br />
said prior to the DIA grant last September. “I think<br />
this particular project is about as creative as you<br />
could probably get.”<br />
The renovation will open up the second floor’s<br />
bricked-in windows and refurbish the building’s<br />
antique elevator. Movable walls will create individual<br />
as well as collaborative workplaces, easily<br />
reconfigured for exhibitions. The downstairs lobby<br />
SPRING <strong>2019</strong> | J MAGAZINE 47
will offer temporary display space for featured<br />
artists.<br />
“There’s<br />
Construction began early this year, and Saoud<br />
hopes to finish by April. The new venue will be<br />
a grilled<br />
called The Lark, and under an agreement with the<br />
city, it will open for public events twice a month.<br />
cheese shop<br />
Saoud, a musician, real estate investor and<br />
Jacksonville native, said he can’t imagine a better<br />
beneath<br />
place for a Jacksonville artist to make the leap from<br />
hobbyist to professional.<br />
me and a<br />
“It gives you a Downtown address,” he said.<br />
“You’ll be right there at Hemming Park and have<br />
bar around your name attached to a space that’s tied to Art<br />
Walk. I don’t think you could beat that anywhere.”<br />
the corner.<br />
The Bryan building has been used by artists<br />
before, albeit less formally.<br />
There’s a<br />
In 2013 at the first One Spark festival, the same<br />
229 Hogan Street storefront and second floor<br />
museum,<br />
became exhibition space for a random collection<br />
of local artworks that meandered up the stairs and<br />
there’s a<br />
tumbled into a dozen or so partitioned rooms.<br />
After One Spark fizzled, most of the artists scattered.<br />
Two stayed.<br />
library.<br />
Rob Middleton and Meleese Bremer have been<br />
People say<br />
quietly using the second floor as a studio. Middleton<br />
opens the doors to Art Walk each month, just to<br />
Downtown keep the venue active.<br />
Both Middleton and Bremer said getting a larger<br />
Jacksonville community of artists to join them will be a way<br />
of keeping a little piece of One Spark alive. One<br />
is lame,<br />
Spark brought the community together, and it also<br />
brought others into the community, Bremer said.<br />
but there’s<br />
She met one artist who moved from Pennsylvania<br />
to Jacksonville because of the event.<br />
something<br />
“It was a stage for everyone, and it worked,” she<br />
said. “The innovations were real things, not just<br />
going on<br />
someone trying to sell you. It was real, and I miss it.”<br />
from 5 a.m. Bremer is a mixed-media abstract artist,<br />
definitely a professional, but with<br />
until 2 or 3<br />
a day job. Her hope is for her artwork<br />
to come to occupy a more central<br />
a.m. most of<br />
place in her life.<br />
Having a studio settles a lot of problems that<br />
the time.”<br />
artists face, she said. It’s a place to concentrate, a<br />
dedicated space she doesn’t have to set up and<br />
ROB MIDDLETON break down every time she wants to work. And<br />
DOWNTOWN<br />
connecting with other artists raises her professionalism.<br />
ARTIST<br />
“It pushes you outside of yourself,” Bremer said.<br />
“I’m very introverted, and I tend to get closed off if<br />
I’m too busy. You need other people to stay sharp,<br />
for that inspiration.”<br />
Middleton is a lifelong artist who’s built a local<br />
following for his emotive abstract expressionist<br />
paintings. There are other studios he could work<br />
out of: CORK, the Union Terminal Warehouse,<br />
<strong>Spring</strong>field’s Phoenix Arts District. But the Hogan<br />
Street studio fits his style.<br />
“It’s where I like to make artwork,” he said.<br />
“There’s a grilled cheese shop beneath me and a<br />
bar around the corner. There’s a museum, there’s a<br />
48 J MAGAZINE | SPRING <strong>2019</strong><br />
library. People say Downtown Jacksonville is lame,<br />
but there’s something going on from 5 a.m. until 2<br />
or 3 a.m. most of the time.”<br />
One day Middleton would like his work to be<br />
known outside Jacksonville, selling in South Florida,<br />
Atlanta and other places. These days, getting<br />
that outside reach no longer means having to leave<br />
Jacksonville.<br />
“I think things have changed here. I am constantly<br />
meeting young creative people, connecting<br />
through Instagram and in person too,” he said.<br />
“Jacksonville is a place that’s becoming strong<br />
enough to retain all of those young creative people<br />
who in the past all moved away without question.”<br />
It’s a place that’s accumulated an impressive<br />
collection of unique public art. And now too, a<br />
place strong enough to support local artists who are<br />
working to define Downtown’s emerging culture.<br />
Carole Hawkins is a freelance writer<br />
who lives in Murray Hill.
Artist Rob Middleton adjusts a<br />
painting in his studio on the second<br />
floor of the Bryan Building. To keep<br />
the venue active, Middleton has<br />
been opening the doors to Art Walk<br />
each month.<br />
Mixed-media, abstract artist Meleese<br />
Bremer stands in her Bryan Building<br />
studio space. “I’m very introverted,<br />
“ she said. “And I tend to get<br />
closed off if I’m too busy. You need<br />
other people to stay sharp, for that<br />
inspiration.”<br />
J MAGAZINE 49
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Joy Young is the new executive director of the Cultural Council of Greater Jacksonville. Young spent the past 14 years with the South Carolina Arts Commission.<br />
CULTURAL<br />
REVOLUTION<br />
WILL DICKEY<br />
The Cultural<br />
Council’s new<br />
leader takes<br />
on role of arts<br />
ambassador<br />
BY CHARLIE PATTON<br />
Joy Young, who began her new job as executive director of the Cultural<br />
Council of Greater Jacksonville last month, is the first person chosen to<br />
head the organization who wasn’t a Jacksonville resident before being<br />
chosen.<br />
“I love that she is an outsider,” said Ryan Ali, who spent three years as<br />
the Cultural Council’s director of development and is currently a mayoral<br />
appointee to the council’s board of directors. “She is coming in with a fresh eye and<br />
a fresh perspective.”<br />
SPRING <strong>2019</strong> | J MAGAZINE 51
“She’s a great people person, a great<br />
communicator,” said Ann Carey, chair of the<br />
“I’m here<br />
Cultural Council board.<br />
Young comes to Jacksonville from the South<br />
because I<br />
Carolina Arts Commission, where she served<br />
14 years as director of administration, human<br />
want to be<br />
resources and operations.<br />
“I accepted the position for the opportunity<br />
challenged<br />
to actively contribute to enriching the quality<br />
of life in Northeast Florida,” she said. “I’m here<br />
and I<br />
because I want to be challenged and I embrace<br />
change. And let’s be honest, the weather, a<br />
embrace<br />
growing city and a vibrant arts scene add to a<br />
great quality of life here.”<br />
change.<br />
And let’s be<br />
honest, the<br />
weather, a<br />
growing city<br />
and a vibrant<br />
arts scene<br />
add to a<br />
great quality<br />
of life here.”<br />
JOY YOUNG<br />
EXECUTIVE<br />
DIRECTOR OF<br />
THE CULTURAL<br />
COUNCIL<br />
52 J MAGAZINE | SPRING <strong>2019</strong><br />
The Cultural Council<br />
The Cultural Council, founded in 1973 as<br />
the Arts Assembly, is not a city agency. It is an<br />
independent nonprofit. But it administers two<br />
important city programs and is paid with city<br />
funds to run those programs.<br />
One is the Cultural Services Capital Program.<br />
Since 2001, the city has been providing a lump<br />
sum to fund arts organizations in the city,<br />
and the Cultural Council has administered<br />
the program and made decisions about what<br />
funding will be given to each participating arts<br />
organization.<br />
Since 2006, the Cultural Council also has<br />
administered the city’s Art in Public Places<br />
program. Under an ordinance first passed in<br />
1997, the city can set aside 0.75 percent of the<br />
cost of any project costing more than $100,000<br />
to spend for public art.<br />
The Better Jacksonville Plan, approved<br />
by voters during Mayor John Delaney’s<br />
administration, generated about $2.5 million<br />
for public art. Funds for Art in Public Places<br />
can also come from other sources such<br />
as discretionary funds from City Council<br />
members.<br />
The Cultural Council currently has about<br />
$1.45 million in unspent Art in Public Places<br />
funds; $866,667 is money that resulted from<br />
construction of the Duval County Courthouse.<br />
That money has remain unspent in part because<br />
the vast overruns in the cost of the courthouse<br />
made spending funds for public art at the<br />
project controversial.<br />
But in recent years city officials have been<br />
critical of the Cultural Council for not spending<br />
enough on public art.<br />
Young acknowledge she was aware of the<br />
issue.<br />
“The board made it clear there were<br />
challenges in programs [such as] public<br />
perception related to Art in Public Places,” she<br />
said. “But we know perception can change for<br />
the better when information is provided and<br />
results are evident.”<br />
Carey, whom Ali praised for her “incredible<br />
vision,” said the issue has already been<br />
addressed. Plans are underway for five public<br />
art projects budgeted at about $663,000 over<br />
the next couple of years, and planning on how<br />
to spend the courthouse money will begin this<br />
year.<br />
Besides administering the Cultural Services<br />
Capital Program and Art in Public Places, the<br />
Cultural Council’s other most visible project is<br />
giving arts awards each spring during its annual<br />
fundraising dinner, formerly a luncheon.<br />
The Cultural Council also runs a number of<br />
less visible projects including arts advocacy.<br />
Carey said the Cultural Council needs to<br />
evaluate what other roles it should play, a task<br />
she is looking to Young for assistance.<br />
“I saw this organization as one that knew its<br />
mission and was eager to explore possibilities<br />
above and beyond its present standing,” Young<br />
said.<br />
Young, who in addition to being the first<br />
Jacksonville outsider chosen to lead the Cultural<br />
Council is also the first African American to lead<br />
the Cultural Council, succeeds Tony Allegretti<br />
as executive director.<br />
Allegretti, who had taken the job in 2014,<br />
made a surprise announcement last June that<br />
he would resign. Originally the plan was that he<br />
would stay on the job until his replacement was<br />
hired. But eventually it was decided he would<br />
leave when the fiscal year ended in September<br />
30. Carey, the board chair, has been filling the<br />
role since Allegretti left.<br />
The council board of directors and other<br />
community leaders unanimously chose Young,<br />
one of 22 people who applied who for the job, in<br />
November and announced the decision in early<br />
December.<br />
Artist from the start<br />
Young grew up a self-described “Army brat,”<br />
who was born in Oklahoma and lived on three<br />
different Army bases in Germany. Since her<br />
father was usually stationed at Fort Jackson in<br />
Columbia, S.C., between overseas duty stations,<br />
she said she considered South Carolina home.<br />
After graduating with a bachelor’s degree<br />
from Columbia College, Young enrolled in the<br />
Manhattan School of Music with the goal of<br />
becoming a “grand opera diva.” When she saw<br />
a performance by soprano Leontyne Price, she<br />
was inspired.<br />
Then she learned what it took to be Leontyne<br />
Price. It required “expert language proficiency<br />
in Italian, German and French, skills in music<br />
theory to identify augmented sixth chords from<br />
those same countries, and full dedication to the<br />
practice room,” she said.<br />
She adjusted her goals.<br />
“Although I completed my masters in<br />
Voice Performance, I graduated with a clear<br />
understanding that the realities of life in<br />
performance were not for me,” she said. “I’m
confident I made the right choice to move into<br />
administration rather than performance.”<br />
David Engdahl, a sculptor who retired as<br />
chief architect of The Haskell Co., recently left<br />
the Cultural Council board. But he was involved<br />
in the search for the new executive director.<br />
“I have a lot of confidence in Joy’s ability,” he<br />
said. “I felt like she had the right background to<br />
really be a leader.”<br />
City Council member John Crescimbeni,<br />
who has been City Council liaison to the<br />
Cultural Council in recent years, said Young<br />
impressed him as “very articulate and<br />
intelligent.”<br />
“I think she is going to be a good fit,” he said.<br />
Robert Arleigh White, who was executive<br />
director of the Cultural Council from 2000 to<br />
2013, said he and Young have many mutual<br />
friends and he believes she is “very, very sharp.”<br />
Money always the issue<br />
The greatest challenge she faces “continues<br />
to be adequate funding,” White said.<br />
That’s a view shared by Allegretti.<br />
During his tenure “we didn’t have increased<br />
funding but we had increased demand,”<br />
Allegretti said.<br />
In 2002-2003, the City Council put slightly<br />
more than $4 million into the Cultural Services<br />
Capital Program. It hasn’t matched that total<br />
since. During last fiscal year the Cultural<br />
Council sought slightly less than $4 million but<br />
received $2.89 million.<br />
That’s just not adequate arts funding for<br />
a city Jacksonville’s size, a city on which the<br />
arts has an estimated economic impact of $80<br />
million annually.<br />
Preston Haskell, one of Jacksonville’s most<br />
generous supporter of the arts, said last year the<br />
city should be giving $8 to $10 million a year to<br />
arts organizations.<br />
Retiring Baptist Health CEO Hugh Greene<br />
said about the lack of city funding for the arts:<br />
“Really progressive cities are not letting that<br />
happen.”<br />
The lack of adequate city funding has been<br />
compounded by the fact that the state, once a<br />
generous supporter of the arts, has eliminated<br />
almost all arts funding.<br />
Allegretti said that convincing the City<br />
Council to be more generous with arts funding<br />
was something at which he just wasn’t very<br />
successful.<br />
Based on her track record, Young might be<br />
the person to convince City Council it needs to<br />
increase funding for the arts in Jacksonville.<br />
“She knows how to develop relationships,”<br />
Carey said.<br />
Allegretti said he hasn’t met or spoken with<br />
Young but has “heard she’s a coalition builder.”<br />
Allegretti faulted himself for failing to bring<br />
“people together like I wanted.”<br />
Crescimbeni, who is leaving the City Council<br />
and running for tax collector this spring, was<br />
critical of Allegretti’s performance as executive<br />
director.<br />
“I don’t feel like the executive director was<br />
as passionate as I would have liked him to be,”<br />
Crescimbeni said.<br />
Asked how she’ll deal with City Council<br />
members on whom the Cultural Council is<br />
dependent for a large portion of its funding,<br />
Young quoted Stephen Covey, author of<br />
the book “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective<br />
People.” Covey, she said, “talks about<br />
engaging in active communication, which<br />
supports synergy. Synergy rises above conflict,<br />
surpasses compromises. It leads to new ideas,<br />
approaches and perspectives. I look forward to<br />
communicating with City Council on behalf of<br />
the arts from a place of synergy.”<br />
Young said what she enjoys about being an<br />
arts administrator is “collaborating to create<br />
programs or inviting people to experience the<br />
arts … I enjoy seeing how the arts can be used<br />
for good in the lives of individuals as well as a<br />
collective benefit.”<br />
As for the challenges her new job will pose,<br />
Young noted that “any new job requires time to<br />
adjust to the realities of the environment and<br />
culture. However, right now, I just don’t know<br />
what I don’t know.”<br />
As for opportunities, she said “the Cultural<br />
Council is ripe for change … It appears to<br />
me that arts organizations seem to want<br />
to collaborate around a unified voice. The<br />
Cultural Council has an opportunity to provide<br />
leadership in developing the city’s overall arts<br />
and cultural landscape.”<br />
Young still sings on occasion, including<br />
performing in “Porgy and Bess” during the<br />
Spoleto Festival in Charleston, S.C., in 2016.<br />
“Prior to that, I occasionally performed<br />
classical recitals,” she said. “I paid my dues over<br />
the course of 20-plus years as a church soloist<br />
and wedding singer. Every now and again, I will<br />
take a gig as a soul, R&B background vocalist.<br />
It was fun. In 2017 I enjoyed a short season<br />
with a professional choir called the Sandlapper<br />
Singers.”<br />
As for hobbies, she considers herself a<br />
“foodie” and plans to check out Jacksonville’s<br />
restaurants. She’s also completing work on a<br />
doctorate in organizational leadership.<br />
“So when I’m not with family or at work, I’m<br />
reading, researching and writing,” she said. “I<br />
stay busy doing what I love and loving what I<br />
do.”<br />
Charlie Patton retired in September after<br />
more than 41 years with The Florida Times-Union,<br />
spending his last nine years covering the arts.<br />
He lives in Riverside.<br />
JOY YOUNG<br />
Director of the Cultural Council of<br />
Greater Jacksonville<br />
Age: 51<br />
Hometown: An Army brat,<br />
she lived in many places growing<br />
up but considers Columbia, S.C.,<br />
her home town.<br />
Education: Bachelor’s<br />
degree from Columbia College;<br />
studied voice performance at<br />
the Manhattan School of Music;<br />
earned a master’s degree in<br />
voice performance from the City<br />
University of New York’s Hunter<br />
College.<br />
Work experience: Taught<br />
music as an adjunct professor<br />
at Benedict College; opened<br />
her own music studio; served<br />
as AmeriCorps Promise Fellow<br />
with Communities in Resources/<br />
Employee Law Relations; was<br />
director of training and technical<br />
assistance with the South<br />
Carolina Association of Nonprofit<br />
Organizations; spent the last 14<br />
years with the South Carolina<br />
Arts Commission as director of<br />
administrative services, human<br />
resources and operations.<br />
Family: Three children aged 25,<br />
24 and 20; one grandchild.<br />
Quote: “I opened my own<br />
music studio. This entrepreneurial<br />
endeavor is how I learned<br />
the ins-and-outs of small<br />
business administration. In<br />
retrospect, I don’t know that<br />
arts administration became a<br />
focus until I gained quite a bit<br />
of experience in non-profit<br />
administration and governance.<br />
I found my sweet spot in arts<br />
administration as a nexus of<br />
education, business and the nonprofit<br />
sector.”<br />
SPRING <strong>2019</strong> | J MAGAZINE 53
After Downtown’s historic Bostwick<br />
Building was saved from the wrecking<br />
ball by Jacques Klempf in 2014, he turned<br />
it into the upscale Cowford Chophouse,<br />
complete with a swanky rooftop bar.<br />
54<br />
J MAGAZINE | SPRING <strong>2019</strong>
TWELVE<br />
VIEWS<br />
DOWN<br />
TOWN<br />
DOWNTOWN’S<br />
BEST VIEWS<br />
OF THE RIVER<br />
By DENISE REAGAN<br />
For several decades, no one wanted a<br />
view of the St. Johns River.<br />
Jacksonville was dumping millions<br />
of gallons of raw sewage and industrial<br />
waste into the river every day. Who<br />
would want to see that? It certainly<br />
wasn’t an appetizing site for a meal or<br />
happy hour.<br />
In any other city, the riverfront would<br />
be prime real estate. Jacksonville chose<br />
to crowd it with municipal buildings,<br />
like the old city hall and courthouse and<br />
the jail.<br />
That began to change in 1969 when<br />
Mayor Hans Tanzler started cleaning up<br />
the river, then a new attitude emerged<br />
when the Southbank Riverwalk opened<br />
in 1985 and the last section of the<br />
Northbank Riverwalk in 2005.<br />
Now, finally, after decades of<br />
clean-up efforts and some frustrating<br />
environmental setbacks, the St. Johns<br />
River is getting new life from a series of<br />
views that are popping up on rooftops<br />
along the urban core.<br />
New views are on the horizon. The<br />
District, on the Southbank where the<br />
JEA plant used to be, should include a<br />
riverfront restaurant. With the staff of<br />
The Florida Times-Union relocating<br />
to the Wells Fargo Tower in the spring,<br />
1 Riverside Ave. could become a hot<br />
commodity, particularly if plans to<br />
unearth McCoys Creek as part of the<br />
Emerald Necklace come to fruition.<br />
If — when? — JSO vacates its current<br />
PHOTO BY WILL DICKEY<br />
SPRING <strong>2019</strong> | J MAGAZINE 55
11<br />
10<br />
FULLER WARREN<br />
BRIDGE<br />
ACOSTA<br />
BRIDGE<br />
A DOZEN RIVER<br />
VIEWS IN THE<br />
URBAN CORE<br />
1<br />
2<br />
3<br />
4<br />
5<br />
6<br />
7<br />
8<br />
9<br />
10<br />
11<br />
12<br />
Cowford Chophouse<br />
101 E. Bay St.<br />
The River Club<br />
1 Independent DRIVE<br />
River City Brewing<br />
Company<br />
835 Museum CirCLE<br />
Chart House<br />
1501 Riverplace Blvd.<br />
Ruth’s Chris Steak House<br />
1201 Riverplace Blvd.<br />
DoubleTree by Hilton<br />
Jacksonville Riverfront<br />
1201 Riverplace Blvd.<br />
Museum of Science<br />
and History<br />
1025 Museum CirCLE<br />
Intuition Ale Works<br />
929 E. Bay St.<br />
Burrito Gallery at<br />
Brooklyn Station<br />
90 Riverside Ave.<br />
River & Post<br />
1000 Riverside Ave.<br />
Black Sheep<br />
1534 Oak St.<br />
The Jacksonville Landing<br />
2 Independent DrIVE<br />
9<br />
2<br />
12<br />
MAIN ST.<br />
BRIDGE<br />
3<br />
7<br />
1<br />
5 6<br />
4<br />
8<br />
ST. JOHNS RIVER<br />
N<br />
location, perhaps William Morgan’s original<br />
design of the Police Memorial Building could<br />
return, which included a rooftop garden with<br />
multiple terraces, plant beds, and a fountain.<br />
Years ago, the publicly accessible rooftop park<br />
was declared a security hazard and closed,<br />
undercutting Morgan’s original vision.<br />
It’s frustrating that there aren’t more public<br />
places where you can eat or drink on the river in<br />
Downtown Jacksonville.<br />
“That’s the thing that bugs me,” said Heather<br />
Adams, a resident of the Berkman Plaza condos.<br />
“I live on the river, but there aren’t many places<br />
where I can have a cocktail and a meal while<br />
overlooking the river.”<br />
The private University Club closed in 2016<br />
after 48 years at 1301 Riverplace Blvd. The main<br />
dining room and lounge on the 27th floor had<br />
some of the most breathtaking 180-degree vistas<br />
of the river. Now, only Ameris Bank executives<br />
enjoy those views.<br />
The night before I got married, we held<br />
our rehearsal dinner at Crawdaddy’s on the<br />
Southbank, one of the few restaurants with river<br />
view at the time. A few years later, the shabby chic<br />
shack was gone.<br />
Construction to rebuild a portion of Coastline<br />
Drive where it runs in front of the Hyatt Regency<br />
has blocked what used to be a street-level river<br />
view from Morton’s The Steakhouse inside the<br />
hotel. I hope the outdoor seating at the corner of<br />
Market Street and Coastline Drive will get its river<br />
view back later this year.<br />
For now, there are at least 12 places where you<br />
can eat and drink in Downtown with a view of<br />
the river. Some barely pass with scant view of the<br />
water; some are eye-popping showstoppers. Each<br />
one is rated on a scale of one to 10 on the quality<br />
of the river view.<br />
The Jacksonville Landing<br />
Only three restaurants with river-level views<br />
remain at this 32-year-old venue — Chicago Pizza,<br />
Fionn MacCool’s and Hooters — and not for long.<br />
Landing owners and the city recently announced<br />
an agreement: If City Council approves, the city<br />
will pay $15 million to terminate the owners’ longterm<br />
lease, clearing the way for demolition and a<br />
new use for that prime location. Stay tuned for a<br />
possible new view of the river.<br />
River view: H H H H H H H H H H<br />
Price: $30 and under<br />
River & Post<br />
This is the highest restaurant glimpse of the<br />
St. Johns River the public can enjoy without a<br />
membership, and it is breathtaking. On the ninth<br />
Perched high above the St. Johns<br />
River in Five Points, River & Post’s<br />
ninth-floor terrace offers stunning<br />
views along with delicious cocktails.<br />
BOB MACK<br />
56<br />
J MAGAZINE | SPRING <strong>2019</strong>
floor of the building at Riverside and Post streets,<br />
you’ll find deep, comfy sectional couches, firepits<br />
surrounded by vivid blue glass pebbles, and a<br />
retractable roof. The attached indoor bar also has<br />
seating so you can enjoy the view even when the<br />
weather is less than ideal. Appetizers of ceviche,<br />
seared ahi tuna and charcuterie pair well with<br />
wine or cocktails while you admire the dazzling<br />
view up and down the river.<br />
River view: H H H H H H H H H H<br />
Price: $30 and under<br />
Cowford Chophouse<br />
Jacques Klempf purchased the endangered<br />
Bostwick Building at auction in 2014, then<br />
lovingly restored the 1902 historic structure,<br />
including the arched windows, exterior bricks,<br />
metal cornice and 300-year-old heart of pine that<br />
is seen throughout the building today. When you<br />
emerge from the top of the stairs onto the roof,<br />
you feel transported to a metropolitan city in<br />
Jacksonville’s future. Rooftop happy hour draws<br />
Downtown office-dwellers and visitors from<br />
near and far for the views and the tasty tacos,<br />
sliders, and oysters. The revelry continues into the<br />
evening, as chilly nights take on the glow of toasty<br />
space heaters.<br />
River view: H H H H H H H H H H<br />
Price: $50 and over<br />
WILL DICKEY<br />
The River Club<br />
For a $500 initiation fee and monthly dues of<br />
$125 ($250 and $58 for those younger than 40),<br />
you, too, can soar high above the city at the top<br />
of the Wells Fargo Center. The Vue34 lounge,<br />
the St. Johns Dining Room and multiple event<br />
spaces provide 360 degrees of Jacksonville skyline,<br />
including a spectacular bird’s-eye view of the<br />
Main Street Bridge. I’m not a member, but I was<br />
invited there once. The food is serviceable and<br />
the décor feels a bit dated, but you’ll probably be<br />
too busy gazing outside to notice. The service is<br />
fabulous, as you might expect at a private club.<br />
River view: H H H H H H H H H H<br />
Price: $30-$50<br />
Chart House<br />
I couldn’t wait to go to this restaurant when<br />
it opened in 1982. The exterior looks like a<br />
weathered seashell washed onto the riverbank<br />
and partially sunk into the earth. Designed by<br />
Kendrick Bangs Kellogg who was inspired by<br />
Frank Lloyd Wright, the Southbank building<br />
is a distinctive example of modern organic<br />
architecture with its weathered copper-clad ribs<br />
and concrete barnacle cones. Inside, wooden<br />
laminate ceilings undulate to smooth concrete<br />
columns like you’ve entered the interior of a snail<br />
shell. The windows curve from the floor to the<br />
ceiling, revealing stunning views of the skyline<br />
across the river. The décor finds the sweet spot<br />
at the intersection of hippy couture and George<br />
Jetson, as if you’ve walked onto the set of Woody<br />
Allen’s “Sleeper.” During a recent happy hour visit,<br />
the restaurant and lounge were both fairly full as<br />
twilight washed over the restaurant and the Main<br />
Street Bridge reflected in the river.<br />
River view: H H H H H H H H H H<br />
Price: $31-$50<br />
River City Brewing Company<br />
This is the only place in the urban core where<br />
you can sit outside within spitting distance of the<br />
river (but please don’t spit in the river). When the<br />
Acosta Bridge had to be rebuilt in 1990, the city<br />
agreed to designate nearly half of the renovated<br />
Friendship Park for a restaurant and parking. That<br />
led to the boondoggle that was Harbormasters,<br />
which River City Brewing Company (RCBC)<br />
The River Club, located at the top<br />
of the Wells Fargo Center in the<br />
heart of Downtown, offers stunning<br />
views of the St. Johns River and city<br />
skyline.<br />
SPRING <strong>2019</strong> | J MAGAZINE 57
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eplaced in 1993. RCBC signed a 99-year lease<br />
with the city on the property in 1998, but it looks<br />
like no improvements have been made to the<br />
property since then. The dining room and decks<br />
have gorgeous riverfront skyline vistas next to a<br />
marina. Happy hour in the Brewhouse Lounge<br />
and Sunday brunch are popular.<br />
River view: H H H H H H H H H H<br />
Price: $30 and under<br />
Ruth’s Chris Steak House<br />
Inside the DoubleTree by Hilton Jacksonville<br />
Riverfront, the oversized windows provide<br />
sweeping views of the water and Downtown,<br />
particularly at night. White tablecloths, candles,<br />
high-quality food and impeccable service come<br />
with a steep price. Some happy hour deals can<br />
be found in the lounge, but the view isn’t as<br />
remarkable.<br />
River view: H H H H H H H H H H<br />
Price: $31-$50<br />
Burrito Gallery<br />
at Brooklyn Station<br />
The third installment of the local burrito<br />
chain has become an instant classic and favorite<br />
gathering place, and its rooftop is a big reason<br />
why. The mix of tables, lounge seating and bar<br />
top surrounded by open air on three sides creates<br />
a beachy vibe in the urban core. The restaurant<br />
serves its signature “Jax Mex” in burritos, tacos,<br />
quesadillas, tortas, enchiladas and salads, washed<br />
down with margaritas and local beer. The river<br />
view is barely there, but the surrounding Riverside<br />
Avenue scene is vibrant.<br />
River view: H H H H H H H H H H<br />
Price: $11-$30<br />
Museum of Science<br />
and History<br />
One often forgotten gem is the rooftop at<br />
MOSH. Although it’s not open on a regular<br />
basis, several ticketed events are held there<br />
each year. The impressive views of the bridges<br />
and Friendship Fountain, particularly at night,<br />
contribute to a memorable evening. MOSH<br />
has hosted events such as rooftop yoga and<br />
GastroFest.<br />
River view: H H H H H H H H H H<br />
Price: N/A<br />
is visible in the distance and includes vistas of<br />
Riverside at a height you don’t usually find in that<br />
neighborhood. The open-air bar, cozy fireplace<br />
and couches, built-in high-top tables and ample<br />
table seating provide plenty of options, and a<br />
new retractable roof makes being outdoors easier<br />
year-round.<br />
River view: H H H H H H H H H H<br />
Price: $30 and under<br />
DoubleTree by Hilton<br />
Jacksonville Riverfront<br />
On Wednesday evenings, the DoubleTree<br />
hosts live music and happy hour specials on the<br />
terrace. The poolside vibe breathes new life into<br />
the river view; you can almost imagine a cabana<br />
in L.A.<br />
River view: H H H H H H H H H H<br />
Price: $20 and under<br />
Intuition Ale Works<br />
The renovation of this industrial space<br />
produced a headquarters for one of Jacksonville’s<br />
favorite breweries and home to some of the best<br />
beer in the city. The rooftop provides a fabulous<br />
vista of the sports complex buildings and a very<br />
narrow view of the river if you squint your eyes.<br />
Once the ramps from the Hart Bridge come down,<br />
that view will become a real bonus, at least until<br />
development takes off along Bay Street. Sitting<br />
along the edge of the rooftop looking down on<br />
fans scurrying to football games, baseball games<br />
or concerts provides a feeling of exclusivity. The<br />
fresh air, the breeze from the “Big Ass Fan” and<br />
an endless supply of locally crafted beer from the<br />
outdoor bar make it a chill place to catch the Blue<br />
Angels flybys during Jaguars games.<br />
River view: H H H H H H H H H H<br />
Price: $20 and under<br />
Denise M. Reagan is a former editor at<br />
The Florida Times-Union, currently senior manager<br />
of public relations at Brunet-García and a life-long<br />
advocate of Downtown Jacksonville.<br />
“That’s the<br />
thing that<br />
bugs me. I<br />
live on the<br />
river, but<br />
there aren’t<br />
many places<br />
where I<br />
can have a<br />
cocktail and<br />
a meal while<br />
overlooking<br />
the river.”<br />
HEATHER<br />
ADAMS<br />
DOWNTOWN<br />
RESIDENT<br />
While there are arguably better<br />
views of Downtown, it’s hard<br />
to beat the beer and terrace<br />
at Intuition Ale Works near the<br />
stadium. Plus, where else can you<br />
do yoga before sipping a frosty<br />
brew?<br />
BRUCE LIPSKY<br />
Black Sheep<br />
When restaurateur Jonathan Insetta decided<br />
to build this unusual triangular building at the<br />
corner of Oak and Margaret streets in Five Points,<br />
he must have known the rooftop view would<br />
wow people. Not only does this restaurant (one<br />
of the first rooftop establishments in Jacksonville)<br />
have great roots — the Insetta family also owns<br />
Restaurant Orsay in Riverside and Bellwether<br />
in Downtown — but the triangular tip takes<br />
advantage of the bend in the river. The water<br />
SPRING <strong>2019</strong> | J MAGAZINE 59
60 J MAGAZINE | SPRING <strong>2019</strong>
CORE<br />
EYESORE<br />
DILAPIDATED<br />
BUILDINGS A<br />
BLIGHT ON AREA<br />
521-523 West Forsyth St,<br />
BY FRANK DENTON<br />
They stand there unsteadily, seeming<br />
to lean on each other and, framed<br />
by vapid parking lots, present in stark<br />
contrast to the massive and grand new<br />
courthouse looming behind them.<br />
They are two gap-toothed old geezer<br />
buildings, decrepit by all appearances<br />
with painted-over and boarded-up exteriors,<br />
minus some tiles that have been<br />
pried off and spirited away.<br />
If you go Downtown looking for the<br />
new Jacksonville, you’ll wince at the<br />
sight of 521-523 West Forsyth St., on a<br />
major thoroughfare into Downtown.<br />
Both date to 1905, four years after the<br />
Great Fire.<br />
At least 521 has an interesting social<br />
history, having in recent decades served<br />
as a succession of food and drink establishments.<br />
Notably, in the 1990s, it was<br />
JoAnn’s Chili Bordello where, according<br />
to JoAnn Perschel’s obituary in The<br />
Times-Union, “Reflecting her cheeky<br />
sense of humor, the decor was bordello<br />
red, Ms. Perschel dressed as a New Orleans<br />
madam, and the waitresses dressed<br />
in corsets and garter belts.”<br />
At other times, the building housed<br />
a succession of bars — The Sinclair,<br />
PHOTO: BOB SELF<br />
Spot a Downtown eyesore and want to know why it’s<br />
there or when it will be improved? Submit suggestions<br />
to: frankmdenton@gmail.com.<br />
SPRING <strong>2019</strong> | J MAGAZINE 61
Secrets, The Voodoo and finally Duke’s Place Blues Bar & Lounge,<br />
whose management bravely told Yelp in 2014: “Duke’s Place … has<br />
quickly become the destination spot for Jacksonville’s professionals<br />
and young entrepreneurs. With lavish décor and a large<br />
selection of sofa seating, it’s a great venue for social networking<br />
or celebrating a significant life event. Week nights feature live jazz<br />
and neo-soul bands, poets and comedians that include both locals<br />
and tourists alike entertaining the crowd. Duke’s provides a blend<br />
of high energy you’d expect from a nightclub but with the refined<br />
elegance of an upscale lounge. Fun and flirty signature drinks and<br />
bartenders filled with personality keeps patrons at the bar. Some<br />
of our patrons say its takes them back to DC or Philly and while we<br />
take it as a compliment, we’re good being Duuuvallllll!”<br />
A ragged sign on the building says it is for lease.<br />
Apparently the last tenant of its bigger neighbor, 523 West<br />
Forsyth, was Bailey’s Camera Corner, which opened in 1963 and<br />
moved to Hogan Street in 1993. You can still make out the store’s<br />
name, painted on the bricks in front.<br />
For a while, 523 was on the market, and the listing emphasized<br />
FREE, SELF-GUIDED TOUR | 5-9 P.M.<br />
that the main attribute of the gutted building was its proximity to<br />
the new Courthouse, then under construction: “The new owners<br />
Explore Downtown’s musuems and theatres, galleries<br />
of the building will have a constant reminder of the location with a<br />
and shops, murals, restaurants and bars on the<br />
view of the Courthouse façade for decades to come and is an ideal<br />
first Wednesday of the month.<br />
building location for a firm to renovate the existing structure to<br />
serve its true capacity to the new Courthouse.”<br />
According to tax records, 523 is owned by LGS of North Florida,<br />
whose principals are Lisa Salloum and Hadi Karaa, who live in<br />
ILOVEARTWALK.COM<br />
Monclair, a Southside suburb. Calls to Salloum, a Jacksonville<br />
DOWNTOWN JACKSONVILLE ART WALK periodontist, were not returned. According to a 2018 legal filing in<br />
Texas: “Hadi, a cardiologist and Lisa’s husband, lives primarily in<br />
Beirut but also lives in Florida three months out of the year.”<br />
The sidekick 521 is owned by Rim Properties, whose president<br />
is Rivka Barav and vice president Maoz Barav of Ponte Vedra<br />
Beach.<br />
Rivka Barav said she understands 523 is about to be redeveloped<br />
but her 521 building is in such bad shape because of “what’s<br />
happening Downtown. Why would I want to put money in that<br />
building where it would not thrive? Is there reason for anybody<br />
to invest money in it?” She said she’s owned the building 12 or 13<br />
years and has invested a lot, but there’s “no market for leasing or<br />
sale.”<br />
Barav blames the city for lack of support. She said she didn’t<br />
get a response from the Downtown Investment Authority after she<br />
offered a plan to improve the building. “The city is totally inflexible.<br />
They make everything difficult. There is no incentive and no<br />
assistance. I asked for a loan to renovate the exterior, and there<br />
Jacksonville has a long history as one of<br />
was nothing. The city does not function as a breeding ground for<br />
the leading commercial centers in Florida.<br />
business, for initiative.<br />
“If the city is offended by the way the building looks, fine, let<br />
Holland & Knight is proud of the contributions our<br />
them help me in the form of a loan or whatever. The city needs to<br />
lawyers have made in promoting the business and<br />
be a partner in every available way.”<br />
community interests of Downtown Jacksonville.<br />
Barav intends to hold onto 521 “until investing in it makes<br />
sense or I get a fair price for it.”<br />
So the owners of 521 and, presumably, 523 W. Forsyth are waiting<br />
for the Courthouse and other Downtown revitalization to drive<br />
up the value of their investments for sale, which we hope will be<br />
soon. While the owners live in the suburbs or in Beirut, Downtown<br />
residents, workers and visitors have to look at their disheartening<br />
www.hklaw.com<br />
buildings.<br />
904.353.2000 | Jacksonville, FL<br />
Frank Denton, retired editor of The Florida Times-Union, is editor of J.<br />
He lives in Riverside.<br />
Copyright © 2018 Holland & Knight LLP All Rights Reserved<br />
62 J MAGAZINE | SPRING <strong>2019</strong><br />
PRODUCED BY
Urban Living<br />
in Downtown<br />
Jacksonville<br />
100%<br />
occupied<br />
100%<br />
occupied<br />
coming fall <strong>2019</strong>
The iconic neon Maxwell House<br />
coffee sign glows from the side<br />
of the company’s Jacksonville<br />
production facility on Bay Street.<br />
64<br />
J MAGAZINE | SPRING <strong>2019</strong>
The<br />
Maxwell<br />
House<br />
Mystery<br />
Situated along Bay<br />
Street near the<br />
Shipyards, Maxwell<br />
House Coffee has<br />
been a mainstay of<br />
Downtown since<br />
opening more than<br />
100 years ago. We set<br />
out with a notebook<br />
full of questions<br />
about the company’s<br />
Downtown role.<br />
We came back with<br />
very few answers.<br />
BY MIKE CLARK<br />
PHOTO BY WILL DICKEY<br />
M<br />
axwell House, with<br />
its iconic presence on<br />
the riverfront, needs<br />
to be more active Downtown.<br />
You shouldn’t have to be an investigative<br />
reporter to find out what<br />
Maxwell House has been doing to be<br />
a good corporate citizen in Jacksonville.<br />
Of course, Jacksonville is proud<br />
to have this manufacturing facility<br />
here. And we’re proud that Jacksonville<br />
won the 1990 competition with<br />
Hoboken, N.J., to “Keep Max in Jax.”<br />
And we’re happy that Maxwell<br />
House employs about 200 people<br />
with good jobs.<br />
But come on, folks, we need you<br />
more involved in a revived Downtown.<br />
SPRING <strong>2019</strong> | J MAGAZINE 65
In search of this story, I set out to break<br />
the mystery of Maxwell House in Jacksonville.<br />
Why is this placed guarded like a top-secret<br />
security site?<br />
Why wouldn’t the security guard give<br />
me the name of the plant manager? All I<br />
wanted was to schedule an interview.<br />
It took an email to Kraft Heinz corporate<br />
headquarters to produce an answer<br />
from the local plant manager<br />
to my questions.<br />
My concerns as a writer for a publication<br />
that advocates for a better Downtown<br />
are simple: Why isn’t Maxwell House<br />
more active Downtown? I certainly don’t<br />
want to produce defensiveness; instead I<br />
would hope to persuade the leaders of this<br />
important Jacksonville asset to step out of<br />
their shell.<br />
The idea came from a recent meeting of<br />
the Downtown Investment Authority. The<br />
boundaries for the special taxing district<br />
for Downtown Vision stopped short of the<br />
Maxwell House plant.<br />
Hmmm. So Maxwell House isn’t paying<br />
the special millage assessment of businesses<br />
in the Downtown Vision plan. And the<br />
plant isn’t even a member of Downtown<br />
Vision.<br />
Further checks documented that<br />
Maxwell House is not a member of the JAX<br />
Chamber or of First Coast Manufacturers.<br />
BELOW: Bags of green coffee beans sit<br />
on pallets inside Jacksonville’s Maxwell<br />
House coffee plant in April of 1980.<br />
ABOVE: A forklift driver moves pallets filled with cans of<br />
Maxwell House coffee in January of 1983.<br />
ABOVE: A worker looks over the top of the Maxwell House sign that stands<br />
100 feet above the entrance to the plant in January of 1992.<br />
LEFT: Maxwell House workers can and box coffee during a shift in October of 1973.<br />
TIMES-UNION ARCHIVES<br />
66<br />
J MAGAZINE | SPRING <strong>2019</strong>
What a shame. Maxwell House has been<br />
an integral part of Jacksonville for over 100<br />
years.<br />
The Jacksonville plant opened in 1910,<br />
employing about 30 people. By 1992, it employed<br />
420 people. But a slowdown in coffee<br />
consumption led the company’s owners<br />
at the time, General Foods, to consolidate<br />
plants, with the competition between Hoboken<br />
and Jacksonville.<br />
A $4.8 million incentive package was<br />
developed to “Keep Max in Jax,” along with<br />
promises to build a bridge over Hogans<br />
Creek and extend Forsyth Street for a new<br />
entrance off Bay Street. There have been<br />
more incentive packages provided by the city<br />
since then.<br />
There was a big rally of about 700 people<br />
at Metropolitan Park featuring Mayor Tommy<br />
Hazouri and U.S. Rep. Charles Bennett.<br />
Oliver Barakat, a member of the Downtown<br />
Investment Authority questioned the<br />
incentives in 2016, saying Maxwell House<br />
should be more involved “in the tapestry<br />
of Downtown,” reported the Jacksonville<br />
Business Journal.<br />
In contrast, Jim Bailey, the current chairman<br />
of the Downtown Investment Authority,<br />
said in an interview that Maxwell House was<br />
“wonderful” during the 2005 Super Bowl.<br />
Many of the Super Bowl’s activities occurred<br />
in streets surrounding the plant.<br />
A Times-Union story described Maxwell<br />
House as a good supporter of many nonprofit<br />
organizations. In response to my query,<br />
Maxwell House did provide a list of local<br />
MAXWELL HOUSE COFFEE: TIMELINE<br />
1897<br />
The first Maxwell<br />
House plant opens<br />
in Nashville.<br />
1892<br />
Cheek convinces Nashville’s posh<br />
Maxwell House to serve his brand.<br />
1873<br />
Joel Cheek, a<br />
grocery salesman,<br />
develops his<br />
own coffee in<br />
Nashville.<br />
JEFF DAVIS (GRAPHIC)<br />
1910<br />
A coffee plant opens in<br />
Jacksonville under the name<br />
of Cheek-Neal Coffee Co.,<br />
employing 30 people and producing<br />
about 40,000 pounds of<br />
coffee a day.<br />
1928<br />
Cheek-Neal is sold to the<br />
Postum Co., later to become<br />
General Foods. That<br />
sale allows the founder’s<br />
son, Leon Cheek, to build<br />
a mansion at 2263 River<br />
Blvd. between Memorial<br />
Park and St. Vincent’s<br />
Medical Center.<br />
1955<br />
A 95-foot tall illuminated sign –<br />
with the cup and the drop – is<br />
erected at the Jacksonville plant.<br />
Today<br />
Maxwell House<br />
employs about<br />
200 people in<br />
Jacksonville.<br />
2016<br />
Maxwell House announces<br />
a $36 million expansion<br />
and receives about a $1<br />
million grant from the city.<br />
2010<br />
Maxwell House reaches its<br />
100th anniversary in Jacksonville.<br />
1990<br />
General Foods announces that due to declining coffee consumption, it would close<br />
one of its East Coast plants, either Jacksonville or Hoboken, N.J. For Jacksonville,<br />
it would mean the loss of 400 jobs and a $556 million economic impact in Northeast<br />
Florida. The successful “Keep Max in Jax” campaign led by Mayor Tommy<br />
Hazouri, lasts for months. Local and state incentives sweeten the deal. Hoboken’s<br />
former coffee plant is turned into condos, called Maxwell Place on the Hudson.<br />
SPRING <strong>2019</strong> | J MAGAZINE 67
SPRING<br />
MAXWELL HOUSE<br />
IN JACKSONVILLE<br />
Here is the response from Maxwell<br />
House on volunteer activities<br />
in the community:<br />
• Our employees volunteered<br />
at the Salvation Army Homeless<br />
Shelter to serve meals.<br />
• We held a meal packing event<br />
at our facility for our long time<br />
charitable partner Rise Against<br />
Hunger and packed 15,000 meals<br />
for hunger relief efforts around<br />
the country and world. Attendees<br />
were our employees and their families,<br />
some who are Navy veterans;<br />
local officials; a member of the<br />
Jacksonville Jaguars staff.<br />
• We held a Feeding Northeast<br />
Florida Food Bank food drive and<br />
collected over 500 lbs of food.<br />
• Employees donated gifts/toys<br />
for the local Jacksonville Comfort<br />
House wrapping 100+ gifts for<br />
children in need.<br />
• We provided one truck of<br />
supplies from employees for the<br />
local Hurricane Relief Drive by<br />
local radio stations.<br />
• Donated 1½ truckloads of supplies/food<br />
for the Hurricane Drive<br />
at the Sulzbacher shelter located<br />
just behind our facility.<br />
• We supported and participated<br />
in the Jacksonville Veterans Day<br />
Parade honoring veterans with our<br />
“Old Max” truck.<br />
• We are sponsors of the Jacksonville<br />
Jaguars promotion “Coffee<br />
with the Coach.”<br />
• “Old Max” went to the Racetrack<br />
Road Walmart grand opening<br />
where we had employee volunteers<br />
serving coffee to the community.<br />
• We’ve hosted several meetings<br />
at our offices for the local Navy<br />
office, Jacksonville Sheriff’s office,<br />
Fire Department and Jumbo<br />
Shrimp teams.<br />
• Maxwell House has recently<br />
become the coffee sponsor of the<br />
USO supporting our veterans.<br />
• We have also partnered with<br />
the Mike Rowe Foundation to<br />
fund scholarships to individuals<br />
in support of technical education<br />
degrees.<br />
• The plant has received many<br />
recent awards and recognition<br />
for being part of the community<br />
from community-owned electric<br />
utility company JEA, the Northeast<br />
Florida Safety Council, JAX USA<br />
Partnership and for our participation<br />
in Breast Cancer Awareness<br />
from the Department of Children<br />
and Families.<br />
House coffee plant. Schmidt told Robinson “If they keep this place open, I’ll kiss you in the middle of this loading dock.” They did,<br />
near the side entrance on Bay Street after Maxwell House had announced they would be keeping the Jacksonville plant open.<br />
Kelly Brunson (left) encourages Frederick Robinson (center) and Bill Schmidt to make good on a bet in 1990 at the Maxwell<br />
volunteer and charitable activities, which is good. Join and support Downtown Dwellers, a<br />
What is lacking is more involvement Downtown.<br />
For instance, I asked why Maxwell House is<br />
group of Downtown residents.<br />
not more involved in annual cleanups of Hogans<br />
Creek, which empties into the St. Johns River at<br />
the plant. Groundwork Jacksonville hosts regular<br />
cleanup campaigns there.<br />
Plant Manager Dan MAXWELL HOUSE<br />
Frisosky responded,<br />
“If there is a<br />
735 E. Bay St.<br />
COFFEE CO.<br />
recommended<br />
group that organizes<br />
clean-<br />
Veterans<br />
Jail<br />
Memorial<br />
Jacksonville<br />
Arena<br />
up activities of Sheriff’s Office<br />
Hogans Creek,<br />
please let us Berkman<br />
know. We<br />
Plaza<br />
know our employees<br />
would<br />
be happy to<br />
St. Johns River<br />
participate.<br />
N<br />
We do clean up<br />
the banks near our<br />
XX J MAGAZINE | SPRING <strong>2019</strong><br />
<strong>2019</strong> | J MAGAZINE XX<br />
facility at various times.”<br />
social media.<br />
That’s the spirit. So please meet Kay Ehas,<br />
head of Groundwork Jacksonville, who would<br />
be thrilled to have more volunteer activity from<br />
Maxwell House.<br />
Mike Clark has been a reporter and editor for<br />
And in the newfound spirit of openness,<br />
The Florida Times-Union and its predecessors since<br />
allow me to suggest a few activities from Maxwell 1973 and editorial page editor since 2005.<br />
House.<br />
He lives in Nocatee.<br />
68 J MAGAZINE | SPRING <strong>2019</strong><br />
ADAMS ST.<br />
MARSH ST.<br />
BAY ST.<br />
MONROE ST.<br />
Hogans Creek<br />
ADAMS ST.<br />
HART BRIDGE EXPY<br />
Join and support Downtown Vision.<br />
As Bay Street turns into an innovation corridor,<br />
develop a chic retail outlet with Maxwell<br />
House wares. While the plant manager says “this<br />
is not a core competency of the company,”<br />
they could always partner with<br />
a vendor.<br />
DUVAL ST.<br />
A.P. RANDOLPH ST.<br />
Do a better job<br />
of sharing Maxwell<br />
House’s<br />
community<br />
activities.<br />
Some of this is<br />
basic public<br />
relations. As<br />
Bailey said,<br />
“They have<br />
always been<br />
a silent, quiet<br />
company.” But<br />
this is a new era of<br />
Downtown needs the active participation of a<br />
major Downtown business.<br />
WILL DICKEY; JEFF DAVIS (MAP)
The<br />
Great<br />
Hotel<br />
Boom<br />
With as<br />
many as nine<br />
new Downtown<br />
hotels on the drawing<br />
board, many are asking if<br />
the core can support that<br />
many new places?’<br />
BY FRANK DENTON<br />
J MAGAZINE<br />
70<br />
J MAGAZINE | SPRING <strong>2019</strong>
SPRING <strong>2019</strong> | J MAGAZINE 71
COURTYARD BY MARRIOTT<br />
ll those grand plans for Downtown developments — from the stadium to<br />
Brooklyn, from the core to the Southbank — seem to have common, almost<br />
dutiful components: “mixed use,” “residential,” “retail” and hotels.<br />
Lots of hotels.<br />
Add them up, and over the next few years, Downtown could have<br />
nine — that’s NINE — new hotels. Since we really only have six now<br />
(two in the core, four on the Southbank) can this town possibly<br />
support that many new hostelries?<br />
Sure, given all the other plans for attracting visitors, said Aundra<br />
Wallace when he was CEO of the Downtown Investment<br />
Authority and seven of the hotels were proposed.<br />
“Clearly no,” said Hank Staley, a managing director of<br />
CBRE, the global Fortune 500 real-estate firm, and a specialist<br />
in hotel feasibility, based in Jacksonville. “I’m frankly<br />
Ashocked there are as many hotels proposed as there are.”<br />
SUBMITTED<br />
72<br />
J MAGAZINE | SPRING <strong>2019</strong>
SUBMITTED<br />
Well, maybe not today, said Michael Corrigan,<br />
president and CEO of Visit Jacksonville. “We’re<br />
excited about the possibility of all the new hotels<br />
coming in.”<br />
“I don’t think Marriott would have given us<br />
approval if they didn’t think the answer to that is<br />
yes,” said Michael Munz of The District. “I think the<br />
answer is yes.”<br />
“The business-oriented nature of this market is<br />
untapped,” with companies bringing in new employees<br />
all the time, said Bryan Greiner, president of<br />
Augustine Development Group, which is doing the<br />
Ambassador Hotel project. “There is going to be a lot<br />
of activity Downtown.”<br />
“That’s a great question,” said Steve Atkins, developer<br />
of the Laura Street Trio which includes a Courtyard<br />
by Marriott. “The Northbank needs additional<br />
hotel rooms. We feel comfortable with it.”<br />
Of course, each of them was looking at the<br />
scenario from his own viewpoint, background, qualifiers<br />
and professional optimism.<br />
The reality seems to be that, if those nine hotels<br />
opened their doors now, they would flood the market,<br />
and the weakest wouldn’t last long, even among<br />
the existing hotels.<br />
But of course, few of them will be here anytime<br />
soon, and as Downtown achieves its boldest development<br />
goals of attractions and residents over the<br />
next few years, more hotels will pop up to serve the<br />
new needs.<br />
And hotels have a way of finding their own markets<br />
and sorting themselves out.<br />
First, the cold hard facts<br />
Let’s start with Staley, a 37-year veteran of hotel<br />
feasibility analyses, one of only a half dozen such<br />
consultants in Florida. “Most of what I do is feasibility<br />
studies for new hotels. I’ve worked in 46 states<br />
on 2,000 properties, everything from Motel Six to<br />
Ritz-Carlton and everything in between.”<br />
He points to CBRE’s proprietary financial report<br />
on the Jacksonville hotel submarket that covers<br />
Downtown and Jacksonville International Airport,<br />
which together include 54 hotels and 7,164 rooms.<br />
The report for the third quarter of 2018 showed<br />
that occupancy rose 8.6 percent to 76.6 percent,<br />
the average daily rate rose 4.2 percent and the key<br />
criterion of revenue per available room rose 13.2<br />
percent to $72.31, but those impressive numbers<br />
masked the most important dynamic of the market:<br />
Jacksonville hotels are cheap.<br />
The average daily rate for the Downtown and airport<br />
hotels was $94.38 — $122.24 for upper-priced<br />
hotels and $71.40 for lower-priced hotels.<br />
(For comparison, the national occupancy rate<br />
for the year ending Sept. 30 was 66.2 percent, the<br />
revenue per available room was $85.50 and the<br />
average daily rate was $129.20.)<br />
“It’s not an occupancy problem, it’s a rate problem,”<br />
Staley said. “Jacksonville always has been a relatively<br />
healthy market on occupancy, but it’s always<br />
had a low rate structure,” aside from the beaches.<br />
There are several reasons, he said. One is that<br />
Downtown “hasn’t been very vibrant from an economic<br />
perspective.”<br />
Another is the Hyatt Regency (originally the<br />
Adam’s Mark), which with 951 rooms is “a massive<br />
hotel for a city the size of Jacksonville. It is the de<br />
facto convention center for Jacksonville, with more<br />
meeting space than at the (Prime Osborn) convention<br />
center. The Jacksonville market simply could not<br />
support that many new hotel rooms. It pushes rates<br />
down. … It probably never should have been built.”<br />
The final factor was the economic collapse of<br />
2008-9 and the related drop in tourism statewide.<br />
Miami recovered the fastest, Staley said, and Jacksonville<br />
the slowest. “When you look at the recent<br />
numbers, it looks like the growth in demand is really<br />
strong. But look at where we’re coming from.”<br />
Staley said he doesn’t see how the low hotel<br />
rates, even with high occupancy, can cover escalating<br />
construction costs, especially Downtown. “I’ve<br />
never seen construction costs increase as fast as<br />
they have in the past five years, and I’ve been doing<br />
this 40 years.”<br />
Staley said he finds the proposed Residence Inn<br />
in Brooklyn “somewhat intriguing. That whole area<br />
has really exploded, Riverside and Avondale. It’s the<br />
place to be.”<br />
Other than that, he said, “If I had to build a hotel<br />
Downtown right now and those were the choices,<br />
the stadium area holds the greater upside, if you<br />
believe all that stuff is going to happen,” that is, Shad<br />
Khan’s proposed Lot J and Shipyards developments,<br />
both of which promise hotels.<br />
“The Shipyards has the potential to be a real<br />
game-changer. If that happens, then we might be<br />
looking at more demand. I can see the focal point<br />
of the entire Downtown area, for tourism anyway,<br />
shifting to the Shipyards and Lot J. Similarly, what<br />
they’re doing with the District is a game-changer for<br />
the Southbank.”<br />
The view from<br />
Visit Jacksonville<br />
Corrigan, whose agency attracts and accom-<br />
LA QUINTA<br />
“The<br />
Shipyards<br />
has the<br />
potential<br />
to be a<br />
real gamechanger.<br />
If that<br />
happens,<br />
then we<br />
might be<br />
looking<br />
at more<br />
demand.”<br />
HANK STALEY<br />
HOTEL FEASIBILITY<br />
SPECIALIST
“We lose<br />
a lot of<br />
business to<br />
neighboring<br />
counties<br />
that have<br />
full-service<br />
luxury<br />
hotels –<br />
the Ponte<br />
Vedra Inn,<br />
the Marriott<br />
Sawgrass,<br />
the Ritz-<br />
Carlton<br />
on Amelia<br />
Island.”<br />
Michael<br />
Corrigan<br />
CEO of Visit<br />
Jacksonville<br />
FULLER WARREN<br />
BRIDGE<br />
ACOSTA BRIDGE<br />
MAIN ST.<br />
BRIDGE<br />
ST. JOHNS RIVER<br />
NEW DOWNTOWN HOTELS IN THE WORKS<br />
1<br />
2<br />
3<br />
4<br />
5<br />
N<br />
Courtyard by Marriott<br />
In the renovated Laura Street Trio. 145 rooms.<br />
Marriott AC<br />
The District, Peter Rummell’s innovative “healthy”<br />
community is to include a 200-room hotel.<br />
Shipyards<br />
Five-star hotel to be specified.<br />
8<br />
Lot J<br />
Shad Khan’s planned entertainment complex adjacent<br />
to TIAA Bank Field and Daily’s Place is to include an<br />
as-yet-unspecified hotel.<br />
Hotel Indigo<br />
The old seven-story Life of the South building at 100 W.<br />
Bay St. (at Laura Street) will be converted into an 89-<br />
room boutique hotel, with a rooftop restaurant and bar.<br />
modates tourists and conventioneers, agreed we<br />
probably don’t need all those nine hotels now.<br />
But historically, he said, about 50 percent of<br />
new hotels that are announced actually get built,<br />
because they’re usually announced before they nail<br />
down financing and undergo feasibility analyses like<br />
those Staley does. Corrigan said of the current list of<br />
announced hotels, “I can’t believe they’re doing a<br />
full analysis of long-term financial stability.”<br />
One factor in favor of more hotels, he said, is that<br />
some travelers prefer to stay in certain brands. The<br />
list of nine includes three Marriott sub-brands, a<br />
Hyatt brand and a La Quinta.<br />
Atkins of the Trio project points out the Northbank<br />
doesn’t now have a Marriott, “the largest hospitality<br />
brand in the world,” and after studying the<br />
project “very carefully,” his development group and<br />
Marriott signed an agreement. “We’re committed.”<br />
The hotel planned for the Shipyards project<br />
hasn’t been named, but Shad Khan has made clear<br />
that he wants a five-star hotel there. He owns the<br />
Four Seasons in Toronto which has that distinction.<br />
Can Downtown Jacksonville support a five-star<br />
hotel? “I personally think we could,” Corrigan said.<br />
6<br />
5<br />
9<br />
1<br />
6<br />
7<br />
8<br />
9<br />
2<br />
7<br />
Hyatt Place<br />
A nine-story hotel with 128 rooms and a rooftop bar<br />
is seeking permitting for its site at Hogan and Water<br />
streets.<br />
Berkman Plaza II hotel<br />
500 E. Bay. New owners plan a $150 million, 312-room<br />
hotel alongside a 500-car parking garage and a “family<br />
entertainment center” with a Ferris wheel.<br />
Residence Inn by Marriott<br />
A six-story, 135-room hotel at the intersection of<br />
Forest and Magnolia in Brooklyn.<br />
La Quinta<br />
Work is underway on the $15 million renovation of the<br />
historic Ambassador Hotel, 420 N. Julia St., into a 120-<br />
room La Quinta Inn & Suites, Inn or Hotel.<br />
“We lose a lot of business to neighboring counties<br />
that have full-service luxury hotels — the Ponte Vedra<br />
Inn, the Marriott Sawgrass, the Ritz-Carlton on<br />
Amelia Island. The closest I can come is One Ocean.<br />
It’s seen as our full-service resort hotel.”<br />
Corrigan noted that existing hotels sometimes<br />
have to work together. “There are many times we<br />
look to put a conference at one of the conference<br />
hotels, and they don’t have enough rooms. So they<br />
partner with another conference hotel.”<br />
Munz, a partner in the Dalton Agency, said that<br />
when his firm hosts out-of-town clients, sometimes<br />
they have to go as far as Southpoint to find accommodations.<br />
And from the Downtown<br />
Investment Authority<br />
Brian Hughes, interim CEO of the Downtown<br />
Investment Authority (and chief of staff for Mayor<br />
Lenny Curry), pointed out that, on one weekend last<br />
spring during Welcome to Rockville, there also were<br />
the Spartan Race and well attended events at Veterans<br />
Memorial Arena and the Baseball Grounds.<br />
“All the same night. We had 98.9 percent occupancy<br />
3<br />
4<br />
JEFF DAVIS<br />
74<br />
J MAGAZINE | SPRING <strong>2019</strong>
SUBMITTED<br />
hotel-wise. Everything Downtown was booked and,<br />
at the airport, occupied. That’s a need.<br />
“Some of our Downtown venues are impacted<br />
by a lack of urban-core hotel space. People ask: How<br />
many people can stay how close to the event? We’re<br />
going to have to have hotel inventory.”<br />
That’s especially true, he said, as the number of<br />
people living Downtown continues to grow and as<br />
attractions like Lot J and the Berkman family-entertainment<br />
center become real. “The question mark<br />
is do we have a chicken-and-egg component …<br />
Ultimately, planning is about making a decision.”<br />
How the list will sort out<br />
Inevitably, that list of proposed new hotels will<br />
sort out, one way or another. Here’s how:<br />
First, as Corrigan pointed out, most of those proposals<br />
probably have not yet undergone feasibility<br />
studies, and when they do, the developers might see<br />
a different tack.<br />
Then, consider the time factor. While a few of the<br />
hotels are well into the permitting process and even<br />
about to begin construction, some are in the indefinite<br />
future — the “five-star” hotel at the Shipyards,<br />
for example, and the hotel at the entertainment<br />
center promised for the Berkman II site. By the time<br />
those hotels are built, Downtown revitalization<br />
should have generated substantially more demand.<br />
Munz cautioned that, while the number of hotels<br />
seems large, a more relevant number might be the<br />
number of rooms. The boutique Hotel Indigo, for<br />
example, plans only 89 rooms, while the Berkman<br />
developers are talking about 312 rooms. Atkins noted<br />
that the Trio Marriott will be a 145-room “limited<br />
service” hotel, which operates differently from, say,<br />
the full-service Hyatt.<br />
As Corrigan pointed out, the list of proposed<br />
hotels brings more brands and levels of service and<br />
luxury that will attract their own choosy patrons.<br />
For people who prefer boutique hotels, the Hotel<br />
Indigo is going to be very appealing. A five-star hotel<br />
associated with TIAA Bank Field, Daily’s Place and<br />
the Lot J and Shipyards developments can create its<br />
own rich market.<br />
Shad Khan doesn’t need to rely so heavily on feasibility<br />
studies. As Staley said, “He can do whatever<br />
he wants to.”<br />
Who’s first. The laggards in getting their doors<br />
open may face a tougher market. “We’re going to be<br />
one of the first to market,” Greiner said, “so we’re not<br />
too worried about it.”<br />
Or rather than figuring the list of proposed<br />
hotels will sort out, you can choose to be a optimist,<br />
cockeyed or visionary. If you read Mike Clark’s story<br />
about Oklahoma City’s revitalization over 14 years<br />
(see page 24), the then-mayor said 20 new hotels<br />
were built downtown and in the Bricktown entertainment<br />
district. Now those contiguous areas list 30<br />
hotels, compared to our six.<br />
Frank Denton, retired editor of The Florida Times-Union, is<br />
editor of J. He lives in Riverside.<br />
HOTEL INDIGO<br />
HYATT PLACE<br />
Residence Inn by Marriott<br />
SPRING <strong>2019</strong> | J MAGAZINE 75
With a successful Murray<br />
Hill location, Will Morgan<br />
opened Vagabond Coffee in<br />
Downtown six months ago.<br />
76<br />
J MAGAZINE | SPRING <strong>2019</strong>
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +<br />
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +<br />
While successful small businesses<br />
+ + + + + +<br />
&<br />
+ + + + + + + + + +<br />
often define a downtown’s character,<br />
+ + the challenges + + + in + Jacksonville’s<br />
+ + + + + + + + + +<br />
Downtown can be daunting<br />
+<br />
Rise<br />
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + +<br />
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +<br />
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +<br />
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +<br />
Grind<br />
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +<br />
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +<br />
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +<br />
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +<br />
BY CAROLE HAWKINS // PHOTOS BY BOB SELF<br />
+<br />
Six months into his tenure Downtown at Vagabond Coffee, owner<br />
+ + + + + + + + + +<br />
Will Morgan is upbeat about prospects. But the specialty coffee<br />
+ + + + +<br />
shop’s hours show how tough the urban core market can be.<br />
+ + Vagabond + is open + during + business + hours — + 8 a.m. to 5 + p.m. weekdays. + Compare + that + + + + + +<br />
to the popular Murray Hill location, where weekdays stretch from 6:30 a.m. to 9 p.m., and<br />
where Saturday and Sunday hours run nearly as long.<br />
+ “In + my opinion, + we should + be + able to open + more, + but the business + just + isn’t there,” + + + + + + +<br />
Morgan said of his store just a half-block off Hemming Park. “I actually think Downtown<br />
Jacksonville is one the hardest areas in the city to run a successful business, especially a<br />
+ + small one.” + + + + + + + + + + + + + +<br />
Morgan’s landlord, George Saoud, sees a similar pattern with his other tenants. Happy<br />
Grilled Cheese closes at 3 p.m. So does the Desert Rider sandwich shop.<br />
+ “What + does + that tell + you? Nobody + stays + Downtown + after hours,” + he said. + + + + + + + +<br />
One block over on Laura Street is Wolf & Cub, a concept store featuring an eclectic mix<br />
of vintage and new curated clothing, as well as unique products like hand-rolled incense<br />
+ + from Peru. + Owner + Emily Moody + is no + retail ingénue. + She + ran a similar + store + in Riverside + + + + + +<br />
for many years. She keeps customers coming into her Downtown shop by surprising them<br />
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +<br />
SPRING <strong>2019</strong> | J MAGAZINE 77<br />
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
with changes in inventory and engaging them with<br />
Instagram posts. Wolf & Cub is open noon to 5 p.m.<br />
weekdays and noon to 4 p.m. Saturdays.<br />
Across the street, the Barnett Building and Laura<br />
Street Trio redevelopments are underway. The city<br />
granted the mixed-use projects a combined $9.8<br />
million in incentives.<br />
They’re beautiful buildings, and Moody is happy<br />
they’re renovating. But that’s paired with another<br />
thought.<br />
“Twenty-five thousand dollars would be huge for<br />
a small business who’s trying to grow their inventory.<br />
And it’s just a drop in the bucket for these bigger<br />
projects,” she said.<br />
Jacksonville’s Downtown Investment Authority<br />
has granted Downtown retailers $613,000 in<br />
renovation grants over the last five years. But that<br />
seems a small number compared to $9.8 million.<br />
When it comes to retail, could Jacksonville do more<br />
to help the little guy?<br />
The simple answer is yes. There are other<br />
incentives, assistance programs and retail-friendly<br />
policies that the city could offer. But there’s little<br />
consensus on what those ought to be.<br />
The case for incentives<br />
Cluster a few mom-and-pop retailers together,<br />
and you get an urban shopping experience worth<br />
traveling for — one that’s messy and creative, fast<br />
and surprising. Around Downtown’s Hemming<br />
Park there’s a specialty grilled cheese eatery, a<br />
candy store with Willie Wonka flavors and a used<br />
bookstore paired with a healthy foods coffee shop.<br />
Mom-and-pop stores define an urban<br />
neighborhood’s character, but they also do more.<br />
They are precursors to national brands. Small<br />
retailers prove the market is there, triggering the<br />
bigger players to buy in — Riverside needed a Five<br />
Points before it could land a Publix.<br />
Retail is also vital to keep urban neighborhoods<br />
attractive to residents. And so, cities activate<br />
shopping districts with retail support programs.<br />
Jacksonville offers retail support too.<br />
Renovations for retailers<br />
Five years ago, DIA created a Retail Enhancement<br />
Grant, which pays up to half the cost of a retail<br />
renovation in Downtown Jacksonville. That’s enabled<br />
a dozen or so retailers to build out or expand, and it’s<br />
behind some trendy, transitional remodels at places<br />
like Urban Grind and Super Food and Brew.<br />
The city replenished the fund during the last<br />
budget cycle, adding another $922,000.<br />
“There’s demonstrated value to it,” interim DIA<br />
CEO Brian Hughes said. “It will continue to be<br />
available as it continues to demonstrate value.”<br />
Saoud recently received a partial matching grant<br />
of $55,000 from DIA to help him restore the secondfloor<br />
windows and antique elevator at his Hogan<br />
Street building. A grant isn’t the difference between<br />
succeeding and failing as a business, he said. But it<br />
does encourage investment.<br />
“People are<br />
still working<br />
hard to<br />
create a<br />
destination<br />
here. So<br />
the least<br />
landlords<br />
can do is<br />
offer some<br />
affordable<br />
rents,<br />
especially<br />
when<br />
buildings<br />
are sitting<br />
empty.”<br />
EMILY MOODY<br />
WOLF & CUB<br />
“I don’t think I would have done as much if I<br />
didn’t have it,” Saoud said. “Besides putting windows<br />
back in, I’m now toying with the idea of painting the<br />
whole building and putting in new awnings.”<br />
Despite its successes, a Retail Enhancement<br />
Grant isn’t for everybody, though.<br />
Morgan did an attractive low-cost DIY build-out<br />
for Vagabond. That type of work doesn’t qualify for<br />
a grant. Moody also did a DIY build-out when she<br />
opened Wolf & Cub.<br />
Morgan said the grant paperwork looked<br />
complicated too.<br />
“It’s a lot of questions. It’s kind of a lot for a small<br />
business owner to do,” he said. “There are people<br />
who love coffee, love people and know a lot about<br />
running a business, but who don’t know a lot about<br />
filling out forms for grants. And there are other<br />
people who have bigger pockets who can have<br />
someone else help them fill out grants.”<br />
Jake Gordon, CEO of Downtown Vision, praised<br />
the city’s renovation program, but admitted no<br />
support incentive can ever be one-size-fits-all. The<br />
smallest retailers are the ones who have the toughest<br />
time using it, he said.<br />
“In terms of the incentives, I think what’s next for<br />
DIA is an evolution,” Gordon said. “There’s a whole<br />
list of businesses and owners who were helped by<br />
the Retail Enhancement Grant. But as the new CEO<br />
comes on, there probably is an opportunity for the<br />
investment authority to add even more resources.”<br />
Lease assistance<br />
Gordon’s top pick is lease assistance.<br />
“For me it’s the number one thing that we need,”<br />
Gordon said. “Rent is the number one cost to our<br />
Downtown retailers, by far.”<br />
The city of Dallas in the late 2000s offered lease<br />
assistance as part of a suite of retail supports for its<br />
Main Street district. Over three years, the program<br />
brought eight new stores to open within a six-block<br />
area, a progress report showed.<br />
New Jersey currently offers lease assistance for<br />
low-income retail districts across several cities. That<br />
program pays 15 percent of the rent for qualifying<br />
retailers during their first two years in business.<br />
It’s a way to fill in the gap between what building<br />
owners need to charge and what a new business<br />
ramping up can afford, Gordon said.<br />
Rent is definitely an issue among the Downtown<br />
owner-operators. Moody said hers is high, and she’s<br />
hoping to renegotiate better terms.<br />
“I don’t think the things that people say that<br />
Downtown has — that it’s lived up to that,” she said.<br />
“People are still working hard to create a destination<br />
here. So the least landlords can do is offer some<br />
affordable rents, especially when buildings are<br />
sitting empty.”<br />
Morgan said Downtown rents vary widely, and<br />
many owners will leave their buildings vacant rather<br />
than bring their rates down.<br />
“I have gotten quotes from people Downtown<br />
that I have literally just laughed at,” he said.<br />
78<br />
J MAGAZINE | SPRING <strong>2019</strong>
After running a successful boutique<br />
in Riverside, Emily Moody opened<br />
the eclectic Wolf & Cub in<br />
Jacksonville’s Downtown.<br />
SPRING <strong>2019</strong> | J MAGAZINE 79
PRIDE<br />
IN SERVICE<br />
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In support of these heroes, CSX<br />
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Together, CSX, its employees and<br />
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Morgan favors a lease assistance program and<br />
said he would use if it were offered.<br />
“Fifteen percent is like two free months of rent<br />
a year for me,” he said. “That’s just huge for a small<br />
business.”<br />
But lease assistance is a tougher sell politically<br />
than a renovation grant. That’s because lease<br />
programs are harder to run than renovation<br />
programs, Gordon said.<br />
“It’s easier to evaluate a capital project than the<br />
viability of a business,” he said. “What you don’t want<br />
to do is have the business not succeed and go away<br />
right away.”<br />
Hughes at DIA was underwhelmed by the idea.<br />
“There’s a little bit of political and economic<br />
philosophy to it,” he said. “The taxpayers would really<br />
be more dependent on the business acumen of the<br />
retailer, as opposed to a demonstration of capital<br />
improvement.”<br />
Business mentoring<br />
Also, any lease assistance from the city will<br />
expire. So owner-operators have to be able to build a<br />
business that will succeed at the full-rent rate.<br />
David Barilla, Assistant Director of Orlando’s<br />
Downtown Development Board, said his city<br />
doesn’t use lease assistance in isolation. A decade<br />
ago Orlando established a Minority/Women<br />
Entrepreneur Business Assistance Program,<br />
which pairs up to $40,000 in grants with business<br />
mentoring when an entrepreneur opens a store<br />
within the city’s disinvested Parramore district.<br />
To qualify, applicants work with a consultant,<br />
hired by the city to design a business plan. The<br />
consultant helps analyze the business, guides the<br />
setup, and gives marketing tips before making a<br />
recommendation to a board on whether to fund<br />
it.<br />
If approved, the grant can cover any business<br />
expense, from inventory to rent to renovations.<br />
“The consultant we work with is very helpful.<br />
And the applicants are very receptive and openminded<br />
to the recommendations,” Barilla said.<br />
“It’s really about getting them on the pathway to<br />
become successful long-term, while helping them<br />
get off the ground.”<br />
Over the course of the program’s 10-year<br />
history, more than half of the businesses have<br />
succeeded. It’s a good rate, said Barilla, for an<br />
at-risk area where most business startups are nonbankable<br />
deals.<br />
Lowering barriers<br />
Another way to support mom-and-pop retailers<br />
is to lower barriers that are especially difficult for a<br />
small business to hurdle.<br />
Barilla in Orlando convinced the developer of a<br />
new 400-unit apartment complex to offer one-year,<br />
rather than three-year or five-year leases for momand-pop<br />
retailers renting space on the building’s<br />
ground floor.<br />
“They may not have fully tested their concept yet.<br />
“There are<br />
people who<br />
love coffee,<br />
love people<br />
and know<br />
a lot about<br />
running a<br />
business,<br />
but who<br />
don’t know<br />
a lot about<br />
filling out<br />
forms for<br />
grants.”<br />
WILL MORGAN<br />
VAGABOND<br />
COFFEE<br />
It could be a baker that makes great cupcakes or<br />
somebody who wants to open a yoga studio,” Barilla<br />
said. “They’re just trying to get the foot in the game,<br />
and a longer commitment can be really challenging<br />
for them.”<br />
In other cases, regulatory policies written as onesize-fits-all<br />
can be tough for small business owners<br />
to comply with.<br />
In Jacksonville, businesses are required to<br />
provide a Life Safety plan — a plan that shows<br />
emergency exit routes — before they can open. The<br />
cost of compliance is high: The required architect’s<br />
drawings run $3,000 to $5,000 and can take months<br />
to complete.<br />
“To a mom-and-pop renting a place for $1,000 or<br />
$1,500 a month, that’s a lot,” said Stanton Hudmon,<br />
a commercial real estate agent at Pine Street/RPS.<br />
“Most want to move into an existing spot, put a<br />
couple of coats of paint on it and get some minor<br />
permits like bathrooms. They don’t require an<br />
overhaul and a 10-step plan.”<br />
Adding rooftops<br />
Views are mixed on what’s next for retail<br />
assistance in Downtown Jacksonville. But everyone<br />
agrees there’s one thing that would boost retail<br />
reliably: more residents in the urban core.<br />
A population base is why retail has rebounded<br />
in near-Downtown neighborhoods, like Riverside,<br />
San Marco and Brooklyn, but not yet in the central<br />
business district.<br />
“You can go within a mile or two of those retail<br />
districts and you’ve got people working as well as<br />
rooftops,” Hudmon said. “The retail there has a night<br />
business, where there’s really not night business<br />
Downtown.”<br />
The good news is residents are coming.<br />
According to Downtown Vision, apartment projects<br />
on the books are set to deliver more than 5,500 new<br />
residents to the urban core. But there’s a catch-22 in<br />
that scheme. When the Downtown dwellers arrive,<br />
how much will they enjoy their new neighborhood?<br />
Retail needs residents to survive, but residents need<br />
retail to provide a quality of life that makes them<br />
want to stay.<br />
DIA’s Retail Enhancement Grant has been the<br />
right program for the last five years, breathing life<br />
into Downtown’s destination retail until apartment<br />
developers stepped in. But now, with new housing<br />
on the horizon, it’s time to ramp-up Downtown<br />
retail incentives.<br />
The renovation grants have made a strong<br />
beginning. But as long as Downtown remains the<br />
“hardest place in Jacksonville to run a successful<br />
business,” the city should do more to help the owneroperators<br />
who define much of the urban-core retail.<br />
Jacksonville needs to be ready for what’s coming<br />
next.<br />
Carole Hawkins was a reporter for the<br />
Times-Union’s Georgia bureau in 2007-10. She<br />
is a freelance writer who lives in Murray Hill.<br />
SPRING <strong>2019</strong> | J MAGAZINE 81
Paul Shockey (left) and Tony Allegretti bought and renovated a vacant, boarded-up building at 21 E. Adams St. in the early 2000s and opened Burrito Gallery in 2005.<br />
THE URBAN<br />
PIONEERS<br />
With only a vision of a revitalized Downtown, early advocates<br />
shed light on why they went ‘all-in’ before few others would<br />
BY ROGER BROWN<br />
Long before Downtown Jacksonville became the attractive,<br />
enticing place for developers and individuals to<br />
invest and build in that it’s now become, there were pioneers<br />
who decades ago saw Downtown’s potential amid<br />
all of the boarded-up buildings, buzz-deprived streets<br />
and chronic underachievement.<br />
These pioneers saw a vision for a better Downtown and backed<br />
it up by taking real leaps of faith to invest and transform dormant<br />
properties in the city center into Downtown fixtures that helped set the<br />
foundation for the great things that are happening today.<br />
J magazine sought out three of these pioneers and asked what<br />
drove them to believe in Downtown when so many wouldn’t.<br />
Law partners and brothers Eddie and Chuck Farah, for example,<br />
turned a dead Downtown property into the glittering Farah & Farah<br />
law office.<br />
John Keane, the former longtime executive director of the Jackson-<br />
WILL DICKEY<br />
82<br />
J MAGAZINE | SPRING <strong>2019</strong>
ville Police and Fire Pension Fund, was the driving<br />
force behind the fund turning a vacant former<br />
department store into its eye-catching headquarters<br />
on West Adams Street, right across the street from<br />
Farah & Farah.<br />
Tony Allegretti and Paul Shockey, meanwhile,<br />
were driven by a shared belief that Downtown<br />
was a sleeping giant that the “little guys” — small<br />
businesses and establishments — could help stir to<br />
life. So the two ignored the skeptics and doubters,<br />
purchased an old decrepit Downtown building and<br />
made it the Burrito Gallery restaurant, a popular and<br />
iconic spot with another beloved eatery — Indochine<br />
— above it.<br />
All three of the pioneers offer some interesting<br />
insights on why they took a chance on Downtown.<br />
Tony Allegretti<br />
and Paul Shockey<br />
While longtime business partners Tony Allegretti<br />
and Paul Shockey are not brothers, there is a good<br />
reason why many in town affectionately joke that<br />
the duo have become Downtown Jacksonville’s<br />
version of the “Property Brothers.”<br />
Like “Property Brother” Jonathan Scott, Shockey,<br />
a longtime area licensed contractor and real estate<br />
developer, has had the instinctive ability to look at<br />
a humble building and use his own two hands and<br />
physical labor to help hammer, saw, drill it into a<br />
stunning end product.<br />
And like “Property Brother” Drew Scott, the personable<br />
and engaging Allegretti has had an uncanny<br />
knack for using his ability to present to others an<br />
articulate, compelling vision for a humble building’s<br />
potential — and for employing his keen people skills<br />
to hack through the bureaucratic red tape, skepticism<br />
and other barriers to help make the project an<br />
impressive reality.<br />
“We have heard that over the years,” Shockey<br />
says with a laugh regarding the “Property Brothers”<br />
comparison.<br />
“But we definitely don’t have (the Scott brothers’)<br />
great hair.”<br />
What Shockey and Allegretti definitely do have,<br />
however, is the satisfying legacy of buying a ramshackle<br />
empty Downtown building at 21 E. Adams<br />
St. in the early 2000s — and turning it into a thriving<br />
city center site that’s become the iconic home of the<br />
popular Burrito Gallery restaurant, which opened in<br />
January 2005, shortly before Jacksonville hosted the<br />
Super Bowl.<br />
In the years since, another popular restaurant,<br />
the Asian fusion eatery Indochine, also has moved<br />
into the 6,000-square-foot building as an upper-level<br />
tenant atop Burrito Gallery.<br />
The duo took a vision as “little guys” who saw a<br />
slumbering yet promising giant in Downtown Jacksonville<br />
and in the process became pioneers who<br />
helped set the groundwork for the great progress<br />
being made now, through projects big and small, to<br />
turn Downtown from a dozing giant into a roaring<br />
Goliath of activity.<br />
“Tony and<br />
I had been<br />
looking at<br />
that building<br />
on East<br />
Adams Street<br />
for a bit; we<br />
both saw life<br />
and renewal<br />
and potential<br />
in it as a<br />
structure and<br />
Downtown<br />
overall. So<br />
we decided<br />
to go for it.<br />
The building<br />
had been<br />
boarded up<br />
and vacant<br />
for some<br />
time, though.<br />
It was a<br />
mess.”<br />
PAUL SHOCKEY<br />
BURRITO GALLERY<br />
“We recognized the potential was there for<br />
Downtown, but that no one seemed to be anxious<br />
or ready to take the plunge and make that commitment<br />
to help fulfill it,” Allegretti said. “I guess we<br />
felt someone needed to take that plunge, make that<br />
commitment. Why couldn’t it be us?”<br />
And Downtown Jacksonville is immeasurably<br />
richer because Allegretti and Shockey did just that.<br />
In this engaging conversation with J magazine,<br />
the two share their observations on their journey as<br />
Downtown pioneers.<br />
Q: Was there an “Aha” moment when you knew<br />
that making such a huge investment in Downtown<br />
— when few others were — was the thing to do?<br />
Shockey: Well, what I remember as much as<br />
the “Aha” moment were the “what?” moments —<br />
the moments when we would tell people we were<br />
thinking of buying this empty, messed-up building<br />
Downtown that had been listed for sale, and they’d<br />
say, “You want to do what?!” (Laughs)<br />
I definitely remember a lot of that.<br />
But Tony and I had been looking at that building<br />
on East Adams Street for a bit; we both saw life and<br />
renewal and potential in it as a structure and Downtown<br />
overall. So we decided to go for it. The building<br />
had been boarded up and vacant for some time,<br />
though. It was a mess.<br />
Allegretti: It was gross! It had 1970s faux-stone<br />
cladding all across the place. It was really weird. Its<br />
last commercial use was as a jewelry store, but in<br />
between that and when we took it over, at one point<br />
it had a stint as a rave club. So it was really kind of<br />
creepy being in there excavating that. And it wasn’t<br />
like Downtown was booming. But we felt like we<br />
could find a good use for that building, and that we<br />
could make it work Downtown.<br />
So it’s really gratifying to know how we started<br />
and then to realize what we were eventually able to<br />
do over the years — first with Burrito Gallery and<br />
then adding a great tenant like Indochine.<br />
I know I feel a sense of accomplishment every<br />
time I go Downtown, go into Burrito Gallery and<br />
Indochine and see the smiling faces, the familiar<br />
faces. And I realize the jobs that Paul and I have been<br />
able to create. And I watch all the other great things<br />
that have been coming into Downtown, and will<br />
keep on arriving.<br />
Shockey: I’m really proud of the strides that<br />
Downtown is making now, and that we’ve had some<br />
role in that. We always believe that Downtown could<br />
be a vibrant, cool place, and we’re definitely getting<br />
there.<br />
Q: You both took a great leap of faith and<br />
carried out a vision that few others were seeing<br />
when you came Downtown when not many were<br />
rushing to do so. What do you see as the big challenge<br />
now to getting Downtown to reach its full<br />
promise?<br />
Allegretti: The big thing I’ve learned that if you<br />
have a passion for Downtown and for revitalizing it,<br />
SPRING <strong>2019</strong> | J MAGAZINE 83
Attorneys Chuck (left) and Eddie you have to accept early on that there is always going<br />
Farah stand in front of their<br />
to be someone who will try to change your mind. If<br />
32,000-square-foot law office at you say, “Oh man, I’m very positive on Downtown,”<br />
10 W. Adams St. The Farah<br />
they will throw out negative after negative at you in<br />
brothers purchased the deserted<br />
response. And no matter what you say, that person<br />
building in 1997 and now have<br />
more than 200 employees.<br />
won’t be convinced.<br />
But here’s the secret: For that one person, there<br />
are five others out there who do have open minds<br />
about Downtown and what it can be. They do want<br />
to work with you on making something positive happen<br />
Downtown. They are super interested in being<br />
part of that process. So the thing is to not leave those<br />
five people behind — don’t overlook opportunities<br />
to make connections with them to make a difference<br />
Downtown because you’re spending so much energy<br />
trying to sway the one naysayer who will never be<br />
convinced about Downtown.<br />
You have to focus on turning those five people<br />
into 10, 15, 20.<br />
That’s the kind of positive energy I’m seeing now<br />
when it comes to Downtown. But we have to keep<br />
nurturing it.<br />
Shockey: Tony and I were called crazy when we<br />
got into this. But we were willing to take a risk, and<br />
the results have really validated what we believed<br />
in about Downtown. (Let’s) continue to encourage<br />
those who have a passion for doing something great<br />
Downtown — a belief in it — that they can and<br />
84 J MAGAZINE | SPRING <strong>2019</strong><br />
should pursue it. The challenge is to keep feeding<br />
that passion, and not letting it fade. It’s going to be<br />
that drive that’s going to make Downtown great in<br />
the years to come. I have no doubt about that.<br />
Eddie and Chuck Farah<br />
Strolling into Farah & Farah’s law office building<br />
on 10 W. Adams St. — smack on the corner of West<br />
Adams and Main streets — it doesn’t take long to understand<br />
just how excited law partners and brothers<br />
Eddie and Chuck Farah are about Downtown and its<br />
future.<br />
“Don’t believe any of the naysayers about Downtown,<br />
man, because this place is on the rise,” says<br />
Eddie Farah almost instantly upon greeting a visitor<br />
in Farah & Farah’s spacious, colorful lobby.<br />
Standing next to Eddie, Chuck Farah is quick to<br />
agree.<br />
“The energy in Downtown is already through the<br />
roof, and it’s only going up,” Chuck Farah says. “So<br />
I’m so glad we’re down here. I’m really proud that<br />
we came into Downtown as early as we did. It has a<br />
soul to it.”<br />
Adds an energetic Eddie: “Yes, exactly. That’s a<br />
good way to put it. Downtown has got some soul to<br />
it — a lot of soul, really.”<br />
And a big reason why Downtown’s soul vibe exists<br />
today is because of the Farah brothers’ decision<br />
BOB SELF
in 1997 to purchase a deserted two-floor building<br />
on 10 W. Adams St. that once housed an insurance<br />
company and turn it into a massive law office with<br />
more than 200 employees.<br />
The transformation has combined a willingness<br />
to invest substantially in Downtown along with a<br />
desire to create something distinctive in Downtown<br />
— and the end product turned out as impressive as<br />
the original ambition.<br />
The Farah & Farah Downtown law office is an<br />
impressive, light-colored, 32,000-square-foot brick<br />
site that features:<br />
n Three expansive stories.<br />
n Lush lighting.<br />
n Strikingly high ceilings.<br />
n An impressive array of artistic features ranging<br />
from classic to funky eclectic.<br />
n A serene, outdoor courtyard/mini-park in<br />
the center of the building that is used for group<br />
gatherings, law firm events and other occasions —<br />
and wouldn’t be out of place if it was plopped in the<br />
center of a trendy urban neighborhood.<br />
“We believe in Downtown,” Eddie Farah says.<br />
Man, do they.<br />
And it’s a sentiment the Farah brothers proudly<br />
make no effort to conceal during this fun conversation<br />
with them.<br />
Q: Was there an “Aha” moment when you knew<br />
that making such a huge investment in Downtown<br />
— when few others were — was the thing to do?<br />
Eddie: We were on the Southbank in the late<br />
1990s in the Stein Mart building when this building<br />
came up for sale. We always wanted to be right in<br />
the center of Downtown. The courthouse was in<br />
the center of Downtown; we had lawyers in the<br />
courthouse every day. So many of the things we had<br />
to do as a law firm were right in the center of the city.<br />
It just made sense. We wanted to be in the heart of<br />
the action.<br />
Chuck: There was an investment company that<br />
wanted to sell the building. It was all boarded up.<br />
And the whole street itself was pretty dead, really.<br />
But when we walked in the building to look it over,<br />
we fell in love with it right away. I remember saying,<br />
“Man, this place is beautiful.”<br />
Eddie: Yeah we made up our minds right then<br />
we were going to do it. Plus, we’d always been<br />
Downtown guys, anyway. We’d always felt it was the<br />
soul of the city. We just felt it was the right move to<br />
make. And even though there wasn’t much going<br />
on Downtown overall, we felt like if we came there,<br />
it would breed other activity. And slowly, gradually,<br />
it’s done that. The momentum is really rolling now.<br />
We’re proud of that. We’re proud that we have more<br />
than 200 employees working, eating, socializing<br />
Downtown every day. And we have some employees<br />
who are living Downtown, too. That means a lot<br />
to us. We feel like we’re making a contribution to a<br />
better Downtown.<br />
Q: You both took a great leap of faith and<br />
“The<br />
energy in<br />
Downtown<br />
is already<br />
through the<br />
roof, and<br />
it’s only<br />
going up, so<br />
I’m so glad<br />
we’re down<br />
here. I’m<br />
really proud<br />
that we<br />
came into<br />
Downtown<br />
as early as<br />
we did. It<br />
has a soul<br />
to it.”<br />
EDDIE FARAH<br />
FARAH & FARAH<br />
carried out a vision that few others were seeing<br />
when you came Downtown when not many were<br />
rushing to do so. What do you see as the big challenge<br />
now to getting Downtown to reach its full<br />
promise?<br />
Eddie: To me, the key is that in addition to building<br />
all of the great projects that are now going on<br />
down here, we also have to keep working hard to tear<br />
down all the negativity that some people still have<br />
about Downtown and its potential. It just takes away<br />
energy from us being able to accomplish all we can<br />
here. Now thankfully a lot of that negativity is starting<br />
to go away. Part of that is because there are more<br />
people coming Downtown and seeing for themselves<br />
that all of the perceptions — “Oh, there are a<br />
lot of homeless people,” “Oh, is it safe?” — aren’t the<br />
actual reality. But we need more and more people to<br />
start really believing in Downtown. We need to keep<br />
building that up along with all of the great projects,<br />
both big and small.<br />
Chuck: Downtown is starting to get recognized<br />
by major people and companies all across this country.<br />
They believe in what they’re starting to see here.<br />
Now more of us here have to start believing, too. I’m<br />
telling you, Downtown is on the move. This is real.<br />
So that’s what I’d say to people who still don’t believe<br />
in Downtown. Give it a chance. You will be more<br />
than pleasantly surprised. Jump on this train now,<br />
because it’s really starting to roll.<br />
John Keane, Police<br />
and Fire Pension Fund<br />
John Keane devoted 25 years to leading Jacksonville’s<br />
Police and Fire Pension Fund as its executive<br />
director before retiring in 2015.<br />
During that time Keane was the driving force<br />
behind the pension fund’s bold decision in late<br />
1999 to buy a long-vacant building that was the<br />
home of a long-gone department store on West<br />
Adams Street, a slumbering Downtown site with<br />
little real buzz or activity, and transform it into the<br />
organization’s headquarters.<br />
And Keane’s vision back then — supported by<br />
the Jacksonville Police and Fire Pension Fund’s<br />
board of trustees — continues to reward Downtown<br />
Jacksonville some 20 years later.<br />
Today, the pension fund building on 1 W. Adams<br />
St., with its eye-catching design and distinctive<br />
light-gray look, is a symbol that faith in Downtown’s<br />
promise can pay off.<br />
In addition to housing the pension fund’s<br />
offices on the first floor — which feature an airy<br />
atrium that, as Keane proudly notes, allows “a lot<br />
of that good, fresh Florida sunshine to come on<br />
through” — the three-floor building has had an<br />
impressive roster of tenants over the years. The<br />
Pace Center for Girls Jacksonville, a prominent<br />
local nonprofit, is one of the facility’s current<br />
co-inhabitants.<br />
“I think it’s worked out pretty well,” Keane said<br />
with a smile.<br />
It has, indeed, and J magazine explored the Po-<br />
SPRING <strong>2019</strong> | J MAGAZINE 85
As executive director of<br />
Jacksonville’s Police and Fire<br />
Pension Fund, John Keane led<br />
efforts for the group to purchase<br />
and renovate a vacant building at<br />
1 W. Adams St. In 1999.<br />
lice and Fire Pension Fund’s Downtown journey<br />
in a fascinating Q-and-A session with Keane.<br />
Q: Was there an “Aha” moment when you<br />
knew that making such a huge investment in<br />
Downtown — when few others were — was the<br />
thing to do?<br />
Keane: Well, for about four years, we had had<br />
our headquarters inside an old bank on (Interstate)<br />
95 and Emerson Street on the Southside.<br />
One day, like the spring of 1999, I was heading<br />
down to City Hall for a meeting with (then-Mayor<br />
John Delaney). I went across the Hart Bridge,<br />
coming down Adams Street, stopped at the traffic<br />
light and I saw this banner on this empty building<br />
at 1 W. Adams St. that said, “Building for sale —<br />
and parking garage.”<br />
I thought, “Hmm, that’s interesting.”<br />
So after my meeting with the mayor, I drove<br />
back around the block a few times, sized up the<br />
building a bit. The more I looked at it, the more<br />
it really intrigued me. I was already familiar with<br />
the building because it used to be a W.T. Grant<br />
department store.<br />
I could just see some potential there. It was<br />
right in the heart of Downtown.<br />
So I called the broker and told him that if the<br />
offer he had already received on the building<br />
didn’t come through, to call me immediately<br />
before it went to market again.<br />
In the meantime, I started to have lots of<br />
discussions about the building with our board of<br />
trustees. We talked about what we would do with<br />
it, how we’d use it — even whether we even needed<br />
to go Downtown. We had this nice suburban<br />
place already, after all, with all the parking we<br />
wanted. Why go Downtown?<br />
Well, around that time Mayor Delaney was<br />
following up on (former) Mayor Ed Austin’s vision<br />
of redoing Downtown Jacksonville. And I just felt<br />
the mayor’s vision about getting Downtown going<br />
again really made sense to me. It struck a chord<br />
with me.<br />
We really did need to do something about<br />
Downtown to move Jacksonville forward as an<br />
entire city, and it was a ghost town down there.<br />
Plus I felt we could get the building at a good<br />
price, we could fill the other space with tenants,<br />
and the parking garage would be a nice, reliable<br />
revenue stream for us.<br />
The board of trustees, to their great credit,<br />
could see that too.<br />
So when the broker finally called and said<br />
the people with the first offer couldn’t put up the<br />
money, we were ready to act.<br />
It was a quick offer and counter-offer deal,<br />
WILL DICKEY<br />
86<br />
J MAGAZINE | SPRING <strong>2019</strong>
and we ended up buying it for $2 million — a<br />
45,000-square-foot building and 230-car parking<br />
garage.<br />
Within six months of looking at it, we had it.<br />
After that, it was all about gutting the inside<br />
of the building, working to really make a beautiful<br />
place with a great design — and recruiting<br />
tenants, which wasn’t too hard because there was<br />
a lot of interest once we started working on the<br />
building.<br />
Then we moved in and made it the Police and<br />
Fire Pension Fund’s new headquarters on Oct. 1,<br />
2001.<br />
At that time, it was pretty much just our building<br />
and the Farah & Farah (law office) building<br />
across the street that had much of a presence on<br />
Adams Street. There really wasn’t much else. But<br />
it was exciting. You could sense even back then<br />
both of our buildings were starting to put down<br />
the foundation for other development to come<br />
around us and all over Downtown.<br />
And that’s what has happened.<br />
Q: What were the biggest challenges?<br />
Keane: Well, developers will always tell you<br />
that when you’re dealing with an old building,<br />
it has a thousand secrets — and the walls don’t<br />
talk and tell you any of them. You have to find out<br />
those secrets on your own once you actually get<br />
in the building, and not always in the best ways.<br />
We certainly had a moment or two like that while<br />
“Our goal<br />
was to keep<br />
Downtown<br />
moving<br />
forward<br />
and to do<br />
our part to<br />
rejuvenate<br />
and<br />
redevelop<br />
it.”<br />
JOHN KEANE<br />
POLICE AND FIRE<br />
PENSION FUND<br />
we were transforming the Downtown building<br />
into our headquarters. You have to expect the<br />
unexpected.<br />
Q: What goes through your mind when you<br />
see the building these days?<br />
Keane: I’m very proud in a lot of ways, absolutely.<br />
We built and redid the Police and Fire Pension<br />
Fund building without one penny of city subsidy.<br />
I’m proud of that.<br />
We built it on time, and we built it under budget.<br />
I’m really proud of that, too.<br />
But really, the building is a tribute to the<br />
outstanding vision that was shown by the board<br />
of trustees in embracing the idea of moving<br />
Downtown when I suggested we do that. We were<br />
blessed to have a board that was not only dedicated<br />
to the long-term goals of the Police and Fire<br />
Pension Fund, it knew our success in the long run<br />
would benefit from having a successful, thriving<br />
Downtown.<br />
Our goal was to keep Downtown moving<br />
forward and to do our part to rejuvenate and redevelop<br />
it. And whenever I look at the Police and<br />
Fire Pension Fund building today, I know that we<br />
accomplished that goal.<br />
That means a lot to me.<br />
Roger Brown is a Times-Union editorial writer and member<br />
of the editorial board. He lives Downtown.<br />
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SPRING <strong>2019</strong> | J MAGAZINE 87
REMAPPING<br />
DOWNTOWN<br />
L<br />
A proposal<br />
to simplify<br />
more than a<br />
dozen zoning<br />
districts could<br />
be a boost for<br />
development<br />
ooking at the existing zoning map for<br />
Downtown is akin to looking at a piece<br />
of abstract art — a lot of haphazard<br />
splashes of color that don’t seem to go<br />
together. A small green block in a sea of purple.<br />
A patchwork of colors peppered throughout one<br />
neighborhood.<br />
That approach works for art but is terribly<br />
outdated for the map that details zoning rules in<br />
Downtown Jacksonville, a growing urban core that<br />
shouldn’t be governed by a regulatory process last<br />
updated around the turn of the century.<br />
City Councilwoman Lori Boyer is leading the<br />
push for a sweeping change of those archaic zoning<br />
BY MARILYN YOUNG rules.<br />
Instead of the current 15 zoning districts<br />
88 J MAGAZINE | SPRING <strong>2019</strong><br />
all with their own rules, Boyer’s proposal calls<br />
for all of Downtown to be zoned Commercial<br />
Central Business District. That encompasses the<br />
Northbank, Southbank, LaVilla, Brooklyn and the<br />
Sports Complex areas.<br />
The CCBD designation allows a wide range of<br />
uses — including mixed uses such as commercial<br />
and residential — without having to wade through<br />
a separate zoning approval process or seek a<br />
variance from the Downtown Development Review<br />
Board. Those changes alone will automatically save<br />
developers valuable time and costly legal fees.<br />
The wide-ranging proposal also addresses<br />
other issues, such as rooftop activation, setbacks<br />
along waterways, sidewalks and parking. It allows<br />
unlimited building heights in most areas, except<br />
CARSON PULLIAM
LaVilla and parts of Brooklyn, where it’s capped at<br />
75 feet, and the Cathedral District, where it tops out<br />
at 65 feet.<br />
The zoning update will shorten the timeline<br />
for some, which will certainly make developers<br />
happy. There has long been talk among some in<br />
the development community that getting a project<br />
completed in Jacksonville takes far longer than it<br />
should.<br />
But it doesn’t impact other steps in the approval<br />
process for projects, including with the Downtown<br />
Investment Authority and a plan review from<br />
the DDRB. Some also will need to get the OK for<br />
financial incentives, buying property from the city<br />
and doing work on historic buildings.<br />
Those steps likely add to the chorus of complaints<br />
from some developers that the approval process<br />
takes too long in Jacksonville. Some of those are<br />
valid, some are self-induced and some are based on<br />
outdated perceptions.<br />
Christian Oldenburg, managing director of<br />
Colliers International Northeast Florida, definitely<br />
sees the plan to simplify the zoning process as a<br />
positive for developer. But economic issues — such<br />
as the current high construction costs and low rent<br />
rates Downtown — have much more impact on a<br />
developer’s decision than zoning improvements.<br />
“We’re a long way from having developers come<br />
in to Jacksonville and seeing the cranes go up,”<br />
said Oldenburg, who grew up here. “So, I’d say that<br />
(economic) equation needs to get balanced first,<br />
but that’s 90 percent of the problem.”<br />
Reasons for the changes<br />
Boyer began tackling the issue last summer,<br />
forming a working group to help match zoning<br />
regulations to current needs. She said the most<br />
recent update was in the early 2000s, long before<br />
the DIA was established by former Mayor Alvin<br />
Brown in 2012.<br />
“Some of it is outdated because the references<br />
don’t make sense anymore,” Boyer said. “What<br />
might have been thought was going to be an<br />
arterial roadway is now not, or the way the people<br />
used rooftops 20 years ago is different.”<br />
She recruited experts like Brenna Durden, an<br />
attorney who served on DIA’s board and is now<br />
on the DDRB; Jim Klement, DIA redevelopment<br />
coordinator; Guy Parola, DIA operations manager;<br />
Alan Wilson, an architect with Haskell; and Carol<br />
Worsham, vice president of HDR (an architectural,<br />
engineering and consulting firm) who served on<br />
DDRB and is now on DIA’s board.<br />
Klement compiled a list of all waivers,<br />
deviations and exceptions sought from 2014<br />
through May 2018 to illustrate common requests,<br />
such as parking reductions, building heights and<br />
sign issues.<br />
“If there was a particular provision that almost<br />
everybody had to get a deviation from, we said,<br />
‘That’s broken. Something is wrong here. It’s always<br />
granted. What are we going to do?’” Boyer said.<br />
For example, a current provision requires<br />
there to be an entrance on every street frontage.<br />
That caused a security issue for a hotel, which<br />
said it needed to funnel people through the main<br />
entrance. “That makes perfect sense,” Boyer said.<br />
The provision also was a safety concern for<br />
Dogtopia on Hendricks Avenue, because it would<br />
have required an entrance for the dog daycare on<br />
the side along the interstate.<br />
“What we’re trying to do is bring it up to our<br />
current standards and say, ‘OK, this is the general<br />
expectation and here are some ways to not meet<br />
that expectation and do some alternative that still<br />
doesn’t require a deviation,’” Boyer said.<br />
For example, a current requirement is that<br />
a building has to be constructed to the right-ofway<br />
line as opposed to having a setback, which is<br />
common in urban settings. The alternative is to<br />
provide an “urban open space” for the public in a<br />
setback area. An example of that is the Baptist MD<br />
Anderson Cancer Center not building its facility<br />
to the corner of the site but using that space as an<br />
extension of the public sidewalk.<br />
Worsham said she was happy to assist with<br />
the effort. She felt there were redundancies in the<br />
code, some criteria were inconsistent and at times<br />
it was confusing what a developer needed to do.<br />
“A lot of what we did was consolidate what was<br />
good in the code and try to eliminate statements<br />
that were confusing,” said Worsham, who stressed<br />
the need to create a walkable, pedestrian-friendly<br />
urban environment where people feel safe and is<br />
pleasant aesthetically.<br />
The changes also should help get many projects<br />
get through the approval process quicker, though<br />
not as quick as many developers would like.<br />
Other, necessary<br />
processes<br />
Boyer said she perceives that Downtown has a<br />
taken bad rap of being a place where it takes too<br />
long, it’s too difficult and you have to talk to too<br />
many people to get a project approved.<br />
Some criticize the Request for Proposal process,<br />
where the city is selling off property, of which there<br />
is a fair amount Downtown.<br />
“That is not a simple process, and I don’t care<br />
if you’re buying it Downtown or if you’re buying it<br />
someplace else,” Boyer said. “There are processes<br />
that we have to go through to dispose of a property,<br />
and we can’t get around those.”<br />
Those requirements include basic real<br />
estate transaction requirements, such as getting<br />
appraisals.<br />
Another issue that Boyer said impacts a lot of<br />
Downtown property is soil contamination and<br />
brownfield designations caused by previous uses.<br />
“So, we can blame it on Downtown but the<br />
reality is you’re in an area that was previously<br />
developed that might have an underground storage<br />
tank or might have had a dry cleaner or might have<br />
been a turpentine factory,” she said. “Downtown<br />
“We’re a<br />
long way<br />
from having<br />
developers<br />
come in to<br />
Jacksonville<br />
and seeing<br />
the cranes<br />
go up. So,<br />
I’d say that<br />
(economic)<br />
equation<br />
needs to get<br />
balanced<br />
first, but<br />
that’s 90<br />
percent<br />
of the<br />
problem.”<br />
CHRISTIAN<br />
OLDENBURG<br />
Colliers<br />
International<br />
Northeast<br />
Florida<br />
SPRING <strong>2019</strong> | J MAGAZINE 89
CENTRAL<br />
CIVIC CORE<br />
LaVilla<br />
CHURCH<br />
CATHEDRAL<br />
INSTITUTIONAL<br />
CURRENT ZONING<br />
OVERLAY DISTRICTS<br />
STADIUM<br />
RIVERFRONT<br />
Brooklyn<br />
& Riverside<br />
ST. JOHNS<br />
RIVER<br />
SOUTHBANK<br />
RIVERFRONT<br />
RIVER PARK<br />
N<br />
has that challenge, and none of us can wish it away.<br />
It’s just there.<br />
“A lot of<br />
Neither DIA or the city can make that go away,<br />
Boyer said.<br />
what we<br />
Developers who want to add docks or marinas<br />
on the waterfront have to follow the rules under the<br />
did was<br />
federal government’s Manatee Protection Plan. Boyer<br />
recalled that Peter Rummell and Michael Munz, who<br />
consolidate are developing The District on the Southbank, said at<br />
a Downtown Dwellers meeting that they worked on<br />
what was<br />
getting the marina permit for a year.<br />
There are a certain number of Downtown<br />
good in the buildings that have been deemed historic, and only<br />
changes to their exteriors must be approved. If a<br />
code and try decision by the historic commission is appealed, the<br />
next stop for the building owner or developer is City<br />
to eliminate Council.<br />
“Probably 30 percent of them we (the council)<br />
statements<br />
overturned, but a lot of them are kind of self-created<br />
hardships that are warranted to be turned down,”<br />
that were<br />
Boyer said.<br />
For example, someone in a historic district may<br />
confusing.” replace the original windows with vinyl ones, then<br />
ask for forgiveness when they get caught. “Well, you<br />
Carol<br />
know. Not so much,” Boyer said.<br />
Worsham<br />
She believes generally the people who complain<br />
about the process are the ones who have been turned<br />
vice president down for something.<br />
of HDR<br />
Incentives are complicated<br />
The incentives process also can add some time<br />
to a project Downtown. “That’s the part where I’ve<br />
90 J MAGAZINE | SPRING <strong>2019</strong><br />
heard complaints that it’s too difficult,” she said,<br />
because many have to go through DIA, the City<br />
Council and the Mayor’s Office — even though the<br />
DIA is an independent agency.<br />
The short answer to that is, particularly in hard<br />
economic times, it didn’t make fiscal sense for the<br />
city to put millions of dollars in a DIA trust fund<br />
where it would sit until a deal was made and the<br />
incentive funds were needed. That money could<br />
instead be used for a city park or to fill a gap on an<br />
immediate need.<br />
But when DIA makes a deal with a developer<br />
and incentive funds are needed, such as for Steve<br />
Atkins’ Barnett Bank and Laura Street Trio project,<br />
they can go before council to get the money, which<br />
is signed off on by the mayor.<br />
That budgeting philosophy doesn’t keep DIA<br />
from being solely in charge of other economic tools,<br />
such as the retail enhancement fund money. It also<br />
has the sole authority to grant Recapture Enhanced<br />
Value grants up to 75 percent for 15 years, Parola said.<br />
And it also controls money from the Tax<br />
Increment Funds for the Northbank and Southbank,<br />
the latter of which is about $6 million a year, Boyer<br />
said.<br />
Durden said she believes the DDRB process can<br />
sometimes take too long, such as when there are<br />
unnecessary multiple workshops for a project or<br />
because of a lack of good communication.<br />
What happens now<br />
A draft of the working proposal has been<br />
JEFF DAVIS
CENTRAL CORE<br />
PROPOSED ZONING<br />
OVERLAY DISTRICTS<br />
CHURCH<br />
LaVilla<br />
CATHEDRAL<br />
SPORTS &<br />
ENTERTAINMENT<br />
WORKING<br />
WATERFRONT<br />
BROOKLYN<br />
ST. JOHNS<br />
RIVER<br />
SOUTHBANK<br />
N<br />
JEFF DAVIS<br />
circulated among stakeholder groups and has<br />
been the focus of several meetings. The feedback<br />
has been constructive and helpful, said Boyer.<br />
For example, she said, developers constructing<br />
a new building or renovating a façade must have<br />
a second-story balcony, awnings or a portico<br />
over doors or plant trees to provide a certain<br />
level of protection from the rain and sun. JEA<br />
had a concern that the required awning height<br />
was going to interfere with cranes that pick up<br />
underground transformers that are beneath the<br />
sidewalk.<br />
“I’m like, ‘Oh, that makes sense,’” Boyer said.<br />
So, the solution is to prohibit an awning if there’s<br />
an underground transformer there.<br />
She has also presented or will present the plan<br />
to groups such as NAIOP, a commercial real estate<br />
development association; the American Institute<br />
of Architects; the Urban Land Institute; and<br />
Downtown Vision.<br />
Oldenburg, of Colliers International, said<br />
he is concerned with the plan’s proposed 200-<br />
foot setback before allowing unlimited building<br />
height along the entire Northbank and Southbank<br />
riverfronts.<br />
There is zero height allowance for the first<br />
50 feet of setback, with the first 25 being for the<br />
public; 45 feet maximum for 50-125 feet and 75<br />
feet maximum for 125-250 feet.<br />
While he understands the aesthetic and civicminded<br />
reasons for some setback off the river, he<br />
thinks those restrictions would be best in a smaller<br />
area, similar to Baltimore’s Inner Harbor, versus<br />
the entire riverfront.<br />
“It can negatively impact the value of a lot of<br />
property,” Oldenburg said.<br />
He pointed out that several buildings, including<br />
the Peninsula and the Strand condo high-rises on<br />
the Southbank “obviously would be in violation of<br />
this” and possibly the Hyatt Regency Jacksonville<br />
Riverfront.<br />
“I don’t necessarily look at those buildings and<br />
go, ‘Oh, my gosh, it’s too close to the water. This is<br />
horrible,’” he said.<br />
With all that is good about the proposal,<br />
Oldenburg said it’s not going to be a driving force<br />
for developers to choose Jacksonville. Simplifying<br />
the zoning code and approval process doesn’t<br />
make up for other, more important negatives.<br />
Construction costs right now are historically<br />
high, and low rents Downtown don’t make<br />
Jacksonville a spot where it makes sense for many<br />
companies to develop. Plus, he said there is a lack<br />
of available skilled labor, and the city isn’t home<br />
to an airport like Atlanta and New York where you<br />
can fly non-stop to major cities.<br />
“So, we definitely have some great things going<br />
for us, and we have some challenges we need to<br />
address,” he said.<br />
Marilyn Young was an editor at The Florida Times-Union<br />
in 1998-2013 and was editor of the Financial News & Daily<br />
Record in 2013-2017. She lives in north St. Johns County.<br />
“So, we<br />
definitely<br />
have some<br />
great things<br />
going for<br />
us, and we<br />
have some<br />
challenges<br />
we need to<br />
address.”<br />
CHRISTIAN<br />
OLDENBURG<br />
Colliers<br />
International<br />
Northeast<br />
Florida<br />
SPRING <strong>2019</strong> | J MAGAZINE 91
COMPLICATED<br />
SIMPLE<br />
No games, just marketing<br />
made simple.<br />
(904) 359-4309 | jacksonville.thrivehive.com
QUESTIONS & ANSWERS<br />
By Mike Clark & Roger Brown<br />
Passion<br />
projects<br />
Creating critical mass is<br />
what drives Downtown<br />
developer Mike Balanky<br />
ike Balanky has to be included<br />
M among the most productive<br />
and influential developers in<br />
Downtown Jacksonville. His focus has been<br />
the Southbank. But<br />
MIKE<br />
BALANKY<br />
WORK:<br />
President, CEO of<br />
Chase Properties Inc.<br />
FROM:<br />
Jacksonville<br />
LIVES IN:<br />
San Marco<br />
he has a grand plan<br />
to move many of the<br />
vacant buildings in<br />
the Central Business<br />
District that he has been<br />
discussing with civic clubs<br />
and city leaders. Editorial<br />
Page Editor Mike Clark and<br />
Editorial Writer Roger Brown<br />
interviewed him for J magazine. The following<br />
transcript was edited by Clark for clarity and space.<br />
WILL DICKEY<br />
Recalling Downtown’s heyday<br />
My family has been here since the late 1920s. My dad grew<br />
up in Brentwood next door to Jake Godbold.<br />
My dad managed a business on the Southbank where San<br />
Marco Place is now, Brink’s Armored Car, and my brother and<br />
sister and I would come down there on weekends to wash<br />
trucks to make extra money.<br />
When I was 19, I worked at Cunningham Furniture Downtown<br />
as a salesman. My girlfriend worked at the old Ivey’s<br />
Building, which is JEA’s customer service center now. We<br />
would go to lunch Downtown. That’s when we had Rosenbloom’s,<br />
Levy Wolf, Furchgott’s, they were all here. We often<br />
would have to walk in the street because the sidewalks were so<br />
packed. It was unbelievable. Downtown was dynamic. I remember<br />
loving to be in that environment. Then to see it all move out<br />
was heartbreaking.<br />
MAGAZINE 93
I always thought this would be a cool place to<br />
live, and then flash forward, we ended up developing<br />
the San Marco Place high-rise. I live there, my<br />
office is there and my mom and dad have a unit<br />
there, not with me but in the same building.<br />
This has been a passion of mine to help bring<br />
back San Marco. We started working on the Kings<br />
Avenue parking garage in 2003, about the same<br />
time we started working on San Marco Place. The<br />
rest is history.<br />
“‘Hey world,<br />
Downtown<br />
Jacksonville,<br />
Florida, is<br />
A plan to create critical mass<br />
getting ready<br />
I kept hearing at real estate conferences about<br />
which comes first, retail or rooftops. Around to blow up.<br />
2005, they were talking about spurring activity<br />
Downtown so somebody came up with a concept:<br />
Let’s do one street at a time, do a good job,<br />
... So for a<br />
and it would grow from there. That was Laura limited time<br />
Street. They did a good job with Laura Street, but<br />
nothing ever followed.<br />
only, we’re<br />
That’s what my whole plan is based on, critical<br />
mass, when the rate of development is self-sustaining<br />
and creates future growth.<br />
going to give<br />
You’ve got to have the vision first. The opportunity<br />
has to be there or it won’t work. You need to<br />
you some<br />
create synergies with those opportunities, but just amazing<br />
as importantly, you’ve got to have execution, which<br />
is what I’m trying to promote for Jacksonville.<br />
incentives,<br />
Right now, Downtown has a lot of surplus<br />
properties, many of them city-owned. There is a<br />
but they end<br />
lot of money being spent on these properties in<br />
insurance and maintenance costs, and they’re not<br />
on this date.<br />
generating any ad valorem taxes. So they are a net<br />
loss on the city’s books. They’re losing money every<br />
year. And properties that aren’t inhabited deteriorate<br />
much faster. It’s a vicious cycle. It makes it<br />
So take a<br />
harder and harder to market. quick look.’ ”<br />
So what’s the answer? The Urban Land Institute<br />
talks about public-private partnerships as being the<br />
key component in helping these cities getting their<br />
growth back.<br />
Critical mass can help unify our city. A good example<br />
is the Better Jacksonville Plan. John Delaney<br />
did an amazing job as mayor.<br />
Vision without execution is just hallucination.<br />
It’s not going to happen by itself.<br />
We’ve got to have inter-agency coordination<br />
between the city and DIA or whoever will oversee a<br />
project. We’ve got to identify the properties by their<br />
highest and best use, whether retail, restaurant or<br />
office.<br />
We would get the brokers to identify the highest<br />
and best use of these properties. They won’t<br />
charge the city for doing this. They’ll do it for the<br />
listing, which is how they make their living. You<br />
want brokers of stature with international reach.<br />
They can’t get the yields from South Florida so<br />
they are looking at cities like Jacksonville. I would<br />
go around the country at real estate conventions,<br />
and you never heard Jacksonville. It was always<br />
Atlanta, Miami, Tampa, Austin, Nashville, Charlotte.<br />
Every conference I go to now, everybody’s<br />
94 J MAGAZINE | SPRING <strong>2019</strong><br />
talking about Jacksonville. The timing is good.<br />
Streamlining RFPs<br />
The key is the RFP process. Three years ago, I<br />
went to Dallas for a public-private-partnership<br />
conference. The worst RFP I saw in three days is<br />
better than the best one I’ve seen in Jacksonville.<br />
That’s not to be critical of anybody, but we haven’t<br />
refined the process. Now I haven’t looked at<br />
RFPs lately, but I was awarded an RFP on a project<br />
and it took 17 months from RFP to contract.<br />
Most developers will never do that. A developer’s<br />
time is his most precious resource. They’re<br />
mostly vague and written that way because the<br />
municipality wants flexibility, but it’s not going<br />
to attract much interest. I can understand that<br />
for big projects like the convention center, but if<br />
you’re taking surplus properties, you need to take<br />
the assessed value of these, discount them by 20<br />
percent, put a 75 percent revenue grant on them,<br />
and the 25 percent we keep from the grant will<br />
produce more taxes than today and will stop the<br />
bleeding. Then to get all this development going,<br />
you do it properly and use a common template.<br />
A lot of developers are multi-faceted, they<br />
might do residential, multi-family, office and<br />
mini storage. If they have to look at different RFP<br />
format for every single property, they’re not as<br />
likely to participate. But if you have three different<br />
properties and all you have to do is look at the<br />
numbers because everything else is the same,<br />
they can be very efficient with the RFPs. There are<br />
companies that specialize in this; it’s not rocket<br />
science. It’s critical that we have a well-defined,<br />
efficient RFP.<br />
Then if you want to create all of this excitement<br />
and energy, you’re going to have to incentivize<br />
it, and the city’s doing a good job of that. This<br />
administration understands that you’ve got to<br />
invest in yourself if you want to turn it around.<br />
Incentives have to have timelines on them. You’ve<br />
got to create a sense of urgency. So the message<br />
would go something like, “Hey world, Downtown<br />
Jacksonville, Florida, is getting ready to blow up.<br />
We’ve got Shad Khan coming down here, we’ve<br />
got the District, the Laura Street Trio, and we want<br />
to finish it off. So for a limited time only, we’re going<br />
to give you some amazing incentives, but they<br />
end on this date. So take a quick look. The process<br />
is going to be easy and efficient, and we’ll commit<br />
to whatever we show you. When I explained this<br />
concept to a broker he said, “We can sell that.”<br />
I’m not huge on doing a whole lot of planning<br />
because I’ve seen so many plans that were never<br />
executed. I think we need to let the capitalists get<br />
involved, and that’s why progress is being made<br />
now.<br />
Finally, we need community engagement and<br />
accountability. It has to be transparent. I would<br />
envision creating a committee that would have<br />
a couple key players driving it and let the private<br />
market get into that pool, too. A lot of private
individuals would like the concept, too. It could<br />
be open to the public as well.<br />
It has to be transparent. Then track it. That’s<br />
how you get accountability, and that’s where you<br />
keep political will on track.<br />
Importance of political will<br />
I can’t overstate the importance of political<br />
will or this thing will go nowhere fast. To give an<br />
example, all you have to do is look at what Mayor<br />
Rick Baker did in St. Petersburg. He totally turned<br />
that city around. My wife grew up there, and<br />
she left because she hated it, it was dead. Baker<br />
said, “I’m turning around downtown. I’m going<br />
to do some things that may not be very popular,<br />
like selling things cheap or even giving it away,<br />
and if you don’t like it, don’t re-elect me.” He got<br />
re-elected in a landslide, went on to become national<br />
mayor of the year. He did a masterful job.<br />
You’ve got to have buy-in from the City of<br />
Jacksonville first. The Downtown Investment<br />
Authority is a critical component.<br />
We took a failing garage at Kings Avenue. The<br />
Times-Union did some stories about this $14<br />
million garage, and nobody parked in it. They<br />
called it the ghost garage. We went to John Peyton,<br />
who was my next-door neighbor at the time.<br />
He was chairman of the JTA when the garage was<br />
approved. So I walked out to my driveway one<br />
day, and John was reading the headlines, “ghost<br />
garage,” and he wasn’t happy. I said, “John, why<br />
don’t you let us work together. We’ll put some<br />
development in front of the garage, and we’ll put<br />
cars in the garage, and we’ll have people on the<br />
Skyway, and it will be beautiful.” And he said,<br />
“Let’s do it!” Eventually we did get the project. We<br />
have spent millions of dollars on the project, and<br />
we plan to have future phases. This was JTA’s first<br />
transit-oriented development.<br />
Brown: If all of the elements you mentioned are<br />
in place, when will you see a dramatic transformation<br />
of that area?<br />
That may be the most important question of<br />
the day. I’ve been thinking about this for several<br />
months. Now we’re developing a head of steam<br />
and everybody is receptive to the idea. Depending<br />
on how fast we can get universal buy-in, RFP<br />
templates in place, incentives and identifying the<br />
properties, that might take six months. I’m just<br />
concerned we might be walking right into a recession.<br />
I would rather keep this momentum going<br />
and get buy in, and if it looks like the economy<br />
is going to stall, get everybody to wait and start<br />
right after that. I don’t think it’s going to be a deep<br />
recession or a long recession, but I think we’re in<br />
for a correction.<br />
So how long would it take? We put together<br />
Deerwood Lakes in nine months, $300 million of<br />
development. If you have the incentives and timelines<br />
and the international reach and commitment,<br />
it’s a marketing effort. The way to do this is with a<br />
“I can’t<br />
overstate the<br />
importance<br />
of political<br />
will or this<br />
thing will<br />
go nowhere<br />
fast. ... You’ve<br />
got to have<br />
buy-in from<br />
the City of<br />
Jacksonville<br />
first. The<br />
Downtown<br />
Investment<br />
Authority<br />
is a critical<br />
component.”<br />
3-minute pop-up video that shows Jacksonville the<br />
way it is now and then shows the District, Lot J. If<br />
I’m the developer and all I have to do is check a box,<br />
I’m in.<br />
Clark: I’m frustrated by the School Board building<br />
still sitting there on the riverfront. What can be<br />
done?<br />
There is a new superintendent, we have some<br />
new School Board members. The timing could be<br />
very good to talk to some of these people.<br />
I think changes are coming. Some of the people<br />
are open-minded. I’m optimistic that something<br />
good could happen there. It’s too good an opportunity.<br />
It really stands out like a sore thumb now that<br />
there are new apartments next door. In the School<br />
Board’s defense, there has not been a financial<br />
model that worked. They’re reasonable people; they<br />
need something that is a win-win for everybody.<br />
They have so much other property in this town,<br />
you would think they could take some of it and<br />
make it a redevelopment focus for a neighborhood<br />
somewhere. I know they have to be careful about<br />
taking on new debt.<br />
There is a model out there. The existing building<br />
is failing. It’s what is called a “sick building.” If they<br />
stay there, there will be money they will have to<br />
spend to bring it up to speed, and that is money<br />
that could be spent on a new facility. That would be<br />
part of a model that would work. I know there was<br />
a report that talked about how much it would cost<br />
to bring it to a first-class condition. It’s functionally<br />
obsolete. It was designed in the old days when<br />
everybody had a secretary. It’s very inefficient. And<br />
their utility bills are probably double what they<br />
should be.<br />
Clark: But they’re not looking. They’re hoping<br />
someone will show up with an offer.<br />
If you talk to them, they would say they have a lot<br />
on their plate.<br />
Brown: What about the Landing? The Laura Street<br />
development hasn’t worked out so well because<br />
the Landing is one of the book-ends of that deal.<br />
I don’t even want to get in the middle of that<br />
debate.<br />
Brown: What’s the best use for it? What’s your<br />
grand vision?<br />
I saw the J magazine survey that said people<br />
didn’t want to see residential there. I think mixed use<br />
makes a lot of sense there. I would live there if it were<br />
done right. It doesn’t need to be high density. If you<br />
had a big food hall, that would be an excellent use.<br />
Clark: To me, that property is too small for apartments.<br />
The obvious design is something like St.<br />
Petersburg or Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco<br />
with a park and an outer ring of shops and restaurants.<br />
That’s what I envision with apartments on top of<br />
them.<br />
SPRING <strong>2019</strong> | J MAGAZINE 95
Clark: You could get big rents there.<br />
Or people could buy condos there. What I mean<br />
by critical mass is the people living there would feed<br />
the restaurants below them. It helps make everybody<br />
successful. The Sake House is in my building, and my<br />
wife calls that her kitchen. Parking is going to be the<br />
issue, always has been. Not as much now because not<br />
a lot people are going there. As Downtown develops<br />
with residential, parking becomes less of an issue<br />
because people can walk there. That goes back to<br />
synergy.<br />
Clark: In every corner of Downtown, there are big<br />
things going on.<br />
So imagine you have this international group<br />
of investors and you send them a 3-minute link for<br />
the pop-up video. That brings the emotion into the<br />
transaction. We’ve got to make this an emotional sell.<br />
That’s the key to it.<br />
Clark: What do you think of the innovation corridor<br />
down Bay Street, with JTA’s riderless vehicles?<br />
And the 5G internet and compression plates that<br />
deliver energy. It’s amazing. JTA CEO Nat Ford is<br />
doing a great job with that. He went to Europe for a<br />
conference, and they are talking about Jacksonville.<br />
That’s why the timing is good. A lot of these people are<br />
spending their own money to be part of this because<br />
they’re looking to monetize this, invest in this and<br />
get it right to replicate it all over. We’ll combine all of<br />
these different technologies.<br />
“I think we<br />
have the<br />
right people<br />
in place, but<br />
we’ve got to<br />
stop long<br />
enough to<br />
ask, what<br />
do we need<br />
to do? What<br />
needs to<br />
happen?<br />
Almost<br />
every time,<br />
the answer<br />
is to get<br />
everybody in<br />
the room at<br />
once.”<br />
my business, there is an old saying that “if it’s not<br />
fun, it’s not profitable.”<br />
Clark: Ostensibly with consolidated government,<br />
we should be able to do this very easily.<br />
So I what’s the holdback?<br />
We just need to bring everybody in the room<br />
at one time. That’s the hardest thing to do. I had<br />
another project that went on for 17 months from<br />
the RFP to the time I signed the deal. And the only<br />
reason the deal happened is I got frustrated. I had<br />
spent a lot of money on consultants and lawyers.<br />
I was fed up. I was dealing with a government<br />
entity that couldn’t agree on anything. Finally, on<br />
a Monday, I sent an email that I would be at their<br />
offices Friday at 10 a.m. and I will leave there with<br />
a deal or I’m done. At 1 o’clock we had a deal. I<br />
wanted everybody in a room. Don’t just send a<br />
lawyer or an engineer or a consultant.<br />
Clark: We wrote about this 10 years ago,<br />
rather than run people through a gauntlet, an<br />
obstacle course. We are ostensibly a Republican<br />
government that likes to cut red tape.<br />
Every candidate we interview tells us that, but<br />
still, here we go.<br />
That goes back to political will. I think we have<br />
the right people in place, but we’ve got to stop<br />
long enough to ask, what do we need to do? What<br />
needs to happen? Almost every time, the answer<br />
is to get everybody in the room at once.<br />
Clark: So to summarize, if you were mayor, you<br />
Clark: Everybody is frustrated quietly and nothing<br />
changes.<br />
would put timelines with incentives to force a sense<br />
of urgency, streamline RFPs and have a single template<br />
for all the city property.<br />
pens.<br />
Communication is the key but it rarely hap-<br />
If we have a committee, it gives us strength in<br />
numbers. When you bring in the right players, they<br />
Mike Clark has been a reporter and editor<br />
all have expertise in different areas. It also gives<br />
for The Florida Times-Union and its predecessors<br />
cover to everybody because you’re not a Lone<br />
since 1973 and editorial page editor since 2005.<br />
Ranger who is afraid of being criticized. As much<br />
He lives in Nocatee.<br />
as anything, this needs to be a marketing business<br />
on steroids. I would have marketing materials on<br />
Roger Brown is a Times-Union editorial<br />
HENALOINGEA<br />
all of these surplus properties that say “buy me.”<br />
writer and member of the editorial board.<br />
Multi-media will generate fun and excitement. In<br />
He lives Downtown.<br />
READ FLORIDA TIMES-UNION COLUMNIST NATE MONROE AT JACKSONVILLE.COM<br />
SSIT’SJACKSON<br />
LEASIERVILLES<br />
OWHERE?MYINAG<br />
96<br />
J MAGAZINE | SPRING <strong>2019</strong>
We know<br />
Jacksonville.<br />
Times-Union is a name you can trust.<br />
We have built our business on a commitment to truth and<br />
fair-dealing, and we take very seriously our role in the community<br />
as the arbiter of truth, and the protector of our democracy.<br />
The trust we have earned is a privilege and we work continuously<br />
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the conversation of Jacksonville’s growth forward at every turn.<br />
1 Riverside Avenue<br />
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904.359.4318<br />
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THE FINAL WORD<br />
Making a better<br />
Downtown for<br />
all of Jacksonville<br />
JAKE<br />
GORDON<br />
PHONE<br />
(904) 634-0303<br />
EMAIL<br />
jake@dtjax.org<br />
e all know them. Our friends who<br />
W live at the beach. We get it, it’s<br />
beautiful out there. It’s a great part<br />
of our city. But why no love for Downtown?<br />
Many people who live in Jacksonville are<br />
Downtown pessimists. Feet in the sand,<br />
looking out at the waves, they say, “I never go<br />
there! Downtown doesn’t matter to me!”<br />
They’re wrong. Like it or not, Downtown Jacksonville<br />
matters to every single one of them. Even if they<br />
never cross the ditch. But don’t smack your beach-side<br />
buddies with a frisbee, hit them with these four simple<br />
reasons why a better Downtown means a better Jacksonville<br />
for all of us!<br />
Downtown Drives<br />
Our City Economy<br />
It’s simple: Downtown is the primary economic<br />
engine for our region.<br />
Investing in our “engine” makes it run stronger,<br />
creating more jobs and more tax dollars for essential<br />
community needs like roads, parks, police and replacing<br />
dunes on the beach.<br />
Sure, we know Downtown is the epicenter of Jacksonville’s<br />
culture and entertainment. The Jaguars. The<br />
Jumbo Shrimp. Concerts. Museums. Festivals. Fireworks.<br />
But perhaps more importantly, it’s where business<br />
happens. It’s where the skyscraping office towers<br />
contain millions of square feet of jobs and commercial<br />
activity, investment capital and taxable value.<br />
It’s A Proven Model<br />
Across the U.S., downtowns remain the greatest<br />
generator of tax dollars. And with more money to invest,<br />
cities better themselves.<br />
Investing in downtown is rewarded with economic<br />
prosperity. In 1996, the city of Minneapolis committed<br />
to $2 billion of investment in its downtown. In 2011, it<br />
renewed that pledge with another $2 billion. Today, the<br />
three square miles of downtown Minneapolis accounts<br />
for 36 percent of all property tax revenues in the city.<br />
Even more impressive, more than half of all jobs in<br />
Minneapolis are now downtown. This story is not<br />
unique: Tampa, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Nashville and<br />
many others have drastically improved their economic<br />
outlook with significant downtown investment.<br />
If we grow our Downtown tax base, the funds raised<br />
will be spent in all neighborhoods, all the way to the<br />
beach.<br />
The Numbers Don’t Lie<br />
This all works because healthy Downtowns deliver<br />
so much value and a much higher return on investment<br />
than sprawling suburbs.<br />
Here’s a real-life example: A suburban Walmart in<br />
Jacksonville on 20 acres pays roughly $280,000 in taxes.<br />
The Wells Fargo Center skyscraper in Downtown on just<br />
three acres pays more than $1 million in taxes. In cost<br />
per acre, Downtown is almost 25 times more valuable.<br />
Here’s another: Duval County averages $74 million<br />
in taxable value for each of its many square miles. But<br />
in Downtown, our half-square-mile business improvement<br />
district averages $1.9 BILLION in taxable value<br />
per square mile, again over 25 times more valuable!<br />
For a city, a dense, healthy commercial urban center<br />
is almost impossible to duplicate. Even the most expensive<br />
residential homes can’t compare to the tax-generating<br />
value of commercial office buildings. In Duval<br />
County today, commercial real estate parcels make up<br />
only 11 percent of the total parcels, but already account<br />
for more than 40 percent of total taxable value.<br />
Our Face to the World<br />
Even with the economics tipped heavily in favor of<br />
Downtown investment, its most important value might<br />
be something more intangible: our civic identity.<br />
More than a profit center, a Downtown embodies<br />
the image and character of a city to the rest of the<br />
world. A strong downtown indeed helps power a city<br />
— not just in tax revenue, but also in civic pride and<br />
recruiting talented people. When you think of a city,<br />
you usually think of its downtown first. City reputations<br />
are made on their skylines.<br />
Downtowns are truly unique in that they are the<br />
only neighborhood shared by the entire community. At<br />
Downtown Vision, we want everyone to enjoy Downtown.<br />
(We even built a website — DowntownJacksonville.com<br />
— to help.) So tell your beach-loving friends:<br />
Even if they never come to #DTJax for a Jaguars game<br />
or MOCA Jacksonville or the Museum of Science and<br />
History or the Symphony or the Florida Theatre or the<br />
Jacksonville Jazz Fest, Downtown matters!<br />
JAKE GORDON has been CEO of Downtown Vision<br />
since 2015. He lives in San Marco<br />
98<br />
J MAGAZINE | SPRING <strong>2019</strong>
Formed to revitalize and preserve downtown property values<br />
and prevent deterioration in the downtown business district.<br />
The Downtown Investment Authority is the economic and<br />
community redevelopment agency for Downtown Jacksonville.<br />
The Downtown Investment Authority is the governing body for<br />
the Downtown Community Redevelopment Areas established<br />
by the City Council of Jacksonville. The DIA offers a variety<br />
of incentives for businesses to locate Downtown, including<br />
expedited permitting and economic development incentives.<br />
Since 2015, the Downtown Investment Authority has leveraged<br />
approximately $150,000,000 for $800,000,000 in private<br />
capital investment, incentivizing over 573,000 square feet of<br />
planned new and renovated commercial/office, 2,900 new<br />
multi-family units and 900 new hotel rooms.
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04/13 SAT. 7:00PM<br />
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05/12 SUN. 7:30PM<br />
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LEARN MORE:<br />
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