J Magazine Winter 2019

One of the unique aspects of Downtown is
you’ve got people living in penthouses and you
have people living on the streets and everything
in between. You want to create a neighborhood
and a culture around that. How do you do that?
Dean Kate: Well, you create an attractive,
beautiful space. You fill in the parking lots, half
of our land is surface parking lot, which makes
people feel insecure. I did a funeral three weeks
ago and a woman in her 50s came to me and said
she hadn’t been Downtown in 25 years because
she was frightened to come Downtown. And most
of that is myth. It’s not dangerous Downtown.
The crime rate is not high, but there’s this sense of
emptiness. So the first thing we need to do is fill in
the gaps and build. And then, from a theological
perspective in the Christian tradition, we believe
that God is Trinity which is Father, Son and Holy
Spirit, which is community. So, we’re called to
build community, that’s what God wants for us.
God doesn’t want people living in isolation.
True community involves diversity. We learn
from people who are different from us, who have
different socio-economic experiences and races
and cultures. So, our vision is to fill in the empty
gaps with parks, trees, buildings. Build residential
first and then retail and create some kind of
economic and socio-economic diversity so that
people can come to know each other. Get them
out walking, get them out onto the streets. Right
now the traffic is so fast on some of those thoroughfares
that our elderly people push the button
to walk across the street and they can’t get to the
other side. It’s literally dangerous.
And it’s also kind of an environmental issue
as well. We want people back outside. We want
some green space. Ginny has figured out a way to
plant 100 trees. I particularly feel passionate about
these elderly people. They can’t walk because it’s
too dangerous, not in terms of crime but in terms
of the speed of the traffic. Where do they go?
Where is there grass or a garden? There’s nothing
for them so then they get isolated, then they get
depressed. And that’s not what we want.
Ginny: Our master development plan has
residential on Duval and Church. Right now those
streets are one-way going the opposite direction.
So if you can two-way those streets, you immediately
slow down the traffic tremendously and
create a neighborhood where you’ve got sidewalks
capable of handling people on both sides. The city
has done a pretty good job recently of putting in
what I would refer to as temporary crossing places
with a flashing light. There’s one right in front of
FIS on Riverside Avenue. It says pedestrians are
going across here, and everybody slows down for
them. We’ve been talking about two-way streets
Downtown for many, many years, and I’m hoping,
[DIA CEO] Lori Boyer is on a fast track to do it.
Another part of our mission is to develop a
sense of a neighborhood, a sense of place. So to
“What is
about to burst
open is what
Shad Khan
is going to
do along the
waterfront,
which will
require
literally
thousands of
employees
who are not
capable of
living in a
high-end
apartment or
a high-end
condo.”
DEAN KATE
MOOREHEAD
that end, we have engaged Linda Crofton who’s
come on our staff. Her first big event in December
is called Christmas in the Cathedral District. All
five churches are participating. It’s an evening
event with different kinds of music, a street fair
and food trucks.
And then there’s a biking group that’s coming
in the spring to Jacksonville for a big conference,
and they asked if they could use a route in the
Cathedral District. And we said, absolutely. So
that’s going to be the second event where we bring
the neighbors out.
Dean Kate: We also want to utilize what we
already have. St. John’s Cathedral is an architectural
jewel that a lot of people have not been in. So
we’re now doing regular art exhibits. We’ve got a
lot more partnerships. We have a new bookstore
in a home across the street from the Cathedral.
We’re trying to utilize our space more. We’re
doing more music events. So, we hope to just use
this beautiful building for lots of different kinds of
things, not just worship. We’re hosting Olivia’s Tea
Party. It’s a nonprofit where they take homeless
girls and throw a huge beautiful tea party for them
and get them beautiful dresses and teach them
etiquette. Just all these gorgeous things you can
do in a Cathedral.
Cathedrals are the traditional centers of a
village with all kinds of diversity within it. That’s
where universities were born. There were schools.
There were hospitals. There was art and music. So,
we’re really harkening back to something that’s
very ancient, and worked for a long time.
You all talked about some of the impediments to
getting things done. What would you like to see
to break through some of those impediments?
Dean Kate: We should say that we’re thankful
for the Jessie Ball du Pont Fund because without
their help, I don’t know if we could have done
all this. But we also think that city government
should not be an obstacle to this kind of development.
They should find a way to make it easier
on us. Ginny has had to work really, really hard,
and to jump through too many hoops. And if it
wasn’t for the fact that we feel called by God to
do this, we would never have been able to do it
if we weren’t funded by du Pont, had a strong
congregation and a real strong vision. We would
have given up a long time ago. It shouldn’t be
that hard. We should be all on the same team. I
believe everyone wants this Downtown to thrive.
We want the city to be a healthy city, to have a vibrant
urban core. So how could we possibly make
it easier on all the nonprofits, all the groups that
are trying hard to make this city more beautiful
and more vibrant? We could do a better job in
process.
LILA ROSS, a former news editor at the Times-Union,
lives in San Marco.
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J MAGAZINE | WINTER 2019