JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Mayor Donna Deegan signed legislation to approve $200,000 to perform a study that will determine how to invest in the revitalization and development of Durkeeville.
Pastor Lee Harris of Mount Olive Primitive Baptist Church has been a leader in the Durkeeville community for decades and witnessed the ups and downs of the historical neighborhood.
On Monday at his church, Deegan was surrounded by council members and former Congresswoman Corrinne Brown as she signed Ordinance 2021-0253, which will fund research to revitalize Historic Durkeeville.
“I just look forward to a new beginning, because the work that was started over 30 years ago has not been completed,” Harris said.
To understand Durkeeville today, you must go back to 1996. Some of the original plans for the neighborhood were completed and others were not completed at all.
The playground at the Oaks of Durkeeville is one of the fulfilled promises, but there are many more still to come.
“The Durkeeville community needs a lot. This is a food desert, it’s also a pharmacy and prescription desert, it’s housing conditions, we need sidewalks, we still have septic tanks in the area,” Harris said.
Ennis Davis will be the project manager for the Miracle on Myrtle study, which combines a study from 1996 and current needs.
He’s done studies in other African-American communities in areas like New Orleans and East Gainsville.
“The study is really going to be focused on pulling those resources together and so while we say there is extra money needed, yes, there is also extra money out there that in the past has been used in a way that has not benefited the community. So really it’s channeling things in the right direction,” Davis said.
The study will take about nine to 10 months and change will become apparent in the community in the next year, but this is a long-term project.
When Jacksonville consolidated the city and Duval County together, African American communities were promised money would come to their communities but in many cases, that was never completed.
“The Miracle on Myrtle study will develop a plan for guiding the revitalization of an economically challenged, traditionally redlined section of the city’s urban core,” Deegan said.
The community was started just after the Civil War and became home to many African Americans to build their first home.
Harris said this community of about 5,000 people is ready to thrive again as it did decades ago.
“I think that the community needs to know that we are somebody that wants to have the best life as others do,” Harris said. “We are somebody, we are a part of this community.”
The study area includes Myrtle Avenue, Kings Road, and the S-Line Urban Greenway.