JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – The head of the group in charge of development and growth in Downtown Jacksonville wants to end the delays for long-awaited Downtown projects.
Downtown Investment Authority CEO Lori Boyer said that the DIA’s work is on hold until the City Council decides how the agency will operate.
One idea is to focus on one specific geographic area of downtown.
“Right now we have a doughnut. We are doing really well around the downtown core, but not focusing on the core, so lets focus on the core and build out,” City Councilman Rory Diamond said.
Diamond is talking about ongoing development in areas of Jacksonville like Brooklyn, and along the Southbank, while the urban core in the heart of downtown isn’t bustling with the same level of excitement and construction.
Just two weeks after the City of Jacksonville secured a deal with the Jacksonville Jaguars to build a new stadium, Diamond wants development to happen downtown as fast as it possibly it can.
”You just have to walk around downtown Jacksonville and see we aren’t where we want to be, and what kills deals is time, and DIA takes too much time, going to city council takes up too much time, and so we need to streamline, be faster and more efficient,” Diamond said.
Diamond, who says he’s drafting legislation that would overhaul the Downtown Investment Authority and give it more autonomy, says the special committee created in April to oversee the DIA is holding its leaders accountable.
The committee could recommend sweeping changes to how DIA is funded and how it works with developers. Lori Boyer, who is the head of the DIA, says she also wants to end the delays for long-awaited construction projects.
”There has been a suggestion by several members in meetings to limit our focus geographically and focus on the city center or the core, rather than focus on Brooklyn or sports, entertainment or other areas to really hone in on seeing progress in the core,” Boyer said.
The DIA met on Monday to talk about the agency’s budget and redevelopment priorities for Downtown.
Boyer says the board members also discussed different approaches to dividing up the funding for projects. And they talked about the council appropriating a fixed amount each year that the Downtown Investment Authority could use for incentives.
After several failed negotiations between the DIA and developers, the City Council formed the Special Committee on the Future of Downtown Development, headed by Diamond, to take a look at how the DIA operates and determine if adjustments need to be made.
The committee has met twice -- on May 12 and June 10 -- and in addition to recommending changes to how DIA is funded, it could suggest changing how DIA works with developers.
Boyer said the DIA wants clarification on how it would divide up funding if it was allocated a fixed amount each year for a certain area.
“Would it be something like you spend 80% of your resources in the (Urban) Core and 20% on other projects, so there could still be funds available to support additional developments in North Core or in Brooklyn or in Cathedral District?” Boyer said. “And we certainly advocated that we did not want to exclude LaVilla, that we thought it would be a mistake to focus only on the Core and not include LaVilla.”
The funding would be in addition to DIA’s annual revenue, which is around $15 million.
The recently approved stadium deal for the Jacksonville Jaguars will be a huge positive for downtown development, Boyer said.
“I don’t see it as a negative, and I don’t see it as creating a problem for us from a timing perspective at all,” Boyer said. “Frankly, all of the things that we’re doing along the riverfront, the infrastructure projects, the parks, they’re all coordinated, and they all work with the stadium project.”
Mayor Donna Deegan is scheduled to present the 2024-25 budget to the City Council in six days.
Boyer said after the full budget is presented, the Downtown Investment Authority will have a more solid idea of how much money is allocated for development in the coming year.