Karen Mathis of the Times-Union recently wrote a balanced piece on how Jacksonville is perceived by outsiders. Mathis was recently in Missouri to speak at a tax conference (the after-party there must have been WILD!) and informally surveyed some of the attendees on their thoughts on Jacksonville. It seemed like the majority had no opinion of our city. Of those who did know of Jacksonville, they had relatively little positive to say.
Now you may be asking yourself in astonishment, "How can that be?" After all, it was less than a year and a half ago that we gave $91,000 to the Dalton Agency (the owner is Michael Munz who is very well connected to the Peyton administration by the way - you can check Peyton's calendar and you'll see lunches periodically scheduled with Munz) for our great new slogan 'Jacksonville, Where Florida Begins". Needless to say, this slogan has had zero effectiveness, as judged by Mathis' survey participants. We shouldn't go so far to say it was a complete waste of taxpayer money though - maybe Munz was able to get some special upgrades on that Mercedes or BMW he had been eyeing.
Back to the topic at hand. In her informal survey, Mathis cites one participant who says Jacksonville has a "nice downtown that is underutilized". Shortly thereafter, Mathis closes out her column with this challenge to readers, "I don't suggest another expensive marketing study, so I'm open to suggestions."
We at MetroJacksonville.com agree with Mathis. We also recognize that our city leaders love paying expensive consultant fees and forming committees to study the @#$!* out of issues, to only have those issues dropped with no action or to have short-term, ineffective action taken. While shelling out taxpayer dollars to consultants for fancy slogans can help city leaders come election time, it shouldn't be the defacto choice for improving Jacksonville in the minds of others.
We also agree with the survey participant who said we have a nice downtown, but it is underutilized. This, in our minds, more than any other issue is key to making Jacksonville a signature city.
Our downtown certainly is underutilized and underappreciated currently. We have to get Jacksonville citizens downtown. This is happening - but slowly. Thank you Tony Allegretti for creating the ArtWalk. Thank you private developers for recognizing the untapped demand for downtown housing. Thank you Mark Hemphill for doing on Bay Street what the city half-way started. Thank you Toney Sleiman for taking over the Landing. The change is happening, but it is occurring far too slowly. So how do we accelerate the process?
We think one opportunity to accelerate the transformation of downtown Jacksonville is right before city leaders right now. It is the possible relocation of the Jacksonville Farmers Market from Beaver Street to the urban core. We're not going to go into details on the plan here and why it would be so fantastic for downtown, because we did that in yesterday's article which we hope you will read here: http://www.metrojacksonville.com/content/view/238/57/ Ron Barton of the JEDC has indicated that his team is currently working on this deal. You can send Ron your words of support for this idea at his email
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We also recommend you contact Terry Lorince at Downtown Vision and let her know that you'd like her to work with Ron and the owners of the Jacksonville Farmers Market to bring the market downtown. Terry's email is:
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We truly believe transforming downtown Jacksonville is the key to taking our great city to the next level. And not letting the opportunity of the relocation of the Farmers Market to downtown is a great next step.
If you have other ideas for making Jacksonville a more impressionable place and would like to email them to Karen, you can do so at
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For reference, Karen's article is here:
http://www.jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/102406/bum_5776621.shtml
Also, if you'd like to see what other visitors to Jacksonville have had to say, be sure to visit:
http://www.43places.com/places/view/106698
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October 26, 2006, 8:53 am
I think the general population outside of Jacksonville and its surrounds have no opinion of the city. Other than having a football team this city is relatively unknown. It also tends to be disassociated with the rest of the state which could be part of some of the negative feelings.
October 26, 2006, 11:34 am
Homeless
I still believe the homeless problem is the major issue. Even if you have the mindset that all homeless people are good people that are just down on their luck, you don't travel out of your comfy suburbs to see them poop on the sidewalk. Since we currently do not have a big pedestrian type of downtown, all you see is the homeless. We may not have more homeless than other cities are size when it comes down to per capita, but visually, it's everywhere... This is a major problem.
October 26, 2006, 12:27 pm
No doubt, the homeless problem is a major issue. But that doesn't mean we have to pick and chose our battles. We should strive to solve that and at the same time, be able to take advantage of opportunities like the farmer's market potentially moving downtown.
October 26, 2006, 9:26 pm
Minds of the locals
It is not important what the outsiders think of the city if no one who lives in the city wants to move Downtown. Unfotunately, even though downtown has many great aspects and services the locals' image of downtown still is dominated by four structures...The Landing, The Stadium, The Jail, and the Maxwell House factory. Each of these locations is positioned along the river and are dominant icons of our downtown landscape. While the landing and the stadium are positives for downtown in between these are the two most despised aspects of downtown. A jail that provides a better river view than most residents of our fair city can afford and an old factory that drops its rank smell covering the north and south banks with a burnt coffee fog day in and day out.
It will be impossible to 're-invent/re-brand' downtown without removing these two eyesores. Moving the jail will get rid of the numerous bail bond sites, seedy individuals roaming the area, and open up public land for development (possibly affordable housing, parks, monorail station, farmers market). And offering incentives for the relocation of the maxwell house plant will rid the most important street for downtown redevelopment (Bay St.) of a stinch that no one wants to live next to nor visit on a regular basis.
There must be a reason to go downtown and while the city tries to convince people to go downtown with better services (library, JMOMA), incentives for development, and more streetscaping the city simultaneously is driving people away by letting two eyesores dominate the riverfront and peoples' preceptions.
October 27, 2006, 10:23 am
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