Just now catching up on this thread.
Everyone here seems to think the DIA is intended to be independent and has the final authority on things concerning DT. While that is what it NEEDS to be, it is not. It is part and parcel a part of city government and thus will 100% be beholden to city politics.
Wasn't the former DDA under Mayor Delaney and Austin and independent agency just like JEA and Jaxport? Seems like they had a lot more control and authority than the DIA has. Frank Nero was the head of it before he went to Miami to head up their DT agency.
Agreed 1000%. If the DIA had any real authority then I would be on board with assigning the blame to the DIA. They are literally a board to make recommendations & keep all the agencies that actually do have real power aligned. I think it’s misguided to say Lori or the DIA is responsible for the current landscape.
I'm just a sucker for accountability, and despite all the machinations behind the scenes that drag down everything we do locally, I think it's totally fair to judge the DIA by the things that they've gone to the press to claim ownership of.
From a marketing perspective, lets look at the outcome of the major RFPs that the DIA has headed up over the last 6 years.
1.
2018 Convention Center RFP. The DIA issued an absurdly unrealistic RFP for a new 200,000 square foot Convention Center. A lot of highly respectable firms put a lot of time and money into their responses. In the end, all parties involved got burned when DIA backtracked and said that Jacksonville wasn't ready for a new convention center after all. Did Curry tank this one to appease Shad? Probably. But it was still a DIA issued RFP (in the Aundra Wallace days) that seemed divorced from reality in terms of scope.
2.
2019 LaVilla Townhomes RFP. A second botched RFP, this one for the Townhomes in LaVilla, choosing a retail-less Vestcor development over a significantly better, more historically appropriate Johnson Commons alternative, with retail. This was another one where scoring was wonky, and the DIA ultimately urged the winner Vestcor to alter their design to be more like the losing design by Johnson Commons. Three years were wasted on the project, with Vestcor eventually backing out and Johnson Commons graciously coming back.
3.
2020 Ford on Bay RFP. The second DIA RFP on the property to fail within two years. Spandrel selected by DIA as the winner, but things fall apart when Spandrel wants to change their design and when everyone figures out that the DIA didn't technically have the right to offer up half the property due to a right-of-first refusal held by the Hyatt. Whoops. Another two years wasted.
3.
2021 Ford on Bay RFP The DIA executing a third botched RFP, for Ford on Bay, this one inexplicably waiving the requirement for retail on Bay Street. Despite stating at the time that they were looking for a developer willing to break ground immediately, the winner (Carter) was given a runway of over two years to work out a development agreement. I believe said agreement would have needed to have been completed last week for this one to not fall apart.
4.
2021 Riverfront Plaza Park RFP. The DIA issues an RFP heavily weighted toward public art. When it came time to score, Parks+Will was chosen as the winner
specifically because of their JAX art installation. After public criticism of the "Lerp" statue, the DIA completely backtracks, stating that the sculpture might not even be affordable, making a complete mockery of the selection process.
5.
2023 Riverfront Plaza Private Development Pad RFP. The DIA publicly justifies the rushed demolition of the Jacksonville Landing and the displacement of 30+ businesses because they claim it will make the site more marketable to private development for the RFP. Said RFP - inexplicably pushing for an office user - yields exactly one response, for a wildly unrealistic skyscraper that will require historic levels of publicly subsidy. Despite the fact that said tower is clearly dead, the DIA is still pushing for phased construction of the new Riverfront Plaza park to accommodate the phantom tower.
In terms of marketing Downtown Jacksonville to outside investors or companies for corporate relocation, during one of the biggest population booms of our lifetime, how many outside companies have relocated to downtown Jacksonville? How many national and international investors have projects that have broken ground downtown in the last six years?
What about the DIA's other big-ticket plans?
In early 2020, they announced their Food & Retail Corridor plan, with a list of restaurants they were targeting for downtown relocation. How many did they manage to land, even with 50% subsidies for capital improvements?
https://www.jaxdailyrecord.com/news/2020/jan/17/the-plan-to-spur-downtown-dining-includes-incentives-for-restaurants/
Here is the list of Jacksonville restaurants that the DIA could target for expansion Downtown. The list was created by the jaxrestaurantreviews.com blog as examples of restaurants that would draw people Downtown. DIA officials said the list is preliminary and restaurants could be added.
• 4 Rivers Smokehouse
• Angie’s Subs
• The Bearded Pig
• Catullo’s
• Cinotti’s Bakery and Sandwich Shop
• Domu
• Doro
• Fish Camps/Valley Smoke
• Fish House Group (Orange Park Fish House, Beach Road Fish & Chicken Dinners)
• The French Pantry
• Le Petit Paris
• Pie95 Pizza and Catering
• Safe Harbor Seafood
• Sliders Oyster Bar
• Picasso’s
• Soul Food Bistro
• Terra Gaucha
How about the plans to start two-way conversion of downtown streets announced in 2019?
https://www.jaxdailyrecord.com/news/2019/oct/18/boyer-advocates-for-downtown-density/Again, there are clearly roadblocks at City Hall that may have prevented the two-waying of streets, the completion of parks, the disposition of land, etc.
But at the end of the day, you can't bat .100 on projects you claim in your self-congratulatory marketing material (the riverfront, the Trio, the parks, Jones Bros, Independent Life, Ambassador Hotel, Chamblins Apartments, Related Skyscraper, the District) and expect no pushback when everyone gets their contract unanimously renewed and another half-decade is squandered with nothing but demolition to show for it. I wouldn’t get 10% as fired up about if it there was some acknowledgment of the issues from the agencies tasked with fixing them and I wasn’t instead made to feel crazy for not feeling the historic momentum on the streets.
It brings me absolutely no glee to be critical. Those who know me know that I'm a pretty positive dude. But I think it's disingenuous to absolve the DIA of any responsibility for the current landscape when we've seen time and time again that they're pushing for and allowing the wrong things. No retail on Bay Street. A Related restaurant on the Southbank that doesn't interface with Friendship Park. Office use at the Landing. A 200,000 square foot convention center. An innovation corridor that removes on-street parking from Bay Street. Retail-less Townhome developments in LaVilla. A convention center 15 blocks from the CBD in a location currently occupied by a prison when an expansion of the Hyatt's convention space could start driving vibrancy tomorrow. Endless futile RFPs. The end-all be-all goal of 10k residents. This isn't all on the city putting a gun to someone's head.
It doesn't reflect a lack of effort. Doesn't reflect bad faith. But we're gonna be spinning our wheels forever if we don't start bringing in some outside all-stars who are willing to fight tooth and nail with City Hall - independent or not - to push back against some of the major mistakes that we've made during this current DIA run in terms of historic demolition, land use, outside marketing, RFP process, transportation planning, parks, etc. Even if it takes adding a zero to the end of the salary, it'll pay for itself.
And, that's the
very last I'll personally say about it.
It's spilled milk at this point. I've got a lot of faith in our new mayor and some very smart people she has guiding her.
I'm ready to be proven wrong. Clean slate.
I can't keep eating Jimmy John's like four times a week. It ain't healthy for a guy.
Let's go.