The Downtown cheerleaders are so trapped in their own echo chamber, that I'm not sure they even have a grasp on reality.
Step 1: Execute your plans
Step 2: Brag
This kind of hits the nail square on the head for me, and is probably why I personally can be so vocal in my criticism of entities like the DIA and the DVI. When I'm walking clients or out-of-state coworkers from the Hyatt, alongside the grass field at the Landing that's been vacant for four years and will be vacant for at least two more, past the bombed-out Laura Street Trio, down our signature street with recently closed restaurants and boarded up jewelry stores, into an office that's been vandalized for the third time in a year by the increasingly unhinged vagrant population, I don't have a particularly strong appetite to hear how well things are going for Downtown Jacksonville based largely on the DIA's willingness to hand out incentives for a bunch of projects that are stalled, haven't started, or are merely renders on paper at this point.
I'm cautiously optimistic that we'll start to see some action in 2024, but I'm also not willing to be gaslit about the current state of affairs either. I've run the numbers myself on true development vs. proposed pipeline, retail openings vs. closings, and office recovery vs. other Florida markets, and it's totally divorced from reality to say that things are in a good state in the here and now.
The above article is clearly an advertorial, and I have no problem with it. It wasn't written for me, it was written to drum up outside interest in Downtown Jacksonville. What I do have a major problem with though, and what scares me for our future, is if the DIA and DVI truly believe that we're in a great spot. That inability to admit that there's a problem, and failure to take ownership and accountability for fixing it, even if it's not within their limited purview, is why I get so worked up from time to time.
As the leader in pushing downtown forward, we just need more urgency, more proactive communication, and a willingness to take a stand from the DIA. No stand is taken by the DIA when historic building stock is destroyed (they still haven't penalized the developer who tore down the Greyhound Station for an illegal surface lot). No stand is taken when the JTA bets Jacksonville's long-term transportation future on a $500 million fleet of unproven robovans. No stand is taken when public works takes a historic park like Friendship Fountain offline for four years with no accountability and no progress.
On Lori Boyer specifically, it's not personal, but this quote on construction of the new park at the Landing pretty much sums up my frustration with that lack of urgency and accountability.
https://www.news4jax.com/news/local/2023/07/10/long-awaited-construction-on-riverfront-plaza-begins-monday/
Lori Boyer, CEO of the Downtown Investment Authority, said she expects that the project will be completed in a little more than a year.
“I think that the Public Works estimate on it is around 15 to 18 months,” Boyer said. “But that’s always subject to change, whether there’s weather delays or supply chain delays, you know, any of that kind of stuff. But at the moment, we’re looking forward to finally getting it out of the way.”
This is such a key downtown project, and quotes like this read like we're already making collective excuses for nothing getting done. This - like the parks at Friendship Fountain and the Times-Union Performing Arts Center - are projects that she personally led and championed. I'd hope the leader of the DIA would take a more active, vocal lead in pushing through all the red tape and brute forcing them to completion.
It's also worth pointing out that she did, in fact, contribute to the decision to demolish, rather than redevelop the Jacksonville Landing. She voted yes as a Council member, and vocally supported the decision in the press. It's not her fault, but she did advocate for it.
Last thing I'll say is that the DIA has absolutely failed on the riverfront. With parks, and vagrancy, and transportation, and demolition of historic building stock, there's plausible deniability. You can easily point to other entities who share the blame, whether that be public works, the JTA, City Council, whatever.
For the absolute waste of a decade on the riverfront though, that sits squarely oh the shoulders of the DIA. During the most sustained economic boom of our lifetimes, at a time when Jacksonville saw unprecedented immigration to our city, the DIA gave us multiple failed RFPs for Ford on Bay; a failed RFP with only one response for the private development pad at the Landing; lack of movement at Berkman 2; the mess on the Southbank with Related, the demolition of River City Brewing, and the lack of integration with the new tentative proposal and Friendship Park; endless delays and extensions at RiversEdge; and the glacial pace of getting parks built and completed.
I don't doubt that they are short-staffed, I don't doubt that they need true independence, and I don't discount the work they've done, but there's just no honest communication back out with the public in terms of where all of these initiatives that they go to press to herald actually stand. We get the grand announcement in the Daily Record and Biz Journal about retail enhancement corridors and two-way streets. We get the flashy render. Everyone pats themselves on the back. And then everyone disappears and nothing actually gets built.
Meanwhile, as a guy who does everything he possibly can to support downtown business, including choosing to come to the office 5 days a week, I still can't find a cup of coffee after 6 PM, the "Coming Soon" banners erected in front of historic building stock have weather and torn with age over the years, and its a crapshoot as to whether I'm going to have my life threatened by a random dude on fentanyl if I don't get to my car by sundown.
We need less talk, more action.
There are groups who are doing great things in downtown, but there is not a "plan" for anything. The city chases the deal of the week, but there's no overarching plan.
In the absence of a master plan, just start with what AG Lafley said at the great cities symposium. Start with one block, make it great, and expand from there. Start with JWJ park and work you way out. Gateway Jax will help exponentially once you get past hogan street, but the far flung civic projects that are proposed for downtown will do less than a concentrated effort that builds on itself.
Fort Myers, where I was born and raised, has COMPLETELY revitalized its downtown through careful master planning and block-by-block execution of said master plan. When I left for college in 2000, it was a vacant 9-5 ghost town. Within a decade, it was an insanely vibrant 24-7 community with dozens of bars and restaurants, an urban Publix, new hotels, and a revitalized riverfront.
Here's a copy of the Master Plan, with hyper-detailed block-by-block recommendations for land use, transportation, parks, etc.
https://fortmyerscra.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Downtown_Redevelopment_Pla.pdfContrast that with Jacksonville's "master plan," which speaks at a ten-thousand foot level and opens up with a reminder of all the things that were not even taken into consideration (transit, public safety, private land use, etc).

Very, very last thing I'll say, in the DIA's defense is:
You get what you pay for. All the gaslighting and unrealized potential deeply frustrates me, but it is disingenuous to expect such a small group, with a limited budget, to turn around 60 years of flight and blight in a decade.