Downtown Vision

[CityLife]

[Ken_FSU]

DIA has gotten a lot of flack for the lack of progress downtown.

Totally fair to also look at Downtown Vision and wonder how effective they are and whether their output justifies all the tax dollars they're collecting from downtown properties owners within the BID radius.

DISTRICT SERVICES
The cornerstone of a great Downtown is a clean, safe and hospitable environment, which is why we focus on it seven days a week. We collaborate to address unsightly issues in the public realm and we partner with the City, Sheriff’s Office, property owners and others to support economic growth and the live/work/visit experience.

STAKEHOLDER SUPPORT
As the key support organization for Downtown’s private property owners, we keep our fingers on the pulse of the needs of the Downtown community, represent and advocate for our stakeholders, and keep them informed on issues.

MARKETING
We market Downtown as the unique epicenter for business, history, culture, education and entertainment for our region through content creation and curation.

RESEARCH
As the primary source for information on Downtown, we collect data and analyze trends including: investment, office market and residential growth. By benchmarking and issuing reports, we tell the story of Downtown’s revitalization.

Would argue that their marketing is somewhat duplicative with Visit Jax - which is funded by the bed tax, rather than property taxes - and would argue that their research is pure gaslit trash. I've met some very nice ambassadors, but it'd be great to have more visibility into where all those BID dollars are actually going and what meaningful progress DVI has made toward the above goals.

[jaxlongtimer]

The #1 problem IMHO with Downtown is all the silos... DVI, DIA, VisitJax, Sports Council, JTA, FDOT, Mayor's Office, City Council, COJ Planning Dept., COJ Public Works, COJ Parks, COJ Planning Commission, COJ DDRB, 1st Downtown Jacksonville, Downtown Dwellers, Buildup Downtown, etc.... with no master planning or coordination between them.  Until all these groups plus nonprofits (cultural institutions, foundations, social service agencies, Riverkeeper, educational institutions, etc.), residents, businesses, developers, etc. get on the same page, Downtown will continue to ping-pong along, well below its potential. 

It is like watching a slow motion train wreck.  I would say the emperor is naked and no one is calling it out but we don't even have an emperor to call out.  We need one point of accountability for all things Downtown and until we do, we will have everyone doing their own thing to feed their self interests, egos, or as cover for their inherent incompetency.  To add, Downtown planning needs to be expanded to include integrating the entire urban core, not just the strict boundaries of Downtown.  Downtown needs full urban support to thrive.

[Captain Zissou]

If you're going to include private groups like 1st DT, Downtown Dwellers, and BUD... Why stop there?  Scenic Jacksonville, Riverfront Parks Now, etc....

[CityLife]

DIA has gotten a lot of flack for the lack of progress downtown.

Totally fair to also look at Downtown Vision and wonder how effective they are and whether their output justifies all the tax dollars they're collecting from downtown properties owners within the BID radius.

DISTRICT SERVICES
The cornerstone of a great Downtown is a clean, safe and hospitable environment, which is why we focus on it seven days a week. We collaborate to address unsightly issues in the public realm and we partner with the City, Sheriff’s Office, property owners and others to support economic growth and the live/work/visit experience.

STAKEHOLDER SUPPORT
As the key support organization for Downtown’s private property owners, we keep our fingers on the pulse of the needs of the Downtown community, represent and advocate for our stakeholders, and keep them informed on issues.

MARKETING
We market Downtown as the unique epicenter for business, history, culture, education and entertainment for our region through content creation and curation.

RESEARCH
As the primary source for information on Downtown, we collect data and analyze trends including: investment, office market and residential growth. By benchmarking and issuing reports, we tell the story of Downtown’s revitalization.

Would argue that their marketing is somewhat duplicative with Visit Jax - which is funded by the bed tax, rather than property taxes - and would argue that their research is pure gaslit trash. I've met some very nice ambassadors, but it'd be great to have more visibility into where all those BID dollars are actually going and what meaningful progress DVI has made toward the above goals.

Good points.  I started the thread because I'm legitimately curious what DVI's recent successes have been and what their role is moving forward. The Special Committee for the Future of Downtown is tasked primarily to focus on the DIA, which makes sense. DVI is technically an independent not-for profit funded through a special assessment of downtown property owners. That said, I think the City should take a look at the effectiveness of the organization. There is an "Enhanced Municipal Services Agreement" that is in place between DVI and COJ, with DIA having oversight over the agreement. The City agrees to allow 1.1 mills of special assessment to go to DVI in exchange for the "enhanced services". The boundary of the DVI was expanded in 2021 to include LaVilla and Brooklyn, which also extended the assessment until the year 2031.

All that is to say that even though DVI is an "independent" agency" and has an agreement in place until 2031, the City through the DIA still has the ability to enforce the Enhanced Municipal Services Agreement. Just skimmed the agreement, and either party can terminate the agreement for cause with 30 days notice, but more interestingly either party can terminate the agreement with just one years notice without cause. If I'm reading that correctly, COJ can effectively eliminate DVI anytime they want, for any reason they want, with just one years notice. With that leverage, the Special Committee on Downtown should be able to make findings and recommendations about the DVI.

[Ken_FSU]

See, now this is the type of gaslighty bullshit that would infuriate me as a business owner handing extra property tax dollars over to the DVI each year, and that leads me to believe that DVI leadership needs to go. You can cherry pick all the stats you want from the Southbank and from analytics companies on your payroll, and you can make all the vague excuses you want about work from home hurting office occupancy without introducing any actual hard stats about how much Jacksonville is failing in recovery versus other urban areas, but you can’t tell the downtown businesses paying your salaries that things are looking great on the streets.

Jake Gordon and the DVI need simply to peek right down Laura Street from their shiny new offices on Duval - one of the few retail storefronts to open in the area in the last two years ironically - and see the “upswing” that has taken place over the last twelve months with their own eyes:

Peterbrooke - Closed
Vagabond - Closed
Bread & Board - Closed
Alewife - Closed
Jumpin Jax - Closed
Mag’s Cafe - Closed
Back to the Grind - Closed
Boba & Rice - Closed
Burrito Gallery - Closed
Estrella Cocina -  Hours reduced, barely hanging on
Bellwether - Hours reduced
Superfood - For Sale; only hanging on because of forgivable loan obligation
Bank of America Retail Branch - Closed
Jacob’s Jewelers - Closed
Ambassador Hotel - Project Abandoned
Independent Life Building - Project Abandoned
Laura Street Trio - Crumbling to the ground with no development agreement
Jones Bros Furniture - Announced years ago, not yet started
UNF Center for Entrepreneurship - Moved back the Southside
Chamblins Apartments - Crumbling to the ground
Snyder Memorial - Still not RFP’d
Citizens Insurance - Likely leaving downtown
Dalton - Likely leaving downtown

While the DIA hasn’t spurred development and failed to bring in new businesses, the DVI has actively FAILED the existing downtown businesses that bankroll their existence. They can hide behind the imaginary $8 billion pipeline of Shad Khan and COJ projects that would have happened regardless, but the streets surrounding their HQ don’t lie. And when we’ve all got eyeballs, and see the shuttered storefronts, trash on the streets, vagrants swinging hooks at passersbys, and general Walking Dead vibe on the streets, ain’t no one want to see the head of the DVI all smiles with the good ol’ boys talking about how every metric is trending up.

Again, pure gaslighting.

Lots of very cool things may be proposed, or even permitted, but neither the DVI nor the CBD are in any position to be patting themselves on the back for momentum in 2024. It’s not pessimism, it’s just put up or shut up. When you’ve got what is currently the worst downtown of perhaps any Top 40 city in the U.S., you don’t get to brag - yet.

If the people tasked with fixing it don’t recognize that there’s a problem, the whole thing falls apart.

[jaxlongtimer]

^ DIA also lost HD Supply on both the North and Southbanks... hundreds of people.  And, TIAA left town.  Wells Fargo shrunk to half their space in the former WF Tower and no longer has a branch Downtown.  And, along with Citizens Insurance, is Black Knight in play?  It also seems we still can't get enough funding approved to fully develop to a proper level Downtown riverfront parks that might attract more residents and visitors.  Where is the former District headed?

But great news... we are getting a Daily's gas station and JTA boondoggle U2C center at the entrance to Downtown to make a great impression on arrivals.

Just an aside... passed through Downtown this past week and both the Acosta and Riverside Avenue accesses were closed off for some race/run.  Not sure if Main Street was also closed as I headed to I-95.  No detour signs posted, lots of JSO but none directing traffic... just standing around, no tweaking traffic lights, no Plan B... as traffic bottlenecked wondering where to go next.  This unpredictable appearance and careless management of these closures discourages visiting Downtown shows, eateries, etc. as no other part of town suffers this fate.  By the way, if you ever leave the Arena or Performing Arts Center after a show, again, no traffic management like the Jaguars get.  Can take forever to get out of Downtown.  Where are DVI, DIA, etc. with thinking about the most basic obstacles to Downtown businesses?

[Zac T]

^ DIA also lost HD Supply on both the North and Southbanks... hundreds of people.  And, TIAA left town.  Wells Fargo shrunk to half their space in the former WF Tower and no longer has a branch Downtown.  And, along with Citizens Insurance, is Black Knight in play?  It also seems we still can't get enough funding approved to fully develop to a proper level Downtown riverfront parks that might attract more residents and visitors.  Where is the former District headed?

Everything else aside, RiversEdge (hasn't been called The District in years) is literally under construction as we speak with the first townhomes almost finished

[Joey Mackey]

Piggy backing off of Ken's comment with some more firsthand experience about the downtown expereince. I had a great conversation this weekend with two young professionals renting an apartment in the Barnett Tower. They moved here from another mid-size city and assumed Jacksonville's downtown would be similar. They are now counting down the days until they can move out of the Urban Core and move to the Southbank or San Marco. Their chief complaint? Safety. After the sun goes down, anytime they walked outside, the only other people they come across were vagrants. They also told me about how frequently they can hear people screaming/wailing in the middle of the night from their high-rise apartment. I asked them if they saw a couple of JSO officers posted on street corners would that make them feel safer? They enthusiastically said yes, absolutely. This forum talks about hitting ground balls for development. I think another easy solution (but maybe expensive) would be to post two JSO officers on every street corner on Laura and Hogan Street from the river to City Hall from the hours of 6pm to midnight on weekdays and until 2 am on weekends.

[CityLife]

Great questions Joey. If you were a downtown property owner, would you rather your special assessment dollars go to extra policing or the "Downtown Ambassador "program?

I once told Terry Lorrince (the previous director of DVI) that the Downtown Ambassador program was a total waste and that they could get virtually the same results from retirees looking to volunteer and stay active, along with occasional weekend cleanups from various groups. My dad's Rotary Club and mom's Garden Club in NC provide a ton of free volunteer hours to help maintain very well regarded downtown's and greenway's up there. It would be extremely easy to do this in Jax.

But even if you keep the Ambassador's, are their hours even the most optimal? They work from Monday-Friday 7am to 8:30pm and Saturday and Sunday from 8am to 4:30pm. Shouldn't Saturday and Sunday from 4:30 to 8:30 be peak visitor demand?

[CityLife]

Another question, Terry Lorrince and DVI used to get some flak on here back in the day for being ineffective and not doing a whole lot, but I believe they only had a staff of about 4-6 people (excluding ambassadors). DVI now has a staff of senior staff of 10 (possibly not counting admin), with 7 of them having titles of director, VP, or CEO. A very top heavy staff. With the increased staff, has anyone noticed an increased output?

[Captain Zissou]

Everything else aside, RiversEdge (hasn't been called The District in years) is literally under construction as we speak with the first townhomes almost finished

River's Edge is supposed to have 950 residential units, 147 hotel rooms, 200,000 sqft of office space, 134,000 sqft of retail, and a 125 slip marina.  10+ years in and all we have to show for it is a half dozen townhomes under construction.  This is the ultimate bait and switch by COJ and the developer.  4 years from now I envision the 3 residents, who got sold on the dream of future density, driving golf balls from their front yard into the desolate abyss like Will Smith in I Am Legend.

[CityLife]

Everything else aside, RiversEdge (hasn't been called The District in years) is literally under construction as we speak with the first townhomes almost finished

River's Edge is supposed to have 950 residential units, 147 hotel rooms, 200,000 sqft of office space, 134,000 sqft of retail, and a 125 slip marina.  10+ years in and all we have to show for it is a half dozen townhomes under construction.  This is the ultimate bait and switch by COJ and the developer.  4 years from now I envision the 3 residents, who got sold on the dream of future density, driving golf balls from their front yard into the desolate abyss like Will Smith in I Am Legend.

It's a great stat padder though. It's technically "under construction" with a $693 million investment.

[jaxlongtimer]

Great questions Joey. If you were a downtown property owner, would you rather your special assessment dollars go to extra policing or the "Downtown Ambassador "program?
I once told Terry Lorrince (the previous director of DVI) that the Downtown Ambassador program was a total waste and that they could get virtually the same results from retirees looking to volunteer and stay active, along with occasional weekend cleanups from various groups. My dad's Rotary Club and mom's Garden Club in NC provide a ton of free volunteer hours to help maintain very well regarded downtown's and greenway's up there. It would be extremely easy to do this in Jax.

But even if you keep the Ambassador's, are their hours even the most optimal? They work from Monday-Friday 7am to 8:30pm and Saturday and Sunday from 8am to 4:30pm. Shouldn't Saturday and Sunday from 4:30 to 8:30 be peak visitor demand?

I would venture to say that if we took all of DVI's dollars and invested them in JSO officers Downtown, it would be better return than anything else DVI could add. 

If DVI had dollars left over, they should be advocating for mass transit connectivity with Downtown via buses (not U2C or Skyway!) to the surrounding urban core and/or looping through the core.  They should also be advocating for quality of life items like supporting riverfront parks, cultural events, etc.  I have been to countless downtowns, many far bigger than ours (doesn't take much) and well placed maps with City landmarks and attractions on street corners is more than adequate.  Add a well placed info center run by Visit Jax and you would have better outcomes with almost no additional expense.

It is time leaders in Downtown stop trying to show they are "smarter than the average bear" or how clever they are and just copy and paste what most every downtown in the world already does.

[fsu813]

The Downtown Ambassadors do good work and are wanted. They take care of blight/safety/maintenance issues that would otherwise rely on X department to respond in their own time.

Related, the cost of paying for JSO off-duty officers has gone up 25% YoY, due to their third party scheduler.

Note to self: start a third party scheduling businesses. It's lucrative.