TEDx panelists: Informed citizenry crucial to maintaining Downtown Jacksonville momentum
“If you build it, they will come.”
That’s a great strategy for a baseball field in Iowa, but not so great for a vibrant, inclusive downtown. Always a hot topic of discussion, commentary and criticism, Jacksonville’s Downtown development is in the forefront of public consciousness with exciting projects on the front page monthly.
Over the past 201 years, Jacksonville has evolved and grown into a thriving city. From the Cowford Settlement to the post-Civil War boom to the Great Fire of 1901, the genesis of the silent film industry, multiple Southern rock bands, powerful military bases and now as a tourism destination, Jacksonville has proven to be bold, strong and destined for greatness.
In August, the five of us — a developer, a placemaker, a lawyer, an activator and an urban planner — spoke with more than 200 of our neighbors who believe in that greatness at the TEDxJacksonville salon, “Downtown: A City Rediscovering its Center.” We argued, we agreed, we planned and we dreamed; ultimately, we (and our audience) gave voice to our collective hopes for what downtown can become.
In that conversation, and in the myriad conversations we each have daily about the momentum downtown, we are struck by a few things:
Our citizens want to be engaged. Nearly all of the questions we fielded at the salon were about progress on specific projects. We invite our partners, city administrators and developers to keep the public apprised of progress and ways to stay involved.
It’s easy to focus on delays and what’s not happening, but the reality is that there are a lot of developments actually underway in downtown Jacksonville. Our downtown is 3.9 square miles, and as of the 2022 State of Downtown Report, there were more than $5 billion in construction projects approved, underway or in review, including mixed-use developments that maximize the interplay between residential and retail. The 2023 report is set to be released in the coming month and we look forward to updated progress.
Let’s spend our collective energy putting existing plans into action rather than designing new ones. Master plans are critical to cohesive development and renderings are a splashy way to secure necessary incentives, as well as political will. We have excellent organizations like the Downtown Investment Authority focused on bringing these plans to life in a cohesive way.
In our community, we don’t have to agree on everything, but we do need to find ways to work together. Among the five of us, some are advocates for marquee projects; others are implementing the “Power of 10” theory that relies on 10 smaller activations in a geographic area to elevate the public space. We represent private development and public space, modern buildings and historic preservation. We all believe in the importance of equitable access to our spaces, along with the critical need to think about sustainability and resilience of our development. No one perspective carries the day, and only by considering all of them will we find the right recipe for our downtown.
Conscious development is a long game. Measuring momentum in individual calendar years is a recipe for disappointment and criticism. But watching downtown come to life over the course of our careers — during the past two decades — that’s the timeline of progress. Collective high expectations, holding our decision makers accountable and tempering ourselves with patience is the key to maintaining positivity.
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To those readers who are excited, curious or even skeptical: Please take the time to inform yourself about the progress and hurdles downtown. Build Up Downtown recently published a comprehensive online database of resources, including all of the plans and development timelines.
Visit Downtown restaurants, music venues and festivals. Join your fellow interested Jaxsons at the upcoming TEDxJacksonville: Human/Nature event on Saturday, Oct. 14. Take a walking tour with The Jaxson or a DTJAX Development Tour — they’re offered on a variety of transportation options.
See for yourself what is happening, and become one of the passionate, vocal advocates for our Downtown.
Ennis Davis, Community Planning Collaborative; Laura Phillips Edgecombe, Build Up Downtown; Sondra Fetner, Jessie Ball duPont Fund; Alex Sifakis, JWB Companies; and Kady Yellow, Downtown Vision Inc.
This guest column is the opinion of the author(s) and does not necessarily represent the views of the Times-Union. We welcome a diversity of opinions.
This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: For Downtown Jacksonville, all perspectives key to successful plan
