by Michele Newbern Gillis
Staff Writer
When it comes to downtown, Jim Citrano not only has the answers, he knows the questions, too.
Citrano, president of CB Richard Ellis Commercial Real Estate and Institutional Management Services, is in his third year as the chairman of the Downtown Development Authority. Before CB Richard Ellis, he owned his own company, St. Johns Place Development Company.
Recently, the City has come under fire for the way it provides incentives to companies looking to relocate or redevelop downtown properties. Some are saying the system needs to be changed and the City Council is studying incentive plans used in other cities. Citrano understands the controversy.
“We are in the middle of a controversy right now because of the funding of these projects,” said Citrano. “ I can’t, because I’ve been in this business all my life, believe that 100 percent of the projects we have funded will be successful. It will be great if it happened, but the reality is that one of them will fail, hopefully not more. One of them will have rough times, there will be changes in ownership, and we are going to be in the business of getting rid of an asset or a troubled property. That’s something we’ve done before and we were able to weather the storm. If we haven’t been prudent and fair in how we’ve distributed the incentive dollars, and if the feasibility for the project isn’t the right thing or people don’t want them when it’s over with and say, ‘Why did you build that? No one’s using it,’ then we are going to lose the public trust.”
While giving incentives to commercial projects has drawn some criticism, it’s the residential projects that have elevated the level of discussion.
“Residential is the one that is up front, but we have done other things other than residential,” said Citrano. “The reason the emphasis is on residential is when we looked at the components of downtown that already exist beside the private sector that we would build anyway, residential was the one that needed the help. We have also given incentives to some commercial projects, including St. Joe Company’s new building in Riverside.”
But, says Citrano, it’s the job of the DDA to “increase the viability of development opportunities in downtown Jacksonville, restoring it to its maximum capacity.”
That, said Citrano, “means a 24-hour downtown and what we are missing is residential and retail. Retail follows rooftops, which means if the people are there, the retail will follow. If by encouraging this residential growth, and people move into those buildings, we are not going to have to encourage the retail. If we have a building with 362 units, I guarantee you, you will have a coffee shop somewhere near it or something else is going to want to get in there.”