Why have a Downtown Page in a downtown newspaper? Isn’t that like taking chocolates to Hershey, or politics to City Hall?
So, an explanation is in order.
First, what this is: a weekly page devoted to Jacksonville’s downtown area.
That begs the next question: where’s our “downtown?”
We loosely define it as being from the south edge of Springfield to the north edge of San Marco, the east side of LaVilla to Berkman Plaza. Yes, we’ll fudge and slip into San Marco, Springfield or Five Points on occasion.
Now, why will it be different than what you’ll find on the other pages each day?
Here’s why:
Downtown has had its advocates only when it’s convenient for the advocates.
• There are few residents downtown, which means there are few votes, which means the City Council members who represent the area spend most of their time trying to improve roads and drainage where voters live.
• The Downtown Development Authority sounds like it should be a big advocate, and that was its original mission, but its role has morphed into things like cleaning out shacks in the LaVilla area and trying to get people to move businesses there. That’s a laudable goal, for sure, but we still have the ugly purple directional signs all over downtown.
• The mayor professes the need for a strong downtown and he walks the walk, but his energy is toward the big Better Jacksonville Plan projects. The big projects, for sure, are going to help, but a new library doesn’t mean there will be a sign anywhere telling a visitor how to get to the airport.
But, we have new players in the game.
One group brings big bucks, the Berkmans and the Spences and Roods and the Cathedral folks who are building and rebuilding in hopes of luring residents downtown. This has been a boom in the last two years or so. We don’t know how many residents that might bring, but when someone calls their project a “Billion Dollar Mile,” that means they’ll need to entice more than a few to turn a buck.
The other players have always been there, but not until recently did they get together. They are the downtown property owners and they are now taxing themselves to fund an office which promotes downtown. It’s called Downtown Vision Inc., and you’ve read plenty about them in these pages.
So, we will use this to cover those who are promoting downtown and how they’re doing it. It won’t be a DVI page, nor will it be a place for politicians to get credit for spending our dollars. Both will have a voice (and, we hope, they WILL have a voice through guest columns).
One thing we promise: if we find someone who really likes those purple signs, we’ll make fun of them.