by Michele Newbern Gillis
Staff Writer
Tattoo parlors, strip joints and seedy bars have lined Mayport Road for generations.
Now, with the combination of the Mayport Waterfront Partnership (a joint venture between the City of Jacksonville, City of Atlantic Beach and the state government) and a possible Community Development Area (CRA) designation, Mayport may be getting a new lease on life.
“I’d like to get rid of all those things,” said John Meserve, mayor of Atlantic Beach. “I would like that to be a community area where you could feel safe and comfortable with a stroller and baby walking down the street and it will be.”
Meserve said Mayport Road has sort of been the forgotten area for many years.
“Atlantic Beach has considered Mayport Road its back door and didn’t care much about it,” he said. “It was considered a high crime area, and it’s really not.”
Meserve said the U.S. Navy has also cleaned up their act on and off base. He said Capt. Matthew E. Schellhorn, commanding officer of the Mayport Naval Station, is part of everything they are doing to clean up Mayport.
“Last weekend, there were probably 70 Navy people out here at 7:30 a.m. cleaning up Mayport Road,” he said. “They were cleaning up trash and just trying to show the people who have businesses on Mayport Road that it could be better. We are just trying to get some pride in the area.”
According to Meserve, Mayport Road is the dividing line between the Duval County and the City of Atlantic Beach. Since it is at the end of the county line, he said they haven’t paid much attention to the area over the years.
“We just recently got Duval County to move a police stop station out to Mayport Road,” said Meserve. “You never saw police cars out there in the old days and Mayport Road was a high drug area. You could buy drugs out there anytime.”
Since the police stations moved out there, Meserve said especially in the Mayport Village, you can see major changes out there.
“We have police out there on a regular basis and we have received $4.5 million dollars worth of infrastructure improvements in the village over the last three or four years.”
With that money, the village now has the first sewer line all through the village that they have ever had out there — the area was on a septic system until a year ago.
“That was a project that the MWP really put together,” said Meserve. “We got a whole lot of funding to get thing done and a joint contract with the City of Jacksonville and the City of Atlantic Beach to get the system moved. We’ve been operating the MWP for six or seven years now, basically trying to upgrade the area of Mayport Village, A1A and the Mayport corridor.”
They also received $650,000 for infrastructure improvements in addition to the $4.5 million worth of improvements that have been funded and completed.
“Almost $5 million of improvements have happened in Mayport due to the MWP,” said Meserve.
The MWP’s territory includes Mayport Village, A1A and Atlantic Boulevard all the way to the Sea Turtle Inn.
“For the first couple of years, we concentrated on the village itself to get the infrastructure improvements,” he said. “We are going to put in a park there and we are working on that right now.”
One of the recent issues the MWP is looking at is trying to get the commercial area of Mayport Road the CRA designation.
“We are exploring that right now,” said Meserve. “We have a contract in place to look at that on how we can do it and develop and economic development plan. That’s going on right now.”
In order for it to be considered as a CRA, the city needs to first find out if the area meets the state guidelines for a CRA.
“It must be an area that is suffering economic depression,” said Meserve. “I think it is. When you drive up and down Mayport Road, I think you could find some trailer parks and some pretty bad places.”
The MWP has a full-time staff person who also works for the Jacksonville Planning Department so the group is working very closely with the Jacksonville Planning Department. MWP also has Karen Nasrallah from Jacksonville Economic Development Commission assigned to them.
“We have links to all the development agencies of the City of Jacksonville, links to the City Council through Councilmen Warren Alvarez and Jerry Holland and links to the City of Atlantic Beach through me, the mayor, and Paul Parsons, a Atlantic Beach commissioner,” said Meserve. “So, we draw in all the right people and we let them know what we want to do. This study will tell us two things. One, are we a good candidate to become a CRA and two, it will also provide an economic development plan.”
When the study is complete, it has to be approved by the JEDC, Jacksonville City Council, Atlantic Beach Commission and any other agencies involved.
Meserve has a vision of the next three to five years of getting the redevelopment plan organized and in motion. If he can get the CRA designation and get an organized group of people to run it, then they can develop some master strategic planning.
“If you are a CRA, then you can condemn land, combine land and do things to encourage development,” said Meserve. “You can assemble land, that is a powerful thing. You can also have economic incentives if you can work that between the cities. You could also get involved in tax increment funding, which is basically borrowing against the future increase in the taxation capability of the area.”
Meserve believes in the future of Mayport Road.
“There is a lot of vacant property along Mayport Road and that will be purchased by the right people at some point,” said Meserve. “Restaurants will go up out there as people get to feel that it is a good place to go, but the demand has to be there.”