by Glenn Tschimpke Staff Writer
About a year from now, Mayor John Delaney’s eighth and final year as Duval County’s top elected official will be drawing to a close. During his tenure, the seeds of downtown Jacksonville’s renaissance have sprouted.
Affordable and upscale residences will have returned to downtown. A glistening new U.S. Courthouse on the western edge of Hemming Plaza will have been open for several months. The major components of the Better Jacksonville Plan will have begun to materialize. Considering the signs of rebirth in the city’s urban core, Delaney has a right to be proud.
To celebrate, the mayor wants to hold an open house. Not just a barbecue in Hemming Plaza or a cocktail party in a stuffy club at the top of a skyscraper. Delaney wants to figuratively throw open the gates to downtown and invite the whole town to see the fruits of his administration’s hard work over the last few years.
“The premise is to reintroduce downtown to the rest of Jacksonville,” said Delaney. “There is a surprising number of people who only go downtown once or twice a year.”
The idea materialized late last year from a brainstorming session during a City leadership retreat. While the idea is strictly conceptual at the moment, Delaney and his staff envision a month-long celebration of downtown in April or May of 2003.
“We want to do it when the weather is still perfect,” said Delaney’s chief of staff Audrey Moran. “It’s not too hot and it’s not too cold. It’s basically to show off the things that have been accomplished downtown in the last few years. We’re aiming this at people that the last time they were downtown, May Cohen’s was still open and they shopped there on a Sunday afternoon.”
Barring construction delays, next spring should bring noticeable changes in the downtown area. Wolfson Park will make way for a new baseball field in March. The sports arena should be nearing completion and the new downtown library should be well under construction.
Downtown residential options promise to be on the verge of explosion. Berkman Plaza will be complete, Vestcor Companies’ 11 East Forsyth project should ready for residents in January and One Shipyard Place should be in the final phase of construction.
To accentuate his “Come Back to Downtown” campaign, the mayor wants to press forth on continued streetscaping and vegetation planting throughout the urban core.
The mayor’s office plans to coordinate with other agencies that focus on downtown, such as Downtown Vision, Inc. and the Downtown Development Authority, to give suburbanites a compelling reason to come downtown — if only for an evening or a Saturday afternoon.
“I can see us doing some beautification effort — flowers, tree plantings and plantings at portal entrance points to downtown,” said Terry Lorince, executive director of DVI. “It’s really early yet, but I can see some walking tours and venue activities.”
Moran envisions a host of planned activities throughout the month, from special events at the ballpark, Landing and other venues to different tours of downtown. It’s still nebulous, though.
“It’s important to note that this is still in the vision stage,” she stressed.
Delaney added that the open house will give the various downtown powers one more incentive to complete projects that could have the tendency to linger.
“It gives them a target date to work toward,” he said.