by Bradley Parsons
Staff Writer
Removing the Downtown Development Authority as the first step toward City building incentives would streamline the downtown building process, JEDC executive director Kirk Wendland said Wednesday.
Wendland told a mayoral transition team subcommittee that a three-step process requiring DDA, Jacksonville Economic Development Commission and City Council approval for City money was “somewhat duplicative and cumbersome.” He said downtown developers seeking subsidies often present identical proposals to both boards, which can make the process confusing.
“It has happened at times that the DDA will pass something along to the JEDC thinking that we’ll look at a particular aspect of a project, and then we’ll [JEDC] approve it thinking the DDA must have looked at that,” said Wendland.
The subcommittee is charged with recommending structural changes to the six-year-old JEDC. The umbrella organization — comprising 11 divisions including the DDA — shepherds attractive downtown development through City-funding entanglements. Since its inception, the JEDC has helped connect more than 135 projects with $225 million in City subsidies. That investment returned $2.4 billion and 27,000 jobs. But Mayor John Peyton requested the subcommittee find ways to streamline the department, reducing its expense to the City and removing unnecessary bureaucracy.
An earlier transition team brief recommended removing one of the boards from the approval process. With the Council and JEDC as fixtures, that recommendation appears to target the DDA.
The subcommittee will also consider whether to reorganize the DDA’s seven-person board or three-person staff. Both Wendland and DDA managing director Al Battle said the board would remain intact. Battle said he thought the staff would also survive structural changes, Wendland said that was still for the subcommittee to consider and the mayor to decide.
Battle said he would “be supportive” of a move to take the DDA out of the funding loop. He said there should be a clear line drawn between the two agencies’ areas of oversight.
“In situations where a business wants to relocate to Jacksonville bringing 50 jobs with it, Is that something that the DDA needs to look at? Maybe not. That’s clearly a situation that benefits the city,” said Battle.
Rather than approving individual projects, the DDA could take a larger scale view of downtown. Battle said his staff could be redeployed to ensure projects such as the recently approved Bay Street Town Center fit into the desired downtown concept.
The DDA helped develop the Downtown Master Plan, a blueprint for downtown development. Wendland said removing the DDA from the approval process would allow it to focus on establishing and enforcing a consistent framework for developers to work within.
“If the DDA sets policy guidelines for downtown building, we can assume generally that projects that meet that criteria would already be approved by the DDA,” said Wendland.