by Bradley Parsons
Staff Writer.
When Harvey Schmitt left Jacksonville, downtown was nearly vacant and the term “First Coast” had just been coined. Nearly 20 years later, Jacksonville has become a case study in how a mid-sized City can make a name for itself nationally, and Schmitt is on his way back to take notes.
Schmitt returns this year as president of the Raleigh Chamber of Commerce. The chamber’s Jacksonville Leadership Trip begins Thursday morning at The River Club and wraps with dinner at Clark’s Fish Camp. The trip will bring a contingent of about 90 business and political leaders to Jacksonville.
Schmitt said the visitors would take careful note of how Jacksonville, a mid-sized southern city like Raleigh, parlayed a National Football League expansion team into a Super Bowl visit and international exposure.
“That’s something I know we’re interested in. Jacksonville’s quest in getting a Super Bowl, and now the response now that they’ve got it,” he said.
As improbable as a local Super Bowl seemed five years ago, Schmitt said it seemed almost laughable in 1982. That’s around the time Schmitt, then the general manager of the local chamber, first heard the idea to bring the game to Jacksonville.
“It was one of the first meetings I went to, and they’re talking about the Super Bowl. Before they had a team, before they had anything. They were prepared to bring in the Queen Mary and park it outside the Gator Bowl as a hotel. I’ve always been impressed by the spirit of Jacksonville,” said Schmitt.
Schmitt said Jacksonville has been particularly effective using local sports to establish their image in a Florida market crowded with better–known locales such as Miami and Orlando. He said Raleigh would like to use its own sports presence, a National Hockey League team and North Carolina State football and basketball, to gain national exposure.
“We look at Jacksonville, we see a peer market using sports to gain market share. You look at the idea of the ‘First Coast,’ that brand has held fast for 20 years. In today’s marketplace, that’s impressive by any standard,” said Schmitt.
During the stay, the Raleigh group will also hear presentations from the Downtown Development Authority on establishing downtown housing and from Mayor John Peyton and University of North Florida president John Delaney on the Better Jacksonville Plan.
“The Better Jacksonville Plan was certainly an innovative way to fund infrastructure investments to a fast growing marketplace,” said Schmitt. “That’s something we also focus on.”
Of course the Leadership Trip can also teach valuable lessons in what didn’t work. In a past visit to Sacramento, Schmitt listened as the California capital touted its school system. The Raleigh delegation walked away unimpressed when Sacramento officials beamed about half of its students reading and writing at grade level. Schmitt said the number in Raleigh was about 90 percent.
Schmitt said the delegation could have a similar reaction to Jacksonville’s Skyway.
“I don’t know how our people will react to the automated Skyway express,” he said. “But we don’t take it like we’re looking at an example of failure. We look at it as giving us a real-life view on how ideas take hold in real environments and do those ideas match up to what was expected on the drawing board.”