by Bradley Parsons
Staff Writer
The Downtown Development Authority board took ownership of the area’s parking problem, but the executive director of the JEDC told board members not to get too attached.
Kirk Wendland agreed with the board that the City’s fractious approach to managing downtown parking remains an obstacle to downtown development. Any comprehensive changes to parking policy would need approval from a number of downtown stakeholders, including the City’s public parking, JTA, the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office, the Jacksonville Jaguars, sports complex management and private lot owners.
The DDA will recommend that the mayor put in place a single entity in charge of parking policy and debated whether to put that body under the DDA. Wendland warned them they might be biting off more than the Jacksonville Economic Development Commission could chew.
“The greatest fear I have is that they turn around and say, ‘Congratulations it’s yours,” said Wendland. “I don’t have the personnel or the budget to do anything like that.”
DDA board member and Auchter Company vice president David Auchter, who was the first to suggest that the DDA take over parking, said the board should lead by example in the effort to untangle downtown’s parking administration.
“I don’t want to run from this problem,” said Auchter.
But the discussion following Auchter’s recommendation hinted at the complexity of the task. The board debated whether to attach a deadline to the parking fix and where responsibility should lie. Even the name for a new parking organization inspired debate with some suggesting “Parking Authority” while others felt more comfortable with “entity.” In the end the board recommended that the mayor, “create and empower a new parking management entity to apply basic parking principals.”
The board agreed that continued involvement from City Hall would be essential. The mayor’s office asked the board to recommend parking fixes. But several members said downtown suffered from a lack of action not recommendations.
Both the DDA and City Hall agree that downtown parking needs to improve to draw businesses, residents and shoppers away from suburbs. A lack of parking consistently ranks as a top complaint of in surveys of residents and business owners.
The City’s current strategy is to provide parking at downtown’s perimeter. Commuters would then use public transportation to move around. In pursuit of that approach, the JEDC negotiated a deal with local developers to build three garages, providing about 3,000 spaces around the sports complex and the new Duval County Courthouse.
DDA board member Denise Watson said parking recommendations would go nowhere without the backing of the mayor’s office.
“If the mayor doesn’t appoint someone with authority, we’ll just sit around and theorize for years,” she said.
Jacksonville Housing Commission chair Randy Evans, who’s consulting for the City on the review of the JEDC, said the DDA could do a better job as parking advocates.
“This group needs to be more forceful in encouraging the recognition of parking management,” said Evans.