by Bradley Parsons
Staff Writer
The City Council’s incoming president said yesterday it’s time for the mayor to make a commitment to downtown’s west end.
Elaine Brown thinks there’s an opportunity for Mayor John Peyton to do just that by making some City land available for a transportation center in LaVilla. Brown sat in on a meeting last month with Peyton and Mike Blaylock, the CEO of the Jacksonville Transportation Authority, in which Blaylock asked Peyton for a tract of land between Houston and West Adams streets. JTA would combine the lot with its own adjacent parcel to use as the foundation for the transportation center.
The Multi-Modal Transportation Center would become the centerpiece for a downtown transportation network that would connect all of downtown’s enclaves. Using parking garages, pedestrian walkways, the Skyway, buses and trolleys, downtown commuters could move quickly and cheaply throughout downtown.
“People could come in from the Westside, park, jump right on the Skyway to Hemming Plaza,” said Brown. “People will be able to transfer from buses to trolleys, from trolleys to the Skyway.”
Brown envisions the hub as one part of a revitalized LaVilla with an expanded Prime Osborn Convention Center as its showpiece. Peyton has said a convention center isn’t a priority. But in the meeting, Brown said Peyton seemed agreeable to the idea of the transportation center as a first step.
“I definitely got the impression that he’s looking at this as phase one. This could go ahead and the convention center is something that we could look at down the road,” said Brown. “The mayor said he thought it made sense. He liked the phasing–in aspect of it.”
Peyton and Brown are still waiting for the project’s price tag. Brown was told previously the center would cost about $50 million, but she said that number was outdated. Whatever the price, she said JTA anticipated that federal money would pay 80 percent, leaving City and State funds to pay the remaining 20.
Brown said the City could pick up most of its end by contributing land to the project and investing in infrastructure, including a parking garage. Blaylock said it was important to have the land to convince federal funders that the City was serious about the project.
“It is important that the local/state commitment to this project be clearly shown in order to have the best opportunity to secure these competitive federal funds,” Blaylock wrote in a letter to Peyton. “Having all of the land needed for the Transportation Center is an excellent way to impress the federal officials of our local support.”
Brown said that it was equally important to show a commitment to the LaVilla area. She said the transportation hub would encourage development in the relatively barren stretch of land separating the City’s urban core and Riverside.
“The mayor has got to make a decision to move forward on
LaVilla and Brooklyn,” said Brown. “I think he’s as anxious as I am to get rid of that no-mans land.”