by Bradley Parsons
Staff Writer
In the ongoing deliberations between the City Council and the potential savior of the Shipyards development, parking has emerged as an early sticking point.
Council member Lad Daniels took issue with a requirement for the City to provide parking for the development’s corporate and retail clients. The City has a bad track record of living up to its parking agreements, he said.
“If there’s one thing we’ve done singularly bad over the last few years, it’s been figuring out parking,” he said, citing the City’s troubles fulfilling parking obligations to the Landing.
Landmar CEO Ed Burr presented himself and his company Monday to the City Council’s Finance Committee as the City’s best chance to salvage the billion-dollar development deal.
The Council has until the end of April to approve the deal negotiated among Burr, City attorneys, the mayor’s office and the Jacksonville Economic Development Commission that would give Landmar development rights to the 33-acre parcel sandwiched between Berkman Plaza and Metropolitan Park.
The committee deferred a vote on the deal until a Monday special meeting. That would allow a full Council vote at the April 26 meeting.
Daniels and others zeroed in on a provision in the half-inch-thick redevelopment agreement that would require the City to provide parking for the Shipyards’ corporate and retail tenants.
The deal currently calls for Landmar to cover parking costs. But if development at the Shipyards grows to the point where a new garage is required, the City would have to front construction costs. Landmar would pay the City back.
Burr argued that a parking pledge from the City was essential to convince office and retail renters to locate on the Northbank. But facing a tight deadline, Council member Michael Corrigan said the provision raised too many questions.
“This gets us into a whole lot of questions that we don’t know the answers to. And we’re not going to know the answers in the next two to three weeks,” said Corrigan.
Daniels said the agreement would be “a stronger document” without the parking provision, which he said “doesn’t really say anything.”
The current agreement gives the City leeway in where and how it arranges the parking. It allows the City to provide up to 4,160 spaces through nearby surface lots in the Sports Complex or by building a parking garage. The agreement calls for the spaces to be located “reasonably close” to the development and that they be connected by public transportation.
Burr said the City should act now to address the parking shortfall downtown. Without a commitment from the City to provide parking, corporate relocations would continue to dodge downtown in favor of the Southbank, Riverside and Southside office parks, he said.
“If we want to attract corporate headquarters, the first question they’re going to have is parking, the second is, ‘Where will my people live?” he said. “If we want to have hope of getting them downtown, the parking problem is going to have to be addressed.”
After the City’s previous attempts at development ended up in a grand jury investigation, Burr said he and his company represented as close to a sure thing as the City is likely to see.
The Council auditor’s office has criticized the pending deal, because the City negotiated only with Landmar. By opening up the project for competitive bids, the City might get a better deal, that office said.
But by choosing Landmar the City gets a commitment to develop the land from a company with more than $1 billion in backing, said Burr. The developer would also commit to make the $3.2 million annual payments on outstanding bonds attached to the land, he said.
“If the City takes it back, all you know for sure is that you’re liable for 25 years of bond payments,” said Burr. “With a demand for public use of that property and no plan to open it up and no money to make it happen.”