by Mike Sharkey
Staff Writer
New Downtown Development Authority member Roland Udenze is the definition of diversity and hopes his professional pedigree and foresight will help the Authority as it aids in transforming downtown Jacksonville into a 21st century city.
Udenze, an architect and design principal with The Haskell Company, is an African-Irishman who eventually landed in Lafayette, La. where he grew up in Cajun country. He has worked in Boston, Cincinnati, Orlando and Cork, Ireland and his accent contains a tinge of all those locales.
He was appointed to the DDA by Mayor John Peyton in January and approved a couple of weeks later by City Council. Udenze joined DDA chairman Bob Rhodes, vice chair Dave Auchter and members Cynthia Griffin, Jay Jabour, Gerry Nichols and Penny Thompson.
“I expressed interest in the board,” said Udenze. “I wanted to get more involved and Jacksonville is heading in the right places.”
In Jacksonville, Udenze sees Orlando about a decade ago without a river, an ocean or Disney.
“I was in Orlando for several years and watched as it morphed right in front of me,” he said. “We (his company) did some of the first residential in downtown Orlando.”
Since then, Orlando has grown tremendously and Udenze sees the same potential here. As an architect, he’d like to see Jacksonville take a progressive approach to design and architecture. He believes in using the river as a natural resource should be capitalized on and as a backdrop to modern office and residential towers.
“Jacksonville’s biggest asset is the river and it’s one of the few cities that can say it has a river running right through it,” he said. “We need to design buildings with good, strong architectural features and not run-of-the-mill buildings. We need to design buildings that are architecturally iconic works with the river as a beautiful backdrop. That will help catapult Jacksonville to the next level.”
Udenze moved to Jacksonville eight years ago and joined Haskell in 1998. He did take a couple of years off to go back to his mother country.
“I went back to Ireland for a couple of years on a sabbatical,” said Udenze, who worked during his stay and, unfortunately he said, didn’t play much golf.
After graduating from the University of Southwestern Louisiana 15 years ago, Udenze moved to Boston where he worked before heading to Orlando. Shortly after getting to Orlando, he was indoctrinated into the area’s love of college football. A co-worker had University of Florida football tickets and invited Udenze to a game. Unbeknownst to him, the Gators were playing his Rajun Cajuns - now known as Louisiana Lafayette - and things got out hand quickly.
“I think their fourth string scored to make it 77-3 and people were still going crazy,” he said.
Udenze has worked all over the country. One of his projects includes the GE museum for aircraft engines in Cincinnati.
“I just finished that one. It doubles as a learning center,” said Udenze. “There are classrooms and laptops where you can take classes. I also did the corporate headquarters for Jet Aviation and a sustainable technology building for the PM Group in Cork. We used natural ventilation for it and I won an award here for that project.”