by Bradley Parsons
Staff Writer
With JEDC Executive Director Ron Barton looking for ways to streamline his commission, the Downtown Development Authority’s days as a decision making body might be numbered.
Following his first appearance at a DDA meeting Wednesday, Barton said he envisions the DDA as an advisory committee, not one that makes decisions.
The private citizen’s perspective provided by the DDA board is a valuable asset to the City’s economic development efforts, said Barton. But as a mandatory step in the City’s approval process for downtown development deals, the monthly DDA meetings create a layer of bureaucracy that Barton isn’t sure the City needs.
“No decisions have been made. But in theory if changes need to be made, they should be about making us more efficient,” said Barton.
The word on the street is that Jacksonville is an unnecessarily complicated place to get a development deal done, said Barton. In part that’s because deals have to wait a month for DDA approval, a month for JEDC approval and several months for City Council approval.
“That’s one of the critiques we hear in the marketplace — that our structure is kind of cumbersome,” said Barton. “Whatever we do should be about streamlining that approach, and as I look at the DDA’s role, there’s no doubt that we can streamline the process.”
Switching the DDA to an advisory body might be more a matter of semantics than anything else. Although downtown development deals currently pass through the board, the DDA’s vote isn’t binding on the JEDC’s decision making process, said JEDC Deputy Director Jeanne Miller.
Barton said the DDA’s real value lay in the talent on its board. Current board members include a small businessman, two lawyers, a developer and an architect, each with experience in downtown development.
Barton said the DDA would always exist in some form. He’s determined to have private stakeholders in the downtown economy “embedded” in the economic development process.
Questioned by DDA board member Jay Jabour, owner of Karl’s Clothiers about the DDA’s future, Barton gave assurances that the DDA would continue in some form. But he was non-committal about what that form would be.
“There’s always an element raising questions about ‘Should there be a DDA?’ or ‘Do we need a DDA?’ and we’ll talk about those issues more as we move forward,” said Barton. “But the component of the DDA that we have to have is the representation of downtown interests.”
In other comments, Barton sounded anxious to get several downtown initiatives off the drawing board and into action. He wants to start the legislative process to turn a redevelopment plan for the Brooklyn neighborhood into a master plan with City Council backing.
The JEDC is also preparing to accept bids for a consultant to look at downtown retail. Barton wants to know what kind of retail the market is ready to support and where the best locations are to cluster those businesses.
In its zeal to attract retail, the City should be careful not to force the market, said Barton. A provision of the City’s Downtown Zoning Overlay that requires parking garages to incorporate ground floor retail might need to be reexamined, he said.
“You don’t want to impose unrealistic expectations on the market,” said Barton. “We need to take a hard look at the rules and figure out where we want to focus our retail efforts. You can’t have retail everywhere or you’re going to have failed retail everywhere.”