by Bradley Parsons
Staff Writer
The City is working on a deal that would pay the Police and Fire Pension Fund $5 million to help renovate and develop three historic downtown buildings. But Jacksonville Economic Development Commission Executive Director Ron Barton doesn’t see the grant as an incentive.
Barton makes the distinction because the money is intended for a “sister agency of the City” to turn around three properties that were once City-owned. One way or another, the City was going to have to pay to turn around the Laura Street Trio, he said. The City deeded the Marble Bank, Bisbee and Florida Life buildings over to the Fund in 2004. In return, the Fund forgave $3 million owed by the City.
“It’s not an incentive in their case,” said Barton. “They’re taking on an obligation to restore those buildings that we would have had to pay anyway.”
Barton called the buildings “an asset that we couldn’t ignore.” Turning them around will help spur the housing market in the urban core, he said. Barton said late last year that the City was going to be more thrifty with incentives but added that market-rate residential projects on the north side of the river would be the most likely to pry loose City dollars.
The Fund has been mum so far about what prices it might charge in its development, which is envisioned as a mix of housing, retail and commercial space supported by an adjacent parking garage. The City wants to see detailed financial projections on the project before releasing the money, according to the development agreement.
Barton compared the grant to money the City might spend to improve infrastructure in slow-developing neighborhoods.
“If we’re going to pay to build infrastructure in Brooklyn, that wouldn’t be viewed as an incentive,” he said.
But some competing developers downtown see a more direct parallel: their own historic redevelopment projects.
Mike Langton, managing partner of LB Jax Development, has been chasing City money for his plans to redevelop the 18-story, 160,000 square-foot Barnett Bank Building. In December, Langton told the JEDC’s general meeting that the commission should find a way to subsidize historic redevelopment.
Langton pointed to the Laura Street Trio deal as an example.
But Barton said the deal was unique and shouldn’t be viewed as a precedent.
Barton’s comments came following Thursday’s JEDC general meeting. During the meeting, Barton offered his take on the City’s struggles with the Jacksonville Landing.
The City is in default to Landing owner Toney Sleiman on an agreement to provide parking for the riverfront mall. The latest attempt at a solution was scuttled last week when the City pulled out of plans to sell Sleiman the land underneath the Landing. This week, the entire bid process was put on hold indefinitely.
The deal would have conflicted with the City’s overall goals downtown, said Barton. Giving Sleiman the land could have eroded public access to the river and ran counter to several other aspects of the City’s downtown master plan.
In working to solve the parking problem, the City had temporarily lost sight of its larger objectives downtown, said Barton. Although the renderings released by City Hall last week are in keeping with those objectives, Barton said the City needs to clearly define what it wants downtown. Clear objectives would benefit the City and potential downtown developers, he said.
Getting the Landing going is still a priority, he said. But the downtown mall is only one component of the City’s vision for downtown.
“For good or for ill, the Landing is downtown’s flag in the ground,” said Barton. “We want to solve the parking problems and create something exciting there. But the Landing on its own can’t create a destination downtown. We have to look at what else is there to create excitement.”