by Fred Seely
Staff Writer
Needs abound these days, but the business community will settle for just five.
That comes from the people who drive the area’s development engine: the Jacksonville Regional Chamber of Commerce’s Cornerstone division.
“We have a wish list and we’re working on it,” said John Haley, the No. 2 Cornerstone Regional Development Partnership executive who spoke Friday to the Sales and Marketing Council, the real estate-oriented arm of the local builders association.
Working, indeed. Haley was filling in for his boss, Jerry Mallot, who was in Washington lobbying for money to dredge the river channel in order to secure the giant aircraft carriers that Mayport has been promised and to assure post-Panamax ships can access the port.
“Our port is poised to be the third largest on the East Coast,” Haley told about 100 people at the University Center of the University of North Florida. “We need that channel to be dredged to 50 feet in depth, or business is going to pass us by.
“There’s talk in Washington of not doing our channel until 2016. Well, the Panama Canal is being widened and that will be finished in 2014, and those big ships will find other ports. We need to get them used to coming here.”
In addition to the port dredging, Haley listed four other needs:
• Improved roads, particularly in the port area. “The two new terminals will bring in a million more units a year and we have to move them out of that area. The road needs aren’t just in that immediate area; that cargo has to reach the interstates.”
• Intermodal transportation, such as light rail. “We have to bring the suburbs closer to the city,” Haley said. “Roads are one way but people need other ways to get around. We can’t scatter ourselves and expect to work together.”
• Downtown Jacksonville. “We have to re-establish growth there,” said the 16-year Chamber veteran. “The commercial vacancy rate is the highest of anywhere in this area and among the highest in Florida.”
• The Jacksonville Jaguars. “They are central to our public relations effort. They are our identity, particularly internationally. We have to do everything possible to keep them.”
Haley told the real estate-oriented group what it wanted to hear: that the Chamber’s research indicates that better times are coming soon.
“One of our strengths here is that we never think we have it made,” said Haley. “We’re always striving to get to the top. We have enthusiasm as a community.
“I’ve seen communities think they have it made. Well, when you get to the top, the curve can only go one way and it’s hard to retrieve momentum when the line starts going downwards.”
Haley said the Cornerstone staff of 17 includes “a lot of bright young people.”
“This won’t be their last job. They’ll go somewhere else for more money, more responsibility,” Haley said.
“But, I tell them that they’ll never have it better. This area has more potential than anywhere else.”
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