by Karen Brune Mathis
Managing Editor
The Jacksonville Civic Council plans to roll out its recommendations for Downtown revitalization Tuesday, including a call for a new Downtown development implementation authority.
The plans also will include a focus on a convention center and related development, confirmed Civic Council Chair Peter Rummell.
Rummell said the plans would be released at 10 a.m. Tuesday at the St. Joe Building along Riverside Avenue.
Haskell Co. leader Preston Haskell, who chaired the council’s Downtown committee, will also join the presentation.
“You’re going to see more words than plans,” Rummell said Thursday night after the Jacksonville Regional Chamber of Commerce Leadership Trip follow-up meeting at the WJCT studios.
Rummell said there would be “some generic description of development areas,” along with how to start the process and the governance needed to carry it through.
Those development areas would include a “convention center plus,” he said.
The council will call for a countywide authority. “We’ll put some teeth on that,” said Rummell. “Structure is important.”
Rummell declined to provide more details, but a new Downtown development authority is first on mayoral candidate Audrey Moran’s agenda if elected, she said.
Moran, who was endorsed by JaxBiz, the Jacksonville Regional Chamber of Commerce’s political affiliate, told the group of about 50 chamber members and staff at the event that she would recreate the DDA.
“The first piece of legislation I will introduce is to recreate the Downtown Development Authority,” she said.
“The timing is perfect,” she said. “We must have a Downtown Development Authority, a muscular Downtown Development Authority.”
Moran chaired the former DDA, whose functions were folded into the Jacksonville Economic Development Commission after it was formed in 1997.
Chamber Downtown Development Chair Ed Burr, who strongly endorsed Moran in the JaxBiz statement supporting her, told the group that Downtown needs “constant focus and continued leadership.”
Burr, also a member of the Civic Council, said the chamber and council “are advocating a new governance structure,” which he said was an implementation authority for a vision to change downtown.
He said it would extend beyond mayoral terms, so that “30 years from now, it will be focused on Downtown.”
He also said the report “won’t be without controversy,” but did not elaborate.
Burr said that the chamber and Civic Council “hope it will be approved by the Mayor and the City Council.”
He said the challenge will be financial, and said the public is in no mood for new taxes.
“It’s going to be challenged to find a creative way to raise funds,” said Burr. He said there were many ways to do so, but didn’t offer details.
“Public-private partnerships” has been a term used often lately in Downtown discussions.
Burr and others insisted that a vision and focus on Downtown must include citizen buy-in. Toward that end, Visit Jacksonville Marketing Vice President Mya Surrency is working on marketing plans.
Chamber Chair Hugh Greene said the group that took the 2010 Leadership Trip to Indianapolis in October learned that a successful downtown depends on cooperation among government officials, businesses and citizens.
He said that the 2009 Leadership Trip to Kansas City focused on leadership and influenced the creation of the Civic Council, which succeeded the former Jacksonville Non-Group.
Greene said this year’s trip is scheduled Oct. 4-6 but that a destination has not been announced.
Green said the chamber will focus on several economic development areas this year, including Downtown.
When the Civic Council plan is released, “the chamber wants to become the means to carry the message out.”
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