It was a late Monday night of preparations leading to Tuesday afternoon’s news conference by Mayor Alvin Brown to announce his proposed economic-development legislation.
“Last night about 11:30, I was on a phone call with his staff,” said Jerry Mallot, the president of the JAXUSA Partnership economic-development arm of the JAX Chamber.
The discussions didn’t wrap up then.
“They said there was a 7:30 a.m. conference call,” said Mallot, an executive-on-loan to Brown to advise the mayor on economic development.
By 3:30 p.m., the rollout was ready.
Before that, Mallot spoke to about 40 people attending the Economic Roundtable of Jacksonville meeting at noon Tuesday at the Jacksonville University Davis College of Business.
Mallot didn’t provide details of the legislation, but told the group there would be “a couple of bills” that would create a Downtown development authority and evaluate the processes and policies of economic development that would make it easier for a project to be approved through the City system.
Brown pledged to reorganize the City’s economic development structure, especially the functions of the 15-year-old Jacksonville Economic Development Commission, upon taking office July 1.
He also had promised a focus on Downtown by taking the legislative steps to turn the commission into an office of economic development to work with countywide deals and create a Downtown development board to emphasis revitalization of the City’s core.
“For the first time, we will have a Downtown environment and direction that will be more achievable,” Mallot said.
“Downtown is everybody’s neighborhood. Everybody has a stake in it,” he said.
Mallot said Downtown had a lot of potential and needed involvement. “It won’t get there by accident,” he said.
He outlined several projects Downtown, including the move of 1,500 EverBank jobs from the suburbs to the renamed EverBank Center and creation of at least 200 more jobs as well as the proposed redevelopment of the Laura Street Trio and old Barnett Bank Building.
“This is our neighborhood,” Mallot said. “This is a place we have to protect and develop.”
Mallot strongly lauded Brown’s vision, energy and focus and compared his policies to Republican Gov. Rick Scott in their efforts to make the business environment easier to access.
“I refer to them sometimes as twin brothers,” Mallot said of Scott and Brown, a Democrat.
He said that Brown “is a very conservative mayor.”
Mallot also spoke Monday to the Meninak Club of Jacksonville at the Wyndham Hotel on the Downtown Southbank.
He told both groups about the chamber’s recruitment process and listed almost 10 recently announced economic development deals.
“There is so much happening and there is so much more to come,” he told the roundtable Tuesday.
After “those bleak, bleak days” of the recession, he said the number of prospects considering and choosing Northeast Florida continues to increase.
Mallot said that 2012, being an election year, will probably remain steady for economic development, but he sees a lot of growth ahead.
“2013 and ’14 will be breakout years for the nation and the area,” he said. “And this year is going to be pretty good, too.”
He said that while small businesses might not yet have the same assurance, “a real solid confidence has developed in our community” among big and medium-size companies.
356-2466