Reinforcements for the Downtown Investment Authority are on the way in the coming weeks.
They just have taken a little longer than expected — a common criticism City Council members have had for the authority since it was created.
In mid-October, just after the authority’s $1.5 million budget had been approved, authority CEO Aundra Wallace laid out a hiring plan to the board for bringing on two additional staff.
The plan: descriptions and postings available just before Thanksgiving, screenings and reviews through December and hiring soon after, with the hope of being in place Jan. 1.
Now in mid-March, Wallace said Thursday the Downtown redevelopment manager and a real estate analyst should be in within the next several weeks. The former accepted the position last week and could be introduced to the board Wednesday. Wallace said he is making a decision on a job offer for the other position.
He said the delays came with ensuring the business plan matched up with the type of staff the authority would need. The authority’s board has been developing a business and redevelopment plans for many months with the anticipation of presenting it to City Council next month.
“The last thing you want to do is hire staff that can’t do what you need them to do,” he said, later adding: “When you have such a small team, you have to make sure they are skilled and cross-trained.”
Authority Chair Oliver Barakat said Wallace was not as familiar with city processes — such as working with its human resources and procurement departments — when he provided the initial hiring timeline. But, he said, once those steps were done, interviewing and higher took about 60 days, which was expected.
The redevelopment manager, Wallace explained, will be someone who is “hands-on” and deals with urban planning concurrency and walking clients through the process.
The real estate analyst position is someone who will “understand the big picture, the art of negotiating a deal” and will understand how such deals fit in with the business mission, Wallace said.
The two additions would bump the authority staff up to four, including Wallace and an assistant.
Wallace said the two new employees would annually make $60,000-$75,000.
“I think it takes a lot of stress off Aundra Wallace,” Barakat said. “He has been wearing multiple hats.”
Wallace said the field of candidates for each position was narrowed to 10 or so before he picked finalists.
Barakat said he and others, including Jacksonville Civic Council Executive Director Jeanne Miller and Jacksonville Community Council Inc. President and CEO Ben Warner,
interviewed the finalists in February.
“We have gone through the right process of looking at all the candidates,” Wallace said. “I am comfortable with the decisions I am making.”
In addition, he said that being small staffed means having to find people skilled enough to be cross-trained.
Neither Wallace nor Barakat said they knew how much in salaries and benefits for the two positions haven’t been spent. Barakat said if the authority is able to reallocate those funds, he will still suggest having council approve any shift.
If possible, though, he said the money could be used to hire experts to help with the business plan, using an example of a walkability expert to review Downtown’s one-way streets for conversion to two-way roads.
Fully staffed and plan-approved by council, Wallace said he expects the second half of the fiscal year to be more productive than the first six months that consisted of hiring due diligence and continued work on the authority plans. But, Barakat said not to discount the work that has been done to reach the current point.
“Hopefully by the end of the (fiscal) year, we will have a couple of projects under our belt,” he said.
The authority will be able to elaborate on the past and future six months this week when it presents its budget to a council committee.
Council Vice President Clay Yarborough, the group’s chair, last week said he wanted to hear an overview of what’s been happening with the authority and the status of its plans.
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