By Karen Brune Mathis, [email protected]
Peter Rummell, whose latest project is “The Healthy Town” on the Downtown Southbank, was recognized last month with the 2014 Visionary Leader Award by the Urban Land Institute North Florida.
As he accepted the award, he offered a vision for Jacksonville: A city that brings together the experienced 65-year-old and the ambitious 32-year-old, connecting ideas and capital.
“We need to figure out how to merge Austin and Naples. Jacksonville could be that place,” Rummell said, referring to the young-adult Texas mecca with the affluent southwest Florida retirement city.
“Jacksonville desperately needs an identity. If we could be that merged place, it could be simpatico. It could be that cool place.”
Rummell, who turned 69 last month, has spent more than 40 years developing real estate, including as the former chairman and CEO of The St. Joe Co.
Healthy Town is a proposed health-oriented housing and mixed-used project on almost 29 acres of the former JEA Southside Generating Station riverfront site.
Rummell bid with Jacksonville developer Michael Balanky to buy the site and develop the project. The JEA board of trustees awarded the bid to Rummell and Balanky over one othere competitor.
Rummell and Balanky envision Healthy Town as a center for young and old, whose predominant common lifestyle is focused on optimal health.
“Healthy Town is what we think is a cool idea,” Rummell told the 140 participants at the annual “Awards For Excellence” event at WJCT Studios Downtown.
“We really want it here in Jacksonville,” he said.
Rummell connected One Spark, of which he is a primary funder, to his newest idea. “One Spark is built around the theme of the 32-year-old entrepreneur,” he said.
“As a 69-year-old, that’s been fine,” he said, explaining that 32-year-olds have a different view of the world.
“There also are a lot of cool 65-year-olds around,” he said.
The difference between the two are that the older person has experience, capital, a network and a Rolodex with solid contacts, along with credibility built over 40 years.
“There’s a funny kind of energy that comes when you’re playing the back nine,” he said about age. “You play a little faster, but you enjoy every shot you take.”
One Spark, he said, is identified with young people, “but it’s about everybody.”
He said he wants Healthy Town to attract both the 65- and 32-year-olds.
Convergence, Rummell said, “it’s the essence of an idea.”
He challenges the community to capture the energy of the out-of-town snowbirds who live part-time in the Ponte Vedra and Amelia Island resorts.
Those high-achieving visitors, he said, are successful and have capital, friends and expertise. Those assets need to be brought “into Jacksonville’s ecosystem.”
“Along the way, they will meet those 30-year-olds,” he said.
Rummell wants the city to be the place where “it’s cool to be young and it’s cool to be old.”
Rummell, who leads Rummell Co. LLC, served as the chair of the global Urban Land Institute from mid-2011 to mid-2013.
He also is past chairman of the Florida Council of 100 and the Jacksonville Civic Council.
Among the other categories and winners:
• Private sector: Mellow Mushroom in Avondale.
• Public sector: Cascades Park in Tallahassee.
• Downtown: New Town Success Zone.
• Reuse/repurpose: The Ice Plant in St. Augustine.
Award criteria were based on the ULI mission to provide leadership in the responsible use of land and in creating and sustaining thriving communities worldwide. The projects also had to have been completed within the past seven years.
The institute’s mission is to provide leadership in the responsible use of land and in creating and sustaining thriving communities worldwide.
It was established in 1936 and has more than 34,000 members representing land use and development disciplines.
The ULI North Florida District Council, formed in 2005, has more than 350 members from areas that include Jacksonville, Gainesville, Tallahassee, Panama City and Pensacola. For more information, visit northflorida.uli.org or uli.org.