The Jacksonville City Council will consider proposals to give itself control over the hiring and firing of the lead executive of the Downtown Investment Authority and fund a special set of incentives for city-owned properties along the Northbank in the city’s historic core.
The proposals, which come in newly filed legislation scheduled for introduction on May 27, reflect recommendations from the Council Special Committee on the Future of Downtown.
Ordinance 2025-0395, introduced by committee chair Kevin Carrico and member Joe Carlucci, would require Council confirmation for hiring of the DIA CEO, who currently is selected by the DIA board. The board’s role would be reduced to appointing a CEO candidate to Council.
The ordinance also would give Council the authority to fire the CEO on a simple majority vote among its 19 members, meaning 10 votes would be required to oust the executive.
In another stipulation, the DIA board also can remove the CEO with a simple majority vote. The board comprises nine positions, meaning five votes would be required for the firing.
Melissa Ross, the director of strategic initiatives and press liaison for Mayor Donna Deegan, said in response to emailed questions that Council currently does not have authority to fire the head of the DIA.
The proposals emerge as DIA CEO Lori Boyer prepares to step away from the organization after leading it since 2019.
At the May 21 DIA board meeting, Boyer recommended to board members that they inform candidates for the CEO position about the removal provision in Carrico’s bill.
“That may impact the willingness of applicants to participate,” she said, adding that the provision “kind of works against the autonomy (of the DIA), but it’s in the legislation.”
Boyer is retiring effective June 30, 2025.
In its May 21 meeting, the DIA board approved spending up to $45,000 to obtain professional services from her after her retirement, including contract negotiations, document reviews and drafting of projects in which she is involved. As stated in Resolution 2025-05-06, which passed on a 7-0 vote, the board expects to make an offer to Boyer’s successor by June 20 but contract negotiations may take several weeks, in which time Boyer’s services will be needed.
Boyer, a former Council member and president who worked on the legislation that founded the DIA, has stated in community presentations that the organization was established as an independent authority partly to maintain continuity in Downtown revitalization efforts. Its independence was designed to protect it from changeovers in mayoral administrations that could have yielded shifting visions for how to improve Downtown.
Other provisions
The ordinance also reduces a threshold of incentive amounts that require Council approval. The amount would be reset to $10 million from the current $18 million.
However, Recapture Enhanced Value grants would be excluded from that provision. A REV grant is a refund on ad valorem tax revenue generated by a new development, meaning no cash is drawn from city funds to pay for those grants. Rather, the city forgoes a portion of tax revenue.
Another provision of the ordinance provides a five-year extension of the final year of eligibility for REV grants to 2050.
The legislation comes with a request for one-cycle emergency passage, meaning it would be approved in a single meeting as opposed to the Council’s normal six-week process. The ordinance states that the committee has completed its review of the DIA and wishes to adopt changes by the end of June when Council leadership changes.
New incentives
Carlucci submitted a related proposal, contained in Ordinance 2025-385, that appropriates $45 million for incentives for city-owned properties near the Hyatt Regency Jacksonville Riverfront hotel.
Those properties include the sites of the former Duval County Courthouse, which was demolished in 2019, a former courthouse annex and a parking lot that served the Jacksonville Landing, which also was demolished.
The money would be transferred into a fund identified in the legislation as the Downtown Riverfront Residential Incentives Contingency.
It would be drawn from the city’s reserve funding for workers’ compensation claims.
“This reserve amount is over and above the liability amount booked pursuant to the actuarial study provided to the City,” the ordinance states.
The special committee
Council member Ron Salem formed the committee in April 2024 while serving as Council president.
He said he created the committee over concerns about the progress of Downtown revitalization, which he described as “at best, debatable.”
The committee examined the DIA’s structure, priorities, track record and how it could be made more effective. Debate ranged from whether the DIA should be abolished to whether it should be enlarged and given more autonomy.
The committee began its work at a time of tension between Council and the DIA over failed negotiations to resurrect the Laura Street Trio, the collection of three historic buildings at Laura and Forsyth streets.
In March 2024, the DIA staff and the Trio’s owner, SouthEast Development Group, hit loggerheads over the latest of several proposals from SouthEast for city incentives for the redevelopment.
SouthEast principal Steve Atkins, who bought the Trio in 2013, received incentive packages from the city in 2017 and 2021 but could not bring the project to fruition either time. In early 2024, negotiations fell apart on another proposal, prompting Council to direct the DIA and city to try again.
In November, the city announced it was permanently ending talks with Atkins and SouthEast on the Trio and was refiling a foreclosure suit it brought in August 2024 saying the developer owed the city more than $800,000 in unpaid fines for municipal code violations.
SouthEast claims the city has unfairly cited incidents of graffiti and vandalism on the property as grounds for the suit.
After the city broke off relations with Atkins, news that Live Oak Contracting was pursuing a purchase of the Trio brought a new round of action by the city and Council.
Council passed a nonbinding resolution asking Deegan’s office to resume talks on redeveloping the buildings, and Carrico filed legislation to waive the fines.
The city responded by reopening negotiations, which resulted in the city pausing action on its lawsuit, and in January 2025 Live Oak announced it had reached an agreement on the purchase.
In March, the city announced that the sale had not closed and that it was restarting action on its suit.
DIA past and present
The DIA was created in 2012 as the economic development agency for Downtown and the overseeing agency for the two Community Redevelopment Areas that make up Downtown.
A CRA is a district that under state law can retain and redistribute tax revenue received through an increase in property values within its boundary.
In Downtown Jacksonville, the CRAs allow the DIA to use increased tax revenue Downtown to incentivize redevelopment or new development.
CRAs were created under state law to help redevelop blighted areas.
The DIA is overseen by a nine-member board whose members are appointed by the mayor and Council president, and confirmed by Council.
In addition to leading Downtown economic development, the DIA oversees the Office of Public Parking, which manages city-owned parking lots and garages. DIA staff also serve the Downtown Development Review Board, which essentially acts as a planning commission for Downtown.