J Magazine Summer 2018

districts. Live! properties feature covered, open-air
gathering spaces of 150,000 square feet or more with
giant video screens and a carefully planned mix of
national chains and local establishments.
The Jaguars-Cordish partnership makes a powerful
statement. Since buying the franchise, Khan
and his organization have become arguably the
greatest driver of economic development in downtown
Jacksonville. The Cordish Companies is a privately
held company with 1,000 employees that was
founded in 1910 and has reactivated downtrodden
areas across the country by building and managing
similar entertainment-fueled mixed-use districts,
often near sports facilities.
Cordish’s projects in Kansas City, St. Louis and
Baltimore impressed Lamping and Mayor Lenny
Curry when they boarded Khan’s jet for a tour of
Live! venues in July 2017. Conversely, Cordish is
sufficiently impressed with Jacksonville to invest its
brand and capital.
“On a national perspective, there are very few
opportunities like this,” Cordish Companies Vice
President Blake Cordish said the day of the announcement.
“You have a great city that’s growing
dynamically, so the foundation is there to have a
great community.”
There’s repeated evidence that the template
works.
Built in 2001, Cordish’s Power Plant Live! was a
shot of adrenaline to the rediscovery of Baltimore’s
“On a
national
perspective,
there are
very few
opportunities
like this. You
have a great
city that’s
growing
dynamically,
so the
foundation
is there.”
BLAKE CORDISH
The Cordish Companies
Vice President
Inner Harbor, which also was an industrial hazard
after decades of coal-fired power production.
St. Louis’ Ballpark Village, which carried a $100
million price tag and concentrated on entertainment
and retail adjacent to Busch Stadium, breathed additional
life into what has become a district unto itself.
The $260 million second phase currently is under
construction and includes a hotel and downtown’s
first new office building in 30 years.
And a decade ago, Live! was at the heart of the
$850 million, 12-square-block Power & Light District
in Kansas City, Missouri. Now, city officials
credit the Cordish development for igniting a $5
billion development boom that has seen the downtown
population increase from 8,000 to 30,000.
Power & Light “created a brand new base of suburbanites
who had never been to downtown in 30
years,” Bill Dietrich, CEO of the Downtown Council
of Kansas City, told the Dallas Morning News.
Jacksonville has the advantage of already bringing
people within walking distance of Downtown.
As they hammer out funding and move earth on
a four-square-block chunk of former parking lot to
give those event-goers a reason to stay for a drink,
a meal, a night or, maybe, to live or work, the city’s
public and private leaders will be making significant
steps toward a vibrant urban core.
KURT CAYWOOD, formerly Vice President of Audience at
The Florida Times-Union, is a contributor to J Magazine.
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