J Magazine Summer 2018

“There are in-fill buildings selling for $2 million
to $3 million a unit there. There are no office
vacancies left in those building.”
Margie Seaman, founder of Seaman Realty and Management
Co., said another deterrent to some of the vacant buildings being
filled is a zoning issue. She believes there should be a zoning overlay
that allows all Downtown buildings (with certain exceptions such
as office towers) to automatically allow commercial, residential and
office uses.
Seaman said she had a client who wanted to
open a storefront on the ground floor at 112 E.
Forsyth St. and live upstairs. She said it cost the
client a couple of contract extensions, thousands
of dollars in legal fees and a lot of heartache to go
through the zoning change process.
“That’s zoning from another time,” she said of
the current restrictions.
Seaman, who is from New York, said she has
seen firsthand how successful the zoning strategy
has been in communities outside of Manhattan.
“There are in-fill buildings selling for $2 million
to $3 million a unit there. There are no office
vacancies left in those buildings,” she said. “You
have people living and working in those buildings.”
Oldenburg praised the work being done in
Cincinnati and the successful partnership between
the local government, 3CDC and the philanthropic
businesses.
“It takes not only the city to step up, but the
corporations that call Jacksonville home and
who want to see it thrive,” he said.
Oldenburg acknowledged that Cincinnati is
home to more major corporations than Jacksonville.
And he wondered how community support
would have been different today if businesses
like The Charter Co. and Barnett National Bank
had survived and flourished versus shutting
down or being bought out.
Creative reuse of lazy assets
When DIA Operations Manager Guy Parola
looks at the list of vacant properties and land, he
sees some success stories and works in progress.
n The Barnett Bank Building and Laura
Street Trio are being restored by local developer Steve Atkins’
SouthEast Group and the Molasky Group of Companies from Las
Vegas.
n The building at 20 W. Adams St. was vacant when information
for the duPont study was compiled, but the long-planned 20West
Café has since opened. “I just had lunch there,” Parola said in May.
n DIA has partnered with the Jacksonville Transportation Authority
and Rummell Munz Partners to help develop a strategy for LaVilla,
which was mostly ignored until recently when Vestcor completed the
Lofts at LaVilla apartments and broke ground on a second complex.
Margie Seaman
founder of SeamAn Realty and Management Co
DOWNTOWN
MYTH BUSTERS
The “Downtown Jacksonville: Our
Assets and Opportunities” study
opens by exploding a few myths:
MYTH NO. 1
People from out of town
own most of the property.
Not true. Local people own 74
percent of the Downtown property.
MYTH NO. 2
There’s no place to park. Not
true. There are 11,927 public spaces
in garages and 6,100 spaces on
surface lots. The parking frustrations
are created by three factors: oneway
streets that create confusion
for drivers, archaic parking meters
and a lack of signage and publicity
for the parking that exists.
MYTH NO. 3
Churches, especially First
Baptist, own all the land. Not
true. Churches own just 4 percent
of the parcels and 6 percent of total
acreage. In fact, the largest owner of
Downtown property is government.
n The old city hall annex and Duval County courthouse on Bay
Street are likely to be demolished to make room for a proposed convention
center complex that could include a hotel and parking garage.
The DIA also has sent out proposals to sell some of the city’s other
lazy assets. The DIA recently approved the
sale of the building at 905 W. Forsyth St. to an
adjoining property owner.
In addition, the authority’s Retail Enhancement
Program has helped fill some vacancies
by offering financial assistance to companies
such as Jimmy John’s and Super Food and
Brew.
Some cities offer government-owned property
at a steep discount or even for free in an attempt
to find the right developer.
That’s something Meeks said he would support
for Snyder Memorial Church — a stately
building across the street from Hemming Park
and City Hall — if a qualified developer had a
plan and the resources to execute it.
“I’m only one vote … but I’d vote for that,” he
said.
Many believe the DIA has done a good job
with the limited taxpayer dollars it has received.
The results are scattered throughout Downtown,
including the Southbank and Brooklyn.
The problem is, more public funding is
needed.
Now that the city’s pension debt is being
addressed by a half-cent sales tax that begins
after the Better Jacksonville Plan sales tax expires
around 2030, that should free up money.
Downtown should be among the top priorities
to receive additional funds.
But even that may not be enough.
“So, part of it is what we want,” Meeks said.
“And I can tell you living in our neighborhood
(Springfield), we need more investment in our
infrastructure in a variety of ways.”
Meeks said many people, including himself,
are willing to pay for it through a tax increase.
But, can someone run for City Council and say, “We’ve got things
we need to do and we need to raise our millage rate by a point?”
Meeks asked. “Or would that doom the person to never getting elected?”
Perhaps a better question is how long can the city afford to not
properly fund its priorities.
Marilyn Young was an editor at The Florida Times-Union
in 1998-2013 and was editor of the Financial News & Daily
Record in 2013-2017. She lives in northern St. Johns County.
SUMMER 2018 | J MAGAZINE 97