I love Jacksonville’s historic downtown. I like to call the urban core Jacksonville’s “Original Town Center” because I am a history-loving nerd. Unlike today’s Town Centers, it wasn’t developed as a shopping mall surrounded by apartment complexes and gated communities. Don’t get me wrong, I like visiting the Town Center and I am glad we have an Apple Store. However, our city’s downtown is its heart and soul. It emerged from the ashes of its previous self, rising like a phoenix that brought forth creatives from all over the country to rebuild our city. It has history in the bones of every building that has evolved into each new use over time. It is beautiful and unique and something really special that we should all treasure.
For decades, our City leaders have struggled to find a way to invigorate and activate our downtown. So many proposals. So many ideas. So many plans that sit on shelves and collect dust. NO MORE! Maybe it is because I am an eternal optimist or maybe it is because I’ve been paying attention to the most recent spur in downtown development, but I think the time is now for our downtown to get its due! One new organization working to make that happen is Build Up Downtown (BUD) where I serve as an advisory committee member and share my extensive experience in nonprofit management and community development.
Allan DeVault is the organization’s Executive Director. He served on the Riverside Avondale Preservation board for years as the Treasurer, volunteering for events, pushing through legislation to help our city, and doing whatever he could to make Jacksonville a better place to live. He is someone who cares deeply about uplifting Jacksonville’s Urban Core, the OG: Original Town Center. What is Build Up Downtown? They are a nonprofit that “facilitates and advocates for preservation, smart development and great public spaces in Downtown Jacksonville.” LOVE THAT. More of all of that, please! It sounds easy — make downtown the place to be already! There are hundreds of people who’ve tried to do that in the past fifty plus years who would explain why it isn’t as easy as it sounds. If you want to get nerdy about it, check out these video interviews from the 1960s and 1990s of two Jacksonville visionary architects Bob Broward and Taylor Hardwick who discuss their visions for Jacksonville’s future as well as their disappointments over time.
I know from experience that it can be difficult to navigate the system as an investor in downtown. Build Up Downtown can make that process easier. BUD supports and builds on the good work of the Downtown Investment Authority (DIA) and Downtown Vision, Inc. (DVI). But what is really interesting and why I think they can make a big impact is that they are a privately funded nonprofit, which may give them more flexibility and agility in their work. Along with Director of Development Laura Phillips Edgecombe, DeVault collaborates with these publicly funded entities in an effort to make our downtown the “epicenter for business, history, culture, education and entertainment.” As a private nonprofit, they just have a little more leeway and ability to move things forward in creative ways. They are really good at being informed on all things related to downtown because they stay abreast of current events and are excellent at communicating with all the various stakeholders. That is an enormous job in and of itself but gives them a good vision for what everyone involved wants for our city’s future. They are also good at connecting people so that they can collaborate and create a greater impact, as well as working with current and future investors and businesses (like me).
As you watch the historic interviews above, you realize that Downtown has come a long way since the 1990s. We have some amazing historic commercial, mixed use, and institutional buildings designed by prominent architects that are being renovated, thanks to historic incentives from DIA. At the heart of our city is the lovely JWJ Park which hosts lots of wonderful events and is fronted by our City Hall, located in Henry Klutho’s 1912 “Prairie School Masterpiece,” the St. James Building. Diagonal across the park is MOCA Jax, a fantastic contemporary art museum located in the historic Western Union Telegraph Building. My husband’s grandfather delivered telegrams by bicycle out of this downtown building as a young boy.
Next door is a top notch Public Library in a contemporary building designed by the international architect Robert A.M. Stern. One of my favorite places at the library is the Florida Room on the 4th floor — it is a Jacksonville History Research Heaven! On the other side of City Hall there is one of the most whimsical candy shops I’ve ever been in, Sweet Petes, where you can get lost in the vibrant colors of sweet treats while you watch them making candy from above. Just steps down Laura is arguably the best bookstore in the country, Chamblin’s Uptown, with a great little cafe and a wide selection of new, used and collectible books (although the Roosevelt location is where you go to get lost in book heaven). This is all just right around JWJ Park. I haven’t even scratched the surface of what downtown has to offer or even mentioned the variety of great restaurants, bars, breweries and independent stores, all situated within blocks of the wide expanse of the beautiful St. Johns River.
As you can see, when I walk downtown I see lots of vibrancy already. However, I also know there is a lot of placemaking, smart development, and driving awareness to do. What is your vision for our Downtown? What elements do you think are the most important as we all plan for our city’s future?
Community Impact Statement – Build Up Downtown
Thriving downtowns are the heartbeat of every major city and Jacksonville should be no different. For decades, the momentum to change that has had many starts and stops. Right now, Jacksonville is on the doorstep of seeing that change and Build Up Downtown was created to assist in get over that step. There is momentum that we have not seen before that’s been set up over the past 10 years by stakeholders, public and private, that will revitalize our Downtown and keep that momentum moving forward. Jacksonville’s downtown will soon be a unique epicenter for business, history, culture, education and entertainment.