Special Committee on the Future of Downtown - May 11, 2026

all right yeah all right good morning it is monday uh may 11th 9 a.m we're going to go ahead and get started on special committee of the future downtown with introductions to the left bernie norris for the administration pauline hamsey council research carla shell office of general counsel philip peterson council lawyer's office ron salem group two at large joe carlucci district five and matt carlucci at large group four and we are hopefully still expecting council member peluso and council member areas uh i don't know if we didn't get any letters on them and then council member johnson i know was going to join us um since he's got a bill that is coming up later on so um let's go ahead and get into the agenda here um so item number one we're going to have miss edge come come up and give us kind of a recap of uh basically year to date and then state of downtown report where is she at is she here oh man she is slacking well daryl you're just gonna have to pinch it then man oh okay um yep so we're gonna go to daryl joseph with parks department and he's gonna give us all his fun updates and then mr tarber and then we'll kick it over to miss edge come whenever she gets here so take it away mr joseph you have three minutes i'm just joking good morning daryl joseph i'll take two and a half so great uh eric is there a clicker the presentation okay all right so i'm gonna ad lib a little bit since i don't have the presentation loaded um first of all daryl joseph uh director of parks city of jacksonville great to be here with y'all um just as it relates to downtown and a lot of our park development and work that's happening along the riverfront uh just really pleased to say that um the influx of activity construction activation that that we're seeing has been um nothing short of amazing one thing i will say is we have coming up this wednesday um an open house we've really been intentional as it relates to getting public feedback on what we do uh so riverfront plaza uh the next phase of work is underway so we actually will be doing um an open house do you have a handout is there a printout or is there something on the screen yeah this should be they're loading the presentation laura actually had the presentation sent over to them there she is miss laura eschcombe ladies and gentlemen she is in the house um where did eric go you don't have the present yeah i think he's working on it yep wizard in the back room is gonna get it clicked on here but go ahead we'll just kind of listen to you i guess for now and then they'll get it queued up one thing that's not in my presentation um so i don't have to repeat myself the cafe space that's at riverfront plaza we've actually put out a bid for a vendor to come in and operate that uh that will be for breakfast lunch as well as dinner um we we look forward to awarding that contract later on this week uh and have that vendor open that cafe space uh by the fall of this year so really excited um hopefully later this week i'll be able to announce who that vendor will be um but reputable company uh that will be operating that space so another thing to do while you're at riverfront plaza which one was that i'm sorry riverfront plaza yeah this is riverfront plaza the cafe space okay and sorry real quick if i just jump in for a question and um buy some time while they're trying to figure this out um once it's announced and everything what's the timeline for them like to where someone can walk in and actually get something yeah it'll be fall of this year fall okay yeah sorry if you said that yeah so there's a build out we actually uh left it as a shell so they'll be doing the build out over the next couple of months um and the goal will be fall of this year for opening okay cool do you want to go back to the agenda start with laura and we roll through it from there do y'all our presentation pretty much flows from that standpoint okay we'll go for we'll go that way but i know laura has a presentation too so hopefully they have that one just words great no pictures i leave the pretty things to the people doing the work good morning everyone laura phillips edgecombe address on file sorry the i made it through the train but didn't keep from getting stuck at the bridge that's okay so the issue is not in district five it was in district seven 100 okay just want to make sure all right but i am going to pull up the presentation just for myself so that i can see it and make sure that i go through this in the correct order basically so i'm going to be super short and sweet um as usual just a reminder um that the charge is to strengthen how jacksonville plans for governs and invests in the urban core um particularly um we've been spending this time uh looking at the mapping and alignment of the roles in the public realm um as well as looking at the strategy for the cra development and project negotiations um as we are coming now almost to the end of this particular 25 26 um special committee really excited to give a small update knowing that in june i'll have a full report for y'all on focus area one um and in addition to that recommendations for um what we'll do next just to recap we had identified that the gaps were lack of clear rule definition a lack of sustainable funding and capacity a lack of consistent vibrancy and density and a lack of overarching downtown marketing and positioning strategies um back in march y'all um approved a coordinated set of legislative actions um that were intended to strengthen alignment across downtown governance funding and operations and you also requested a series of third-party facilitated um interagency working sessions with participation from the dia parks and rec public works office of sports entertainment downtown vision um and we added the jacksonville riverfront alliance as well as the chair of the expanded special committee just want to let y'all know that um basically the update today is that meetings are moving forward um alongside the office of general counsel and the key stakeholders so that would be uh downtown vision as well as friends of james world and johnson park um as we are moving forward to um uh pull jw friends of jwj underneath the dvi umbrella um there are also um other um conversations that we're having on the cr the bid expansion to to match the boundaries of the cra so working alongside ogc in that those are moving forward and we'll have another update again come june um and then in addition to that uh the work of bringing everyone together as you can imagine everyone's really busy there's a lot going on um but it is a substantial effort and the work is continuing um we have a series of a series of meetings that have been occurring as um the jra is finalizing their contract with the city and once that's um been figured out then we will be able to pull that all into the overall matrix um and um come forth with recommendations in the june meeting on how to improve the coordination clarifying the roles in a series of matrix as well as funding needs across the agencies on how to either do um just the municipal services or the enhanced municipal services as they will be identified in the report um this also helps us when we are talking with private stakeholders looking towards the philanthropic arm in this overall p3 models that we'll need for both the both dvi and the jra um basically propose next steps for me at least on focus area one um i'll return in june with a 2025-26 expanded special committee of the future of downtown focus area one final report um that will basically uh wrap up and summarize the charge as was presented to this particular committee um and give you um also recommendations on how to take that forward into the 26-27 fiscal year as we know downtown is still ever growing and the momentum is very strong and also to note now this is the only one where i wish i did have a slide um the state of downtown report was just released so for those of you that don't know downtown vision is responsible for the research um that takes place when we look at who does what whether it's office vacancies we aggregate that information how many visitors we're having in downtown we aggregate that as well um and i say we because it's been publicly announced i now work for downtown vision um and part of that is we release a report every year that gives a roadmap as well as talking points to anyone who's talking about downtown um and that particular report was just released a handful of weeks ago um happy to present it um we are in the middle of printing copies or i would have had copies for you already um but i'm happy to send you all the link i would love for you guys to kind of dig into it as you have questions um it will be important to recognize that we are almost at this we're a little over 9 000 residents in downtown which is really exciting when you look at how we have gone from just 2016 to 2025 26 um within less than 10 years and we are well on track to surpass that um also we have roughly 20 000 visitors a month that are coming just for our public realm who do not live or work or play in down or they're playing but they don't live or work in downtown so we are these the the investment that you made through putting dollars towards public space spending your time now listening to those of us that are doing the work trying to help us take that go even forward um even further um it's clearly impacting the city as a whole and what we hope to also provide in addition to um the state of downtown report um in the final report that i provide for y'all it will also show that economic impact what that looks like what the future plans are as well i know that um daryl's going to speak a little bit about what they've been able to do in just the last couple of months um as we go forward um it's very important that we are recognizing the true economic impact of this as well as the community um need and buy-in for a for a true critical quality of life and with that i am done i see george talking to joe george are you okay do y'all have it he wants you to repeat the whole thing no okay we're good um so thank you miss etchcom i i had a quick question i don't know if we're um ready to get the presentation for park shed or not we also have two committee members in the queue um i'll let them go first with proper rules of order here and then i'll go with my question so council member salem thank you chair through the chair to miss etchcom um i i have read the report i believe the daily record did a nice job of publishing it a week or so ago the the number that really frustrated me was the the space of office space where we've had a significant precipitous decrease over the last several years of office space and i know one of the things that uh the council heard was the homeless population which which i think we've done a pretty admirable job through the path program of getting uh many of the homeless out of downtown and into into into services but the numbers don't seem to be improving at all is there a strategy that that someone is putting together to try to uh keep people downtown uh number one and attract people downtown for that matter yes so part of what is going on in addition to these sort of special committees the dia is looking at um attraction it means a lot of things for a lot of different people right you come downtown because you want to from a work standpoint you want to feel safe and that's a perception because we know statistically that this is the safest area in jacksonville but perception is reality for a lot of people and so um when you look at streetscapes when you walk by uh when you're walking down the street if there's a vacant building and it is dark and gloomy and doesn't feel safe then you don't feel safe and you don't want to be in downtown and you it could be any time of the day um and so the dia right now is actually looking at streetscape um a new streetscape program downtown vision is going to be working alongside them and looking at activating vacant storefronts so some of the boots on the ground the dia and dvi are very are working very closely in that area we're also talking about and working with the private developers not only on what that looks like from a baseline you know street level but also what can we do from the private sector we know that governance is critical to everything that we do but a lot of time the money speaks more than what we can do in meetings that take time sometimes things take too long when we're in this in these you know it is difficult sometimes to really move the ball at the momentum we need to going as quickly as the momentum of downtown is growing right now as we're having conversations with the private development and the private side and the philanthropic side in general over the unhoused population what we can do in that arena as well as what we can be doing for those vacant storefronts um i've had several meetings in the last couple weeks i was in denver uh two weeks ago just specifically on the unhoused population side of it working alongside the mayor's office and with our um continuum of care there will be conversations coming forward working alongside hic as well as what you're doing with the um social committee for homelessness on doge to see where the dollars are and what we can actually do now that we have some sort of a plan um and then in addition to that looking at what the when i talked about the financial needs and the things we'll need for this vibrancy and this feeling and this this perception of safety and people wanting to be down here um we are looking at um that's some of the work that the dia and dvi as well as the jra once they come on board will be talking through um again there is a baseline that the city will need to be able to provide and then the enhanced municipal services above and beyond that private sector philanthropic sector i can assure you though it is part of our conversations on a very regular basis i just if i can continue i just am concerned and i see some of the gateway people in the back as as we're adding um that type of space downtown with future development i worry about some of these older buildings and they're just my concern is they're just going to be vacant so um when you look at there's one of the things that uh downtown vision is doing right now um per the request of the dia is looking at every single vacant storefront in in downtown so we can identify what are those storefronts we can identify who those landlords who they are we can figure out in what area are they in what is that what is that best suited for as you know the dia has um like a food and beverage district right we have a nightlife district we have pockets up from our true urban planning side on what we're doing in downtown um and so when we look at when we're able to identify where are those vacant spaces we can then identify what are the needs in those spaces as we go forward there are conversations that are happening every day with developers and investors from outside of jacksonville who are chomping at the bit to come in they just need to know where they should go and so part of the work that we're doing right now is so that we can provide them around the fall um we're looking at providing and putting together a summit so we can put together and actually identify the areas that are needed and necessary to have those people come in because ultimately our downtown is again y'all know i grew up here i have stories from my grandparents i have stories from my parents i downtown for me was a bustling business but downtown's now more like a neighborhood i mean it really is genuinely becoming more as we have more residents more things to do here more places to eat it's becoming more of a neighborhood and so we have to balance between office and neighborhood thank you chair okay i think it's an important point and i'm glad councilman salem absolutely someone is focused on it absolutely thank you all right i agree though the that needs to be the next kind of maybe focus that we look at and i know dia has got their their hands wrapped around that um but a lot of it does come down to the landlords um so all right council member matt carlucci thank you mr chair and i want to pick up on uh what both the chair and mr salem were talking about but i don't want to drag it on through here they've already said some of what i wanted to say what i would like to ask is um after this meeting are you going to be around or do you need to go somewhere after this meeting um well this meeting will probably wrap early but um regardless so i will definitely have time but regardless uh councilman carlucci i'll make time for you after this i'm happy to be here okay well i appreciate it so i want to interrupt your time but um but i if if you and i could meet maybe after this meeting i have some ideas and also have a feeling i know what part of that problem is and how maybe we can uh work through that uh to get some of these buildings occupied wonderful uh so we could talk about that that would be super absolutely yes sir and if there's somebody from the mayor's office that would like to join me i'd be uh happy to have them to join me britney and uh okay uh okay thank you very much thank you all right uh all right uh the question the two questions i have are um it sounds like you're we kind of been working on this like org chart type of everybody who's doing everything whatever um did i hear you right when you said the jra is pretty much um you know five yard line they're getting everything wrapped up with the mayor's office and then once that becomes concrete you can kind of disseminate the actual org chart and everything yes sir okay um is there a timeline miss norris on like the jra where i got i had an update like two weeks ago i just don't know what where it's at i don't need like specifics i just want to know like who's waiting on what miss ott's also in the room if you'd like to let i just want to know who's waiting on what that's all i really want to know i would need to get an update from director joseph oh here it comes here all right all right good morning again daryl joseph so as relates to the jra agreement uh the agreement is with office of general counsel they're actually jra sent that over to us so they should have a draft back to them early this week and then we'll be moving forward to the legislative process okay okay cool thanks that's all i need um and then the second thing uh with regards to the state of downtown report um the residents are like 9 000 whatever um how what's the ratio like how many units do we have so we so this is this is always a fun game right we have to remember that we are for almost four square miles and so everyone's like 10 000 people will be great and we'll be fine um we ultimately need more like 10 000 units which gets us roughly 17 000 residents we are well on our way right now to 6 000 units in downtown um but the under construct between what we have inventory already and then under construction so we are well on our way what we have coming in the pipeline and coming down the way by 28 29 we will surpass that 10 000 unit number okay so i just want to make sure we're asking um and this is probably obvious but when y'all get the number for residents are y'all just asking all of basically the giant developments like hey what's your occupancy and then you're just adding all those up so some of there's a couple different ways that we um aggregate that information yes clearly we're talking with the property owner management groups and those sorts of things um as well as looking i mean everyone when you have residency right you have to you have um either you're registered to vote or you're registered you know at that address so we do look at actually what the um the census shows uh and here and what's actually registered here in duval county within a particular uh set of boundaries okay okay cool um those are all the questions i have so i think we are good to go okay thank you so much and now mr joseph i believe we have your presentation queued up all right they're working or scooting along all right we got it all right again daryl joseph parks department um well thank you all for the time today uh so as it relates to parks and our riverfront as i mentioned before providing or receiving community input has been kind of the pillar of what we actually have moved forward with as far as getting information on what these parks need to be and making sure these are parks for everyone so this wednesday we actually have an open house inside the cafe space at riverfront plaza that is at four starting at four o'clock and goes to 6 30 so that will actually provide information and share what the phase two of work will look like i'm just pleased to say that we work really closely with gateway jacks as relates to making sure our spaces speak to each other so we've really worked well with that group i want to thank them publicly for their work construction phase two at riverfront plaza is underway and we've been moving forward with that project one thing that we have done is making sure that we have access from riverfront plaza that allows you to get down to the hyatt that riverwalk space in that direction is open and available to the public the slides that you see before you is shipyards west as well as met park both of these both of these projects will start construction this year shipyards west this summer we'll be moving forward with the phase one of that one first which will be the space closest to the orlick and then move throughout the park and then met park will be done all at one time met park will be complete by the end of 2027 and then shipyards west will follow in 2028 additional openings so this wednesday we will be opening the north bank riverwalk the section near mccoy's creek that will be reopened to the public a lot of excitement and in addition to that the musical garden behind the performing arts center also will be open this wednesday corkscrew park which received a lot of use prior to it closing down this was almost our fitness hub for downtown a lot of fitness equipment work with dvi to actually activate that space so we're just really looking forward to expanding and providing another location that could actually be activated this is pictures of the music uh riverfront music garden so again we'll open this wednesday morning activation can't can't say enough as relates to my parks team as far as making sure it's great to have amazing spaces but they're not so amazing if no one's using them one thing i can truly say is these spaces are getting daily use we actually have the numbers to to back those up speaking of numbers 32 000 eggs is what we distributed for easter this year a great celebration down at riverfront plaza over 10 000 visitors for the event 20 community partners and we actually had some high school students volunteering as well a lot of our staple events that we have been continuing and will continue the saturday sounds at friendship fountain has truly been popular providing something for people to do on a consistent basis we actually have that every saturday there's something to do at the fountain in addition to the light show that restroom facility is open now so you actually have a restroom facility to utilize as well movie night movie night over near the skate park at the artist square it's a monthly event we've actually purchased the led screen that provides us opportunity to start the movies earlier our visitation for this has been really consistent so we look forward to moving these out throughout the year and throughout the summer food truck program this has been really successful just tying into the business community helping activate these spaces a lot of these businesses have also been moved into brick and mortar really feeling the buzz of downtown and keeping that activation and keeping that activity current one fun fact friendship fountain and river's edge have been the most utilized we're currently booked out at those lotion locations to the end of june again our social media presence and garrett on my team and eric have done a great job as far as making sure people know what we're doing so please follow us we have a jacks park app those that are on instagram facebook follow us so you can find out what we're doing we don't take it for granted that everyone has social media so really working for different ways to try to make sure that we get the word out of all the exciting things that are happening in downtown jacksonville all right councilman really quick i don't know if now's the time um leslie with the dinner boat is actually here if i can give her two minutes of my time as well i would like for her to just give a quick update on what she has going on with the jack's river jack's yacht okay yeah we can do like two minutes for that um i want to welcome councilmember feluso uh for joining us and yeah good morning everyone my name is leslie from jack's yacht charter and if you have not been on board the royal princess i want to invite you we're talking about the state of downtown and the future and honestly i really feel we are part of the future right now i can barely talk because i was yesterday we had a double mother's day open to the public we were sold out for our brunch cruise and then we had another cruise in the evening with my children we are family owned and veteran women-owned business with over 20 years experience in new york and we're now here in jacksonville and you have to experience this firsthand to see the emotional impact it's making on people who've somehow never been on a yacht and you can see all the development from the royal princess and it's beautiful and it's exciting and we're showcasing downtown jacksonville but we can only do that with funds that we need in august we have to get hauled out to get our bottom inspected we're working we're hoping to get into fink and thierry which is right across the river from us we've met with the ceo a haul out of this nature could cost 50 to 100 000 this is we are we fund everything ourselves and if there is money in downtown to help small businesses renovate buildings we may not be brick and mortar on the land but we certainly are brick and mortar on the water and we want to be part of that pie i don't know how it the process works but i would like to talk to you all about that um i have some paperwork here but i just want to say relax and jacks aboard the royal princess thank you all right thank you so much i've been on uh the yacht i think once or twice now and it's absolutely it's beautiful it's amazing so congratulations on having a a great mother's day yesterday um so uh mr joseph did you have anything else that you wanted to add because we have a few people in the queue for questions yeah just checking to see if we had any questions okay great yeah uh council member salem and then council member peluso thank you chair through the chair to mr joseph you might recall in finance uh 18 months ago or so we had quite a debate about parks and funding and and actually uh we trimmed some dollars from i believe it was metropolitan park if i recall correctly are we in budget as you look forward are we going to have any issues staying within the budget that we set up i think the chair to councilman salem thank you for that question yeah i do yes i do recall um we are on on time and we're on budget at this point um these projects have gone really well haskell has been our construction partner on these projects so really looking at ways that we can be most efficient but also get to the finish line of constructing the pro constructing the projects um and making sure that the projects are what we intended from the beginning so short answer is yes sir we're we're on budget on these projects and second question if i can and this to you or the or the or the lady that was speaking about the yacht i don't recall your name is that is that purely a private effort the yacht is owned by someone and it's a it's a for-profit type effort can you help me understand that yes sir it's a private entity that manages and operates the yacht we parks that are rfp request for proposal uh seeking someone to activate um is exactly what they're doing so we manage their contract but it's privately funded privately owned they actually pay us a fee monthly to actually use our docking space so there's no city dollars going towards this effort they're paying us to use our dock yes sir thank you very helpful all right council member peluso you're recognized thank you chair and i apologize for being late but i did hear much the presentation uh while i was coming in um thank you daryl for a great update per usual very excited about the programming of these parks uh the east the the that was the first easter event that we've done here in this in that part or in the city right with the with the eggs with the egg hunt we did we did one last year at friendship fountain um the space at friendship fountain didn't serve to be adequate or as far as the number of people that came out riverfront plaza gives us more space uh so this is our second year of doing the kind of city-wide egg hunt uh last year we thought 10 000 eggs was a lot we actually you know increased that number to the almost 30 000 yeah i mean more any amount of eggs you put out they're eventually going to get found uh no i mean great great cities have great parks um and great programming and that's just a piece of that so i'm very grateful to you for that i think that the pictures alone looked phenomenal and and the the weather seemed great um so one of the one of the things that i've been talking to a few folks about actually real quick phase two for riverfront plaza is that at all being affected by the the gateway tower and all that is that going to be completed on time or are we still waiting on them for a few things through the charity councilman peluso so as relates to phase two riverfront plaza we work hand in hand as relates to their development making sure the two projects speak to each other but we're not waiting on their project we're moving forward with the park space okay good just want to make sure because i've had a few people talk about that too um the entire riverwalk right now it's my understanding that there's multiple different contractors that have different segments of the riverwalk that they're doing planning on is there ever going to be an appetite to have kind of one solid plan for all of the riverwalk and possible expansion to make it wider things like that in the future through the charity councilman peluso we're working with one of our design partners currently uh on a riverwalk continuity plan uh one thing that i've never seen is truly just a a full image basically showing what the future of the riverwalk is uh so we should have that later on this year um no matter who's scheduled to actually build it basically it will actually show those locations and show everything that is for us from a connectivity standpoint yeah and even dreaming in the future of how the riverwalk can expand down to memorial park well for one i would love for it to expand to memorial park i think myself and many others would continuity plan is great and all you know what we kind of have a continuity plan currently right i mean i think it's all about getting maybe one contractor to do the whole thing and then whatever developers must must align with that um as opposed to having all these different contractors that's something that i've been wanting to talk about a few folks with the riverfront um parks you know folks have come out i'm sure sure laura's talked to them as well um but but that's just something that i know i'm interested in chair and i kind of want to see if that's that there's an appetite for that so that we have a better consistent idea of what the what the riverwalk's going to look like what year it's going to be done things like that um to to the point of the the cruise uh very very excited uh for for your success one of my questions is you're going to be in dry dock in august do you know how long it's going to be sorry as short as possible um i just want to add mr salem we are working with the city as much as we can you have a the third thursday of every month is sip and stroll where last time we had 200 people walking up and down the south bank and we do a complimentary open house where we invite anyone to come on board between 5 pm and 8 pm and then if they want to cruise for an hour we only charge 35 dollars it is exploding people are like this is the most amazing thing thank you i get thank yous who thanks me i've never had that in new york anyway um so we also are working with blue water maritime we're going to be offering some educational opportunities to mariners um who want to learn about there's no k-boat in this harbor a k-boat is any yacht over 149 passengers ma'am just just in the because we have so much time the question was about being in dry dock oh dry dock i'm sorry 30 days two months hopefully no more than two weeks okay i just want to make sure that's what i'm hoping good the reason the reason is is obviously we're going to have the jaguar season and i would imagine you guys would want to be active especially in those early months when the weather's going to be really nice we want to get hauled out we want to get scraped and that's it gotcha um to to that point though i i do kind of concur i mean if if the city or dia or whomever can kind of be helpful to that effort we really haven't seen the the river being utilized in this manner in quite some time and so especially as we're kind of activating i think it's there's high value in making sure that we have some sort of uh activity for people to go to uh all days of the week right i'm i was concerned about the everbank deal because i don't think that we're going to see people here on the weekends hanging out in the everbank tower so when you have activities and things that people can do all seven days a week that that makes me a little bit more comfortable about putting in uh public dollars so that's just kind of my opinion thank you daryl thank you ma'am all right thank you thank you and daryl the north bank riverwalk opening is you said this wednesday what time uh 11 a.m 11 a.m okay and i'm assuming like they're just walking from there down to the music garden as well so so we'll actually have an event at the music garden will actually be the ribbon cutting okay for both uh so that's wednesday morning at 11 a.m okay so the ribbon cutting is actually at the music garden and then the the riverwalk's just open okay cool cool all right uh that's all i think we have we don't have any other speakers in the queue michelle i meant to ask you this question related to miss edgecombe's um presentation i know you've been working tirelessly on all these bills the james wilton johnson legislation where there are going to be moving into dvi where is that at to the chair so the current contract for maintenance and programming in james wilton johnson park um it's on its second and final amendment it concludes september 30th so the new contract will take place october 1 with the annual appropriation that is um goes to parks for that purpose um so that legislation is being drafted now um to to allot that to dvi instead of the friends of group okay so when can we expect to have that like filed i know it won't take effect until october but i'd like this committee to introduce that sure so that's the intent to have the the special committee introduce it another component that needs to be worked out is the contract so the legislation um authorizes the mayor to um sign the contract between parks and dvi and the terms of that need to be negotiated so they while they're working on that i'm working on the legislation and when they get that um kind of iron those terms out we'll we'll move forward okay and then the second item that i know you have worked on among like six other ones is the dvi expansion is that where is that at in all the grand scheme of things um so through the chair so expanding the yes expanding the bid boundary to encompass the entire cra boundary um the i've been working with the folks at dvi and and um talk to dia a little bit about this um the plan to implement it for fiscal year 2028 um requires the filing of legislation this spring with declaring with declaring the intent to use the uniform method under chapter 190 of florida statutes this spring you mean like next what are we in oh okay got it okay so so through the chair the plan is to use um chapter 197 to declare intent to use the uniform method this spring um and then have hold the public hearing all the proper notices for that and then the second step is the um certification of the assessment rule come next spring so that's the easy way to do it it requires it's a multi-step process under florida statutes there's public hearings there's newspaper notice there's mailed notice required there is potentially it possible to implement fiscal year 2027 it's much more complicated and requires double the legislation double the public hearings notice etc because you have to implement under chapter 170 and chapter 197 possible a lot more difficult up to you all from a policy standpoint of when you want to implement this and in what your what your goals are in that regard okay no i mean i think i think in this instance you know more time is not a bad thing so um i'm not in a rush to do it it i am just wanting kind of to know um is that so this spring there's a bill that's filed all the public hearings all the whatever whatever and then it goes to the next phase the following spring that's what i'm hearing yeah so through the chair what what i would do now for fiscal year 2028 implementation is declare intent to use the uniform method of collection under 197 now there is a public hearing that would be held after it needs to be noticed for four consecutive weeks and then we'll hold a public hearing go through that then it must be sent to department of revenue the tax collector and a property appraiser so that's kind of what would happen this summer that first step um and then the second step is the legislation come next spring okay cool thank you so much i appreciate that all right now we are in the last part of our agenda today so mr tarbert come on down uh good morning uh members of the committee uh my name is colin tarbert i'm the ceo of the downtown investment authority and uh today i'm also joined by a number of board board members and staff um so we will go through this um i want to start off with a couple pieces of legislation that we've been working uh with the chair on and wanted to present to the committee um there's two here um that i believe we filed last week um one is um in the downtown revitalization downtown economic development fund uh which is a fund that dia oversees uh we had some interest earnings because we had completion grant funding sitting there um and so there's about 1.1 million dollars of earnings that accrued in that account and so uh we've made the suggestion to the chair and to the committee that those funds um be earmarked for completion grants that are coming up in the fiscal year because we know that there's an additional there's additional funding that's needed to for those and so it basically sort of said we found this you know 1.1 million dollars um in conversations with the chair and that um you know that could essentially go towards uh completion grants to help offset the general fund uh so that's one piece of legislation and then the second one here is just a fee framework this was presented to the board actually both of these items were presented to the board last month the fee framework is what we talked about a little bit before just dia having the ability to charge administrative fees for some of the work that we do specifically with developers so one of the changes that we've made is to contract out third-party underwriting so we've got three financial consultants to help dia this was in part because of mr kelly's retirement and so for a portion of those fees that are related directly to a project that a developer is bringing to us we want to be able to actually you know recoup those costs and there may be some other fees that we're looking at in terms of just administrative costs for rev grants and loans that are particular to a developer to a project um not for you know small businesses or other programs like that so those are the the two pieces of legislation we wanted to present to the special committee today okay great no those are um let me just check if there's anyone in the queue for these i don't have anyone um but yeah no that worked that that is great um obviously the interest earnings are going to go kind of back to our uh list of completion grants that got that has to get paid down um and then obviously your free your fee uh framework is kind of already done i think partly in practice uh so now this is kind of just codifying it but obviously will that have a will that have an impact on y'all's kind of administrative budget so to speak in your office or is it kind of a net zero sum it'll it'll be sort of net uh we're basically just charging the the fee to the developer that we have to cost there'll still be cost to us for the financial consultant when they're not doing work specifically for a project just doing more general analysis for us okay awesome go to the next slide uh so the next slide is um the next two items are items that are coming up to the dia board uh for consideration this month um so next wednesday may 20th we plan to present the next two items and so uh as we've been doing with the special committee previewing it with you all and getting your feedback prior to the board meeting uh the first one is for the riverfront riverfront plaza restaurant parcel um you may remember that we issued a a notice of disposition to solicit proposals for a restaurant operator at riverfront plaza we received two proposals one local one uh more national and uh we had a dia evaluation committee that met um on april 30th reviewed both proposals one was prohibition kishin um which is uh an entity that's located out of st augustine the second was atlas restaurant group a group that's headquartered in baltimore atlas scored higher they scored about 90 out of 100 and the other scored roughly 71 out of 100 and so there will be a recommendation going to the board to move forward with the atlas group there would be a restaurant that would be constructed on the pad and then the tenant would do the fit out for the for the corn shell i mean sorry for the for the restaurant the city would fund the corn shell and the idea would have all of this open if we can move quickly enough for that riverfront plaza phase two opening at the end of 2027. go to the next one yeah you can keep you on and we'll ask questions at the end and then the um the second one is gateway jack's hotel marydell uh also known as the ambassador they recently kind of came up with a new brand a new uh name for the project um this is a historic redevelopment it's about 191 or 109 109 keys total 50 million dollar um total development cost uh this would include a new uh restaurant um operated by indigo road hospitality group which would also be operating the hotel and so there's a dprp request of 10.1 million dollars for this project under the current analysis that we did they'd actually be eligible for up to 15 million dollars but in conversations with the developer and based on the financial analysis that we're doing and that we'll present uh we think that the 10 million dollar dprp request um is sufficient for the developer to get the returns that would be structured like uh the other you know the typical dprp program where it's um two components that are forgivable loans and then one component that is um a loan that is paid back that's roughly 20 percent so call it two million dollars uh which of the 10 would be a loan that would be repaid uh under the program um this one has a very high uh return on investment for the city typically dprp we we threshold is 0.5 this one is point um oh sorry it's 1.8 in excess just because it's a hotel it generates a lot of taxes and revenue for the city it has high employment for the city this is the first project that we've used um a third party consultant to do the analysis for and so that'll be presented to the board uh next week but the consultant on this one is chm warnick their national firm that specializes in hotel asset management evaluation etc and so again that'll be presented next uh week for the board's consideration this would need um general funds for the dprp program um there's a number that are coming through the council right now specifically if you include this one there's there's roughly three uh there is the n7 public's project for lack of a better description mixed-use apartments and grocery the second one is the baptist hotel project and then the third one would be this while there's other projects that are out there we don't have any additional requests for general funds at this time and so i'm hoping that these three if we can move them through council over the summer and fund them the other projects that we have that we're working on will be funded through essentially dia and or funding that's already been earmarked kind of in the general fund so those projects include snyder which dia has funding for mags cafe was recently approved by you all thank you that's also being funded through uh dia so the goal would be hopefully there would be at least a pause for general funds um as we move through these projects and projects come online we'll be able to judge the market a lot better i can stop there for questions the next slide is um okay let me check real quick okay yeah let's stop there for questions and then we can go into the the parking slide which i know we'll have questions as well um council member matt carlucci uh thank you mr chair did we um talk about the uh the dining on the river there at the uh plaza yet yes this is i just brought up the slide yeah okay i thought we did um did we decide what kind of what's what it's going to be what kind of food there's uh there's there's two proposals the proposal that scored highest and that would be presented to the board next week um is kind of a upscaled yet still you know approachable seafood uh restaurant um and that's presented by atlas group the other proposal was more of a gastropub with live entertainment which was prohibition kitchen so the proposal that scored higher was more of a a sit down um oyster bar seafood restaurant um still reasonable but a little bit more upscale in terms of seafood scored higher yes okay good um i'm just saying this throwing it out there um i would use a different word than gastropub i might call it a uh um i don't know a uh fork and barrel uh uh a uh craft bar and kitchen uh a cook house uh the other name is just a little bit of a turn off to me just throwing that out there but i'm glad seafood one thanks all right next we have council member sayon thank you chair through the chair mr talbert thank you for coming you piqued my interest with these hotels and general fund dollars uh the publics i think most of us were aware of as you know the council has worked extremely hard to reduce the commitments that we have in the future on completion grants can you run through um i all three of these completion grants question number one question number two how much are they that you're going to be requesting and in what years are you going to be requesting sure i might not have the the years off the top of my head um so two of the three that i mentioned this morning have gone through uh the dia board and then will be presented to the council the first is we'll call it publics and seven uh that one i believe is 28.5 million dollars um and if i got that wrong cindy trimmer will correct me um smiling okay is she nodding yes um the the second project is the baptist health hotel project that's a total of eight million dollars um that one is split over two years um both of those projects have not you know broken ground yet um if they're approved they could break ground i think the n7 project is pretty far along so that could break ground um towards the end of this year baptist is still in design so that probably wouldn't break ground until next year and i'd say each of those projects is at least the 18 month project to kind of project it out we do have it on the completion grant tracking list so we can get you those fiscal years i just don't want to misspeak in those but let's just assume it's about two years two years from out the project that's in front of you right now hotel marydale could actually probably happen faster just because you already have the structure there it's a historic renovation so it's not um it's not easy but it's also could move could move a little bit faster and potentially be completed before those other two projects um and this is 10.1 million dollars okay i think it's around 46 if i'm doing the math right and it's it from once you're indicating you don't have the dollars within your own cra to support these that you're looking for the general fund to support these yeah we wouldn't have it at this magnitude within the cra we've kind of tapped out the cra for the smaller projects being snyder mags snyder was i think four and a half million mags is about three and a half million right so we've we've tried to fund those out of what we can yes well last question obviously we prefer um um my mind just went blank loans rev grants thank you council member corollucci rev grants versus completion grants is there any way to convert some of these to rev grants versus completion grants these these do have rev on them um for the baptist hotel uh we looked at that kind of under two different programs and moved forward with the program that we could have a higher rev on to to lower the completion grant um so we will do that and we'll kind of present that to the board um understanding that that's the preference um but these are basically um kind of maxing out the the rev i believe where we can and then there's still that financial financial gap so i i guess it's a total of around 46 47 million dollars correct over potentially several years i yeah i'd like to see those put on the spreadsheet and see how they play out and if you can get that uh to the auditors to where we could see that that'd be very helpful to me yeah absolutely thank you sir sure all right and and yeah i do i do agree with just i do kind of want to see an updated spreadsheet from kind of when we started this committee um or when we even started this uh fiscal year we've made significant you know um payments towards these completion grants so i'd love to see kind of the new timeline um so to speak of all those um okay we'll go to council member peluso thank you chair uh thank you colin for the update i know there's more to it and we just stopped here so i might as well bug you about a few things um the first one is i'm i'm still i'm grateful that you guys are doing dprp i still think it's a good program i know that some people get a little bit uh upset about you know the need for going into the general fund but this is a historical building as well so that needs to be reminded that we are we are imbuing a lot of love and attention to these historic properties and we can't build them again so so the historical component is is why the price is where it is i'm perfectly fine with that um because i think there's a public interest and involved on top of that as i look at like the how much the taxes are on that property right now it's only 29 grand imagine what's going to happen once we start seeing a hotel go there and and values just skyrocket like we're going to be collecting so much more dollars i mean one of the things we consistently see in the daily record is all these properties that are just not you know carrying their weight when it comes to to property taxes and and i'm assuming at least on commercial properties and properties like this we'll still have property taxes so like things like that are just we need to keep in the back of our mind every year we don't do anything we're missing out the opportunity cost is too great so so very grateful uh to see that move forward and i and i expect to support it heavily uh but let's go to the restaurant on the park um i'll probably come and speak on the 20th i'm still i'm still not fully sold uh my big issue continues to be you got that you got the beer hall we're going to have the tower with multiple restaurants in it i think you do the restaurant or the beer hall pick one like the the cost for the shell is how much four million but this is eight million for the restaurant corn shell the private sector will invest another four plus million dollars that's still city money right that's still a considerable amount and it's just a matter of if we've already you know there just doesn't seem like there's a not not enough park for all that private development i'm fine with some of it i'm i supported the tower i still do i think a hotel there is okay i think to pick one or the other and i'm gonna i'm gonna pursue that with your board and hopefully uh we can kind of get some answers on that so i'm just putting that out there now and that's that's just just not enough park thanks all right we have council member matt collergy uh thank you mr chair um when's your next meeting i want to be there and argue with peluso uh through the chair next wednesday at 2 p.m anyway um the um the completion granted that's on the uh grocery store is that correct i'm going back to them the completion grant for ends that yeah the completion grant for n7 is the entire project so it's 250 apartments structured parking and um the grocery store so the total project is in excess of you know 100 plus million dollars the whole project has a completion grant in there yes okay is part of the reason that it has a completion grant in there because i'm just asking um because of the uh the margin of of profit uh the the spread of the profit on the grocery stores on all grocery stores is so thin would that be one reason i'm just i'm just asking yeah that's one reason in the sense that the well it's a large uh square footage of retail it the grocery stores you know notoriously pay not a lot in rent and so that project in some ways is a little bit i'm gonna call it a loss leader but basically they're they're probably going to have a lower return on that overall project in order to support the grocery store which will support the rest of the retail that's going in throughout that development as i understand it um as we went through talking over the last two terms about food deserts one reason uh areas sometimes can't sustain a grocery store is there's just not much margin for profit on grocery stores you got to have an immense amount of volume of people buying because it's not like um a retail store where you could mark something up double um there's just not that much uh room on a gallon of milk you know like there would be something in a retail store for profit that's what i'm trying to get to because we all would rather have rev grants because it's not cash out of the general fund and so that's kind of why i'm asking why there has to be a completion grant on there and is the grocery store part of that reason why that the completion grant is needed very much so the the grocery store is very expensive to build it doesn't produce a lot of rent income for the developer for the very reason you're saying that it's a you know the one percent margin for for a grocery store uh in most cases and i'd also say that this grocery store not only will it serve the new kind of downtown neighborhood of pearl square but i think it will also probably be the closest grocery store to springfield which i've had a number of springfield residents also kind of remark about their excitement which hopefully will support increased home values in springfield not just you know in the downtown core but it's sort of an investment um in the in the greater area and that's why we need a relatively large completion grant on this project um it's also the 250 apartments will be concrete construction which i think for the downtown core might be the first one and so again you're you're bringing in a higher level quality of construction which is also it'll increase rents but it'll also be you know substantial cost up front what what is exciting just as an observation for whatever it's worth it's worth a lot to me is uh 24 25 years ago there was a big push towards identifying the historic buildings downtown that were to be identified as those worth saving towards restoring uh and so much of what that north core area is doing is restoring a lot of the buildings that were identified in that uh jones brothers is one of them uh the baptist i think i'm not sure if the baptist building is it's one of them i'm not sure if it's connected in with i think it's connected in one that's being restored but the ambassador hotel i'd never really looked at that before because it's kind of covered up with uh with with trees and scrub oaks and i mean you just couldn't really see it but when you get back and you really take a look at it it's it's a beautiful old building and it's exciting to see it and when you look at it in the rendering it's it's really nice and uh if i'm not mistaken i don't see any uh darn oak trees i mean uh palm trees around it which especially pleases me and so uh i really am glad to see it coming out like it is so and with the public's going in there that's going to be a great anchor for downtown so the completion grant probably is a big reason why that's in there just my thinking thank you all right and we have council member peluso thank thank you uh chair uh to colin just real quick on the public's deal um you guys have been in communication with certain council members about like having another revenue stream come through to the city to help kind of offset this this grant is that accurate or is that kind of folded a bit uh there was a general conversation that i had with one council member about the idea of you know trying to raise um completion grant money through like a tax credit concept um but it was a very short conversation okay point being is there could be more to that same thing with the baptist hotel uh if we if we added an additional assessment on some of those keys um and the dollars from that assessment goes towards almost an initiatives commission something you and i kind of helped put together i think that can make it a really easier uh digestible incentive deal um for us to give to them and that's just my thoughts i mean there's other ways to kind of help make sure these are a little bit more cost neutral and easier for us to handle thank you all right and i'm just going to state two two or three things before we go on we have no other speakers in the queue um first i'm glad to know that the third party underwriter um got the ambassador deal kind of done and locked up and just an observation is that the dprp program generally yields like less than one on roi and this is at 1.8 so that's that's a win as far as i'm concerned like you know comes from a macro you said it's a beautiful building it's going to generate you know tons for the um the hotel tax or whatever um so that's that's going to be a big win for us and then the atlas restaurant group you know that that is a that is a that's a big deal they're they're a national firm and you know look when when we were doing the ceo search for dia one of the things that we wanted to see with the new ceo is hey can you bring a rolodex of new people new partners that want to come to jacksonville and you know to your credit you you delivered on that and i just want to commend you and and just recognize that um because that's that's what we need we need more attention and more partners and people looking at jacksonville so thank you for your work there um and now on to your favorite topic parking thank you mr chair um past council president uh salem had asked that we present an update on the parking rate so just want to fulfill your commitment here um this was approved by uh the dia uh board and now i think it's been i think sent to you all for um any comments i think is the way it will work if there are none it will take effect on june 30th so i would kind of categorize these as more tweaks and updates to um to the parking um what one and some of this was already being done in practice we just wanted to codify it so um in terms of the event rates um for kind of regular downtown events uh we've been charging uh ten dollars um for those events if it's a larger event like a florida georgia type event it's twenty dollars um both of those are still below what private um industry is charging so we're still making it you know relatively cost of cost um effective for for patrons and then um because of the activity that we've been seeing downtown especially in the bay street area um we've been opening the yates garage in particular in the evening and just charging in the weekends and just charging a five dollar flat rate uh to try to have some cost recovery um for that but we those those garages had priorly they've been closed prior to to that so we wanted to just codify that and then in terms of the ed ball garage rates um we kind of simplified them i don't know if you can read the um the sign there but if you if you look at the the rates they're they're kind of unusual um and so we basically just kind of standardized it we also reduced the total rate from fifty dollars to thirty dollars it had initially been raised to discourage employee parking there all day but folks were getting kind of caught in meetings and hearings and then coming out and getting a fifty dollar um you know charged that parked there so we reduced that to thirty and then um i think we we increased the hourly rate to four dollars per hour for the first four hours um and then lastly i just have a note here as we go through the budget process we are hoping to create some additional part-time positions for parking this is in an effort to actually reduce parking costs because we're paying overtime for a number of additional parking needs that we have especially on the weekends and the evenings with increased increased parking demand and so that might be a conversation that we have during the budget if we could have a few more part-time positions we won't have to spend as much in overtime we'll also be able to not burn out employees so that's the update on on the parking rates and uh peter sherwell is here too if you have any more detailed questions that i can't answer all right councilmember salem you're recognized thank you chair through the chair to mr tolibert these rates are set by diia and do not come to the council is that correct they're set by dia and then i think we present them to um the council but not for uh not as legislative i think it's just you're able to give us any feedback or request changes okay it it sounds reasonable what you're proposing number two another a pet peeve of mine that i've raised throughout my tenure on the council are city vehicles parked all over downtown taking up spaces that um people could use for restaurants uh lunch uh etc and i'm not going to pick on a particular department because i think everyone is guilty to some extent i know at times different administrations have tried to attack that and were able to get vehicles off the street do you have any feelings about that is there anything being done to try to get uh these city vehicles off the street and you're the i i think the gentleman behind you might have some thoughts okay you might have some too uh peter sure will office of public parking uh through the chair to councilman salem yes we are actively issuing parking citations to city fleet vehicles uh that began in january following uh last july we implemented a warning system to all those fleet vehicles notifying them that they are required by the code to either pay the meter or have a permit that is purchased through our office so for six months we issued warnings this has escalated to citations we've had many great partners in the different department departments with their directors communicating to their staff that if they do get a parking ticket they are personally responsible for payments uh as they would with the traffic uh violation how's that working through the chair is is that having an impact i'm very curious to to some of the repercussions of that no i can answer that real quick it's working great because i've gotten two tickets in the last uh like three weeks because my the decal uh i don't have the right color decal so yeah no they're doing a great job i don't have the right color decal so yeah go ahead so i i mean can you see a visible impact on that throughout downtown yeah i feel like walking around you see a lot less fleet vehicles parking on the meters than we did even six months or a year ago um which you know opens up availability for our stakeholders that want to come in support the local businesses do business at the city buildings i wasn't aware of that i think that's great i like the idea of a warning system and i hope it continues thank you thank you uh did you have anything else mr charbert or i did i did want to just touch on the office office vacancy that was brought up i know it's not a slide but um because it was a topic i just wanted to talk we did have a conversation at the strategic implementation committee of the dia board uh last month and um i'd say the office vacancy challenge here is um it's probably the toughest real estate issue that we we have to grapple with we do have way more office space than we probably need or that's ever going to come back um but it's it's more finite than just sort of like this overall issue um there's there's seven buildings that that that we're looking at in particular and they're almost all clustered in the downtown core especially along that hogan street area um and so they have very high office vacancy they're older buildings the ownership is sort of unique in terms of a lot of them don't have debt on them or they're locally owned um and so i just say all that to to let you know that we are working on that and trying to figure out probably a phased approach mr edgerton touched on retail vacancy we're working with public works to improve the streetscape area we've met with i've met with i think at least three of the seven building owners to start to just see if we can kind of spruce up the area make it feel a little bit more alive but to fill one to two million square feet of office space and older obsolete buildings is a long-term strategy um and we're probably going to have to look at conversions um and other improvements to those buildings i would say though um because the comment was made about gateway building an additional office building um i i think that's a good thing um the the jaguars office building that open is 83 percent lease it'll probably be a hundred percent lease very soon so it's not that there's not a demand for office space it's just the quality of office space and what people want in terms of amenities and so us collectively making investments in the public spaces the grocery store those are probably the best investments that we can make in order to re to fill those office buildings either with additional offices or converting those to residential but it's a long-term you know problem that we have to solve but we are sort of working on it um even though we don't have like a crystal clear solution today i just want them to mention that to the committee all right yeah no thank you for that and um and mr peterson did you have anything you're in the queue did you want to put us on track with anything all right and then we'll go to councilman mackalushi councilman peluso we'll wrap up mr tarvis presentation then we have uh two other things and we want to welcome councilmember rockman johnson thank you for being here mr peterson to the chair to the committee uh to council member salem's question earlier on parking rates dia has the ability to alter parking rates they notify city council and those rates take effective 60 days after the notification unless council does something different so that notification came from mr tarbert at the end of april so they'll begin at the end uh beginning of july unless y'all do something different all right council member mackalushi thank you mr chair mr uh tarbert i had asked this edgecom if she could uh meet in my council office for just a few minutes could you join after this meeting her as well as me was meeting the green room we'll go up to my office and uh just got an idea and about the office vacancy issue happy to okay thank you council member thank you chair was at the end of the presentation what one of the one of my questions i didn't see it brought up there so this month related group is doing a ribbon cutting or ground baking correct say that again sorry the related group is doing a groundbreaking correct correct next wednesday i think at 10 30 okay yeah may 20th 10 30. just want to make sure that this committee knows about it that i think many of us should be there um will there be a do we know if there's gonna be a groundbreaking for the n8 tower the tower what's the big tower the gateway tower i believe that is n8 i cannot speak to that i haven't seen anything okay i know they're doing the um site work cool all right more cranes in the here that's what i'd like to see thank you all right uh thank you mr tarbert we have we have no other speakers in the queue i did want to extend the floor to mr patrick kurchowski the board chair for dia for a few minutes um and then we'll go to council member johnson to kind of talk to us about his uh legislation so go ahead floor is yours thank you mr chair patrick kurchowski current chair of the downtown investment authority i'll be very quick um colin didn't mention it because it wasn't on his agenda but he was in nashville last week at the urban land institute spring national meeting that's 5 000 real estate professionals from all over the country frankly all over the globe and not only did he attend he had a session on the agenda talking about downtown incentives and how to make these things work so um i encourage you to reach out to him and ask him about it but it's very unique to be on such a large agenda this is the second time jacksonville has been on a uli national meeting agenda um and i applaud colin for going up there and handling that um real quick i've got a couple more meetings as chair and then i'm done as chair so it's been two years that i've been chair if you think about what we've been encountering the past two years and working with this committee really value the questions uh you all ask and the discussions you can see behind me we've got three or four or maybe more board members i suspect even in attendance if i had to guess our next board chair is likely in this group so we're going to change our slate of officers here in the next couple months we'll probably finalize that in july just wanted to give you a heads up on that so that you can stop calling me and call somebody else but i appreciate all the work that the committee does and again i want to applaud colin for what he's done both internally with the agency itself and externally inviting people to come see jacksonville and to start moving dirt and going vertical so i appreciate the time mr chair thank you yeah thank you appreciate it yeah no seriously thank you for for your time at dia and obviously you're not going anywhere because uh you know you don't really get to leave until we appoint someone else so we we hold the keys to the next appointment there but but no the the dia board meetings i've been to and that i've watched from afar um you know and i've texted a lot of y'all individually you guys are an outstanding board like a a insanely cut above the rest in my opinion it's y'all look at everything the the the way that i would want y'all to look at it and you ask tough questions in your board you don't just rubber stamp stuff you all are y'all are really really doing a fantastic job um and and so yeah we'll just we'll keep up we'll all keep up to good work um but okay i think we are all set as far as the agenda goes but now i did want to extend the floor to council member johnson because i know you have a piece of legislation that kind of pertains to some of the things that we're doing here thank you so much mr chair and i echo your sentiments about the dia board uh and especially with patrick patrick i don't know where you think you're going but we're still going to be calling on you sir uh so thank you for your service to this city uh and mr chair i certainly appreciate the opportunity to address this uh let me say and i also get a chance to to watch this meeting and i thank you for um not just today but the work that this committee has done because a vibrant downtown means a vibrant jacksonville one of the things that i wanted to bring forth is ordinance it will be introduced on tomorrow night at council meeting it's on the agenda 2026 377 uh you all have received uh or should be receiving in a moment uh a handout they got okay uh with the information on it um what i've asked is uh with the legislation and i uh was at the cultural council awards this weekend and uh councilman areas who came up with the initial legislation about the downtown entertainment district was affectionately called mr 3am all weekend as he was walking through the building so quite funny but it was uh the people i believe welcomed this opportunity and all this does uh as you can see the specifics here uh the ordinance you'll have a copy of the ordinance as well uh what it does though is gives a report data is so important when we determine what we're doing and i think to have the rich data to to see is this working and does it need to be expanded do we need to go to 5am does it need to stay at three where does it go i know uh councilman salem was in my meeting the other day and one of the things was it was defined to a special area it shouldn't be all of the areas it's a special area so when we look at and and i liken it to looking at beale street in memphis um or the quarter in new orleans or other places that have an entertainment district there's a specific geographic area that it that's there uh but the report would uh talk to many of our key partners the jacksonville sheriff's office the fire and rescue department code enforcement um the dia the office of economic development visit jacksonville businesses in the area restaurants transportation providers and of course residents that live downtown all of that would go into this report it would then be presented to the council and then the council president and uh whomever the designees can look at it and say this needs to be assigned to this committee and they can look at it and then come back with a recommendation so all the ordinance does it simply provides a report so that we can move forward and if it makes sense create a logical entertainment district that's something that will be a multi-decade multi-billion dollar economic driver for jacksonville and i certainly will take any questions okay great yeah let's um let's get any questions answered i know i was in your first meeting uh councilmember salem was were you there councilman pulso no okay all right so uh councilmember pulso and then councilmember salem okay councilmember salem thank you chair i think i was the only negative vote or just a few votes on the expansion to brooklyn to 3am i was concerned that that appeared to be a commitment from the areas bill to expand the core downtown to 3am gather data etc before we moved further and then we jumped into brooklyn um i'm very supportive of this um i think if it ever goes to 5am it ought to be restricted to a area downtown and not beyond the core downtown in my opinion um world has changed people stay up late there's all sorts of transportation um availability for people to get home so i i think it's it's going to happen but it it ought to be in a restricted area thank you thank you mr chair did you ever did you want to have a response well i i tend to uh kind of i i jokingly say to councilman salem you know i learned i'm not one of those people that stay up late i learned that uh at the cultural council awards this weekend uh but i will say it was an opportunity for those that do we want to be able to provide those welcoming places to the city in a special district so i i so totally understand and the report itself dr salem is going to focus on that core area thank you yeah and what i like is you know we're doing it from a you know empirical standpoint where we know we're not just you know flippantly doing it and saying oh we think it's going to work um so you know what i don't has the bill been filed it looks like it's got it's been filed oh you said it's getting filed it was on the agenda so it's introduced tomorrow night okay um rebecca can you add me as a co-sponsor to the bill um and council member salem all right there we go and all right council member peluso did you want to colin do you mind coming up so i do have i did have one more uh thing that i wanted to bring up um we do talk a lot about these very large projects these very large uh groups one of the reasons why i actually did the brooklyn bill was because there is a long-standing small business that had been investing in the greater downtown area for many many years there is a group here right downtown the real ting cafe uh they've been trying to make sure that they can play music um with with the speaker system until i think it's 10 or 11 o'clock just want to make sure that the uh permit process is getting a little bit better i want to make sure these small businesses that have been here and have been investing for a very long time are in a better spot let's have mr talbert answer first before we go to council member rockman johnson did you have a not to cut off i didn't want to put him in that spot mr chair to mr peluso through the chair i don't think it's fair to put him in that spot and i've let me just say i've known the the real ting's group for more than 30 years i've been working with them on this issue not because and i certainly understand it's your district council member but uh hanaf came to in fact he was at the meeting that we had about this specific issue that i'm talking about and that's when he brought it up to me um dia and mr talbert has done an amazing job and they've approved everything it's no longer with them it's with the city and that issue i personally went over it's going to be resolved by friday but i just wanted to put that i don't want us to that that's great i appreciate everything you just said that's awesome i've also been speaking with the the owner of that building and the realton cafe i'd really like to get an answer from the dia director uh about the permitting process and what things we need to do to make sure it's corrected so that we have more outdoor activities all right that's all go ahead chair if you don't mind yep go ahead mr starbert sure the team has been working on it more than i have directly so um i think what um councilman johnson said is is accurate i know we have been working with them to get them in compliance and to get them their permits i can't speak to the uh the current status of that but i'm happy to follow up with you through the chair i think part of the part of the purpose of this committee is also to make sure we can find efficiencies on different things within our downtown you know the greater cra area right so if there's ways that we can help make sure the permitting process for items like that go through dia and don't have to go through a mishmash of oh is it public works is it planning is it special events this and that that could also be of value to this special committee i would think right let's let's make sure we do have kind of a one-stop shop that would be ideal to me and and if you need just just kind of want to get your thoughts on that so that we don't find ourselves in a spot like this again and make sure that we can do other things later on in life so i don't know if you got a comment on that no i think this is kind of the overall um conversations we've been having about who does what and how the process works i mean one-stop shops sound good in theory but typically like they're very hard to implement because there's going to be other agencies involved in whatever dia is doing and vice versa but to the extent that we all know what the stops are and can communicate that to small businesses so they're not surprised or held up i totally agree with that excellent thank you okay all right committee members we have nothing else on the agenda we don't have a date yet for the next meeting um but uh legislation is coming it's getting introduced uh tomorrow council for a few of the things mr charbert uh has spoken on and councilman johnson's legislation is also getting introduced tomorrow so uh we are making good progress here and thank you all for coming and we will see you next time meeting is adjourned