Khan, Jaguars expect Lot J development to begin early 2020

[marcuscnelson]

It sounds like there's a pretty dramatic City Council meeting going on. I'm seeing some rather interesting tweets from reporters.

[Ken_FSU]

It's just disgraceful.

Lamping came pretty close to snapping.

Tommy Hazouri and Brian Hughes snapping at each other.

No bill to review.

Competing amendments from Carlucci and Leanna Cumber.

A run-in by Lori Boyer.

A run-in by the mayor's office to announce a surprise DIA review.

A surprise realization mid-meeting that they didn't even have Council members present to vote if they wanted to.

About as Jacksonville as you can get.

Public incentives or no public incentives, if I was the Jags and Cordish, I'd run for my life from this shitshow.

[jaxlongtimer]

It's just disgraceful.

Lamping came pretty close to snapping.

Tommy Hazouri and Brian Hughes snapping at each other.

No bill to review.

Competing amendments from Carlucci and Leanna Cumber.

A run-in by Lori Boyer.

A run-in by the mayor's office to announce a surprise DIA review.

A surprise realization mid-meeting that they didn't even have Council members present to vote if they wanted to.

About as Jacksonville as you can get.

Public incentives or no public incentives, if I was the Jags and Cordish, I'd run for my life from this shitshow.

This could be great for Jax though.  A City Council and Mayoral 3-way civil war could stop all these crazy deals from getting done until the next election when maybe we could get a real Mayor for the people and a thoughtful City Council who would check him/her with constructive inputs instead of rubber stamps.

[minder]

Hey Alexa, how far is it to San Antonio?

[Ken_FSU]

I don't read Twitter so this might be an unpopular opinion, but the City Council President deserves a ton of the blame for things going so badly off the rails tonight.

Even without revised legislation present, there was a set agenda for the meeting.

City Council members came in expecting to have their questions addressed by the auditor and the developer.

There was time on the schedule for everyone to speak and come to a better understanding about where things stood with the negotiations.

But it was clear from the first five minutes that Hazouri came in with the intention of pushing the Carlucci amendment forward (which he co-sponsored). The amendment is what he went straight too, other council members were ignored, and there was this big push to vote on something that couldn't even technically be voted on.

I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that the Carlucci amendment might have sent the Jags packing, and I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that the Cumber amendment may have stopped that from happening.

If I'm the Jags, I have patience for taxpayers wanting to get the best deal possible. But I also start to take all the unnecessarily personal insults about my intentions, committment, and abilities personally. Shad Khan has owned the team for nearly ten years, and it's just really disheartening to see how adversarial so many people still are towards the guy.

There's just nothing civil about how this is all playing out.

[Tacachale]

I don't read Twitter so this might be an unpopular opinion, but the City Council President deserves a ton of the blame for things going so badly off the rails tonight.

Even without revised legislation present, there was a set agenda for the meeting.

City Council members came in expecting to have their questions addressed by the auditor and the developer.

There was time on the schedule for everyone to speak and come to a better understanding about where things stood with the negotiations.

But it was clear from the first five minutes that Hazouri came in with the intention of pushing the Carlucci amendment forward (which he co-sponsored). The amendment is what he went straight too, other council members were ignored, and there was this big push to vote on something that couldn't even technically be voted on.

I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that the Carlucci amendment might have sent the Jags packing, and I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that the Cumber amendment may have stopped that from happening.

If I'm the Jags, I have patience for taxpayers wanting to get the best deal possible. But I also start to take all the unnecessarily personal insults about my intentions, committment, and abilities personally. Shad Khan has owned the team for nearly ten years, and it's just really disheartening to see how adversarial so many people still are towards the guy.

There's just nothing civil about how this is all playing out.

Why would the Carlucci bill have sent the Jags packing? Is there some other market out there willing to fork over hundreds of millions of dollars without having their downtown folks even look at it? And regardless, why wouldn't they put the blame the mayor for making no attempt to get buy-in from the taxpayers?

[Ken_FSU]

I don't read Twitter so this might be an unpopular opinion, but the City Council President deserves a ton of the blame for things going so badly off the rails tonight.

Even without revised legislation present, there was a set agenda for the meeting.

City Council members came in expecting to have their questions addressed by the auditor and the developer.

There was time on the schedule for everyone to speak and come to a better understanding about where things stood with the negotiations.

But it was clear from the first five minutes that Hazouri came in with the intention of pushing the Carlucci amendment forward (which he co-sponsored). The amendment is what he went straight too, other council members were ignored, and there was this big push to vote on something that couldn't even technically be voted on.

I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that the Carlucci amendment might have sent the Jags packing, and I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that the Cumber amendment may have stopped that from happening.

If I'm the Jags, I have patience for taxpayers wanting to get the best deal possible. But I also start to take all the unnecessarily personal insults about my intentions, committment, and abilities personally. Shad Khan has owned the team for nearly ten years, and it's just really disheartening to see how adversarial so many people still are towards the guy.

There's just nothing civil about how this is all playing out.

Why would the Carlucci bill have sent the Jags packing? Is there some other market out there willing to fork over hundreds of millions of dollars without having their downtown folks even look at it? And regardless, why wouldn't they put the blame the mayor for making no attempt to get buy-in from the taxpayers?

At the end of the day, everyone deserves some blame the scene at City Hall tonight. The Jags deserve some blame for their perpetually shitty optics and for ruining all goodwill by running football operations into the ground (this would be a much different conversation in 2017). City Council deserves some blame for how heated and contentious their language has become around this project. Tommy Hazouri deserves blame for railroading this meeting to try to push the Carlucci bill through. And, most of all, the mayor's office deserves an extra heap of blame for creating such a toxic environment where everything happens in secret and nobody trusts anybody else.

But when I say the Carlucci bill would have sent the Jags packing, here's what I mean:

Even though I totally believe that the mayor's office has secretly conspired with the Jags (Curry's off-the-record trip on Shad Khan's private jet to Baltimore, St. Louis, and Kansas City toppled the first domino that eventually led to the Landing's demolition, the Ford on Bay convention center being shelved, and Lot J being proposed), I'm not nearly as convinced that the Jags secretly conspired with the mayor's office.

Based on Mark Lamping's comments and frustration tonight, I am inclined to believe that the Jags genuinely feel like they went through the proper channels.

The $63 million in stadium renovations for the pools and video boards was negotiated directly with the Alvin Brown administration, and then taken to City Council for a vote. The DIA wasn't involved.

The $90 million Daily's Place/Flex Field project was negotiated directly with the Curry administration and then taken to City Council for a vote. The DIA wasn't involved.

And, when it came time to discuss Lot J, based on past precedent, the Jags have spent the last two years negotiating details directly with the mayor's office (Brian Hughes and Sam Mousa in particular) in anticipation of a City Council vote.

And they've been working hard recently to close the deal. I see it with my own eyes. I don't know how many times I've bumped into Megha Parekh on Duval Street in the last few months, or shared an elevator with Paul Harden, or seen Mark Lamping walking into City Hall. 

All efforts were to culminate in a vote from City Council where we either green light the Lot J project, or pass on it.

What Carlucci's bill proposed though is to essentially scrap the entire framework of the term sheet that's been around for two years and been interated on dozens on times and completely start over from scratch with the DIA.

Just looking at it from the Jags' perspective, they've spent two years negotiating with the mayor's office to get to the finish line, only to be told, "We should go through the DIA instead... Let's just start over from 2017."

Totally get Lamping's frustration in saying, "We have zero interest in starting over again from ground zero."

What Leanna Cumber's amendment does - regardless of how it came to be - is let the DIA review all contracts and agreements to date and give a thumbs up, thumbs down, or thumbs up with conditions without necessitating a total reset.

In terms of what other markets would be willing to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on a downtown project without review, I just honestly don't think a lot Lot J would be necessary in Toronto, or London, or even San Diego. They've got a population base, corporate presence, and funding mechanisms that Jax just doesn't have yet.

Not advocating for approving or rejecting Lot J either way, I just think the respectful thing to do is to see this two-year process through to a vote, rather than having City Council come in and demand a complete restart because they've got beef with how the mayor handled the negotiations.

To me, it's just embarrassing as a city.

You've got an international developer and a Forbes' billionaire on the line, along with representatives from your NFL franchise, and instead of holding a civil, professional meeting to discuss proposed changes to the development agreement, you've got the City Council President and Brian Hughes bickering over what the proper name is for the DIA, amendments being pushed to start negotiations completely over from scratch, microphones not working, run-ins from non council members, Bowman and Hazouri screaming at each other, council members being blatantly ignored, other council members with iPads trying to figure out how local ordinances work, and a rushed vote being forced because "Matt has to go," only to discover that you don't even have the number of council members necessary to legally hold a vote.

It's just insane, and so sad.

We've got every natural advantage a city could ever hope for, but we just can't shake the amateur hour nonsense.

[thelakelander]

In the meantime, we're going on two full years of dead Landing space. Assuming Lot J is approved something over the next year, full completion of phase one could take up to 2032-33.

Cleaning contamination from Lot J could take up to three years

Jacksonville city officials expect it will take nearly three years at least to perform the environmental clean up necessary for Jaguars owner Shad Khan to begin construction on his proposed Lot J development, meaning the project could take at least seven years to complete.

That timeline, which was revealed in correspondence between Mayor Lenny Curry's office and the Jacksonville City Council Auditor's office, is more than twice as long as the timeline that has been publicly discussed.

https://www.jacksonville.com/story/news/local/2020/11/19/lot-j-jacksonville-cleaning-shad-khan/6343750002/

[MusicMan]

Ken you make a lot of excellent points. And you're well informed as certainly anyone on this blog. I think a problem not being accounted for is the public views this poorly, at least from the informal polling on Lot J that I have seen, and that may explain the pushback from City Hall.

[thelakelander]

^I think this (the general public opinion) is a result of bad transparency from city hall. Just about everything possible to erode public trust in local government, has taken place over the last few years. Again, one of those little things that pays off down the road when you have and stick to a community supported downtown master plan. At this point, we could write a book on what not to do when it comes to downtown revitalization strategy.

[Ken_FSU]

Ken you make a lot of excellent points. And you're well informed as certainly anyone on this blog. I think a problem not being accounted for is the public views this poorly, at least from the informal polling on Lot J that I have seen, and that may explain the pushback from City Hall.

No, I totally agree.

We're in the middle of a global pandemic, people are sick and struggling, businesses are shuttered.

It's a really tough time to get excited about corporate welfare.

I get why there's renewed urgency from the Jags - they're taking a massive revenue hit like everyone else with capacity limits, no London game, and Daily's Place shuttered.

And I get why the majority of the public is against the project.

If we follow the process that was outlined from the beginning and City Council votes no, I think the Jags and Cordish can put on their big boy pants, live with the decision, and figure out next steps from there.

If however, after two years of negotiations, months of flying in Cordish executives, numerous presentations and meetings to City Council, we suddenly decide to change the goal posts and start over from scratch, I don't blame them for throwing their hands in the air and walking.

As a city, we've got this very, very bad habit of not having our shit together and burning the private sector.

We issued an RFP for a convention center on the river. Multiple respectable developers put a lot of resources and time into responding in good faith. We rejected all bids and wasted everyone's time. We issued an RFP for potential privatization of our public utility. Multiple suitors put a lot of resources and time into responding in good faith. We rejected all bids and wasted everyone's time. We issued an RFP for the Ford on Bay property with full knowledge that the property couldn't even be fully developed because of the Hyatt's right-of-first refusal. Surprise, it appears to have been a waste of everyone's time. We squeezed Toney Sleiman out of a 50-year lease at the Landing over petty political grudges dating back to the last mayoral election by pulling event permits, threatening to evict him, and (in my opinion) exploiting a mass shooting.

This stuff really adds up and sends a strong signal to the development and investment community that we're a bunch of clowns.

To me, the Carlucci bill would be a continuation of that same pattern of changing our minds and wasting everyone's work up to this point.

If at the end of negotiations, the City Council doesn't feel like it's a fair deal for the taxpayers, there's a simple solution - vote no.

Also:

Amazing troll by mother nature over Lot J this morning as I was driving into work.

God's promise that we'll never have to endure another City Council meeting like the one he sent last night.

[vicupstate]

If it is going to take three years to clean up the site, and since the city does own it, and since no one is going to be able to do anything with it until it is cleaned, let me make a suggestion. The city bids out the clean up NOW and pays the full bill (after any money from the Feds/EPA they can acquire). Put Khan on notice that the expense of doing so will be considered money already contributed to whatever future investment that the city may make in the future toward the Jags.

Now we are at least making progress, dirt will be turning in just a few months and you have three years to iron out the details on what happens after the site is cleaned.   

[MusicMan]

"FYI, for any younger kids reading this, the best way to get ahead in the political realm in Florida is not by crushing it in school or working your way up. You simply have to work for free on the right political campaigns in your early twenties and you will get opportunities you never dreamed of. It's crazy how much I see this happen around the state and it's not exclusive to any political party."

Just saw this. and it's true all over America.  I went to school with Trey Gowdy. He spent summers in HS working for Republican politicians in SC. I can honesty say no one who remembers him recalls him being especially bright. But there is an amazing quote in our 1981 yearbook where he responds to a question: "I'm too conservative to ever be elected..."  He was probably 18 at the time.

[vicupstate]

"FYI, for any younger kids reading this, the best way to get ahead in the political realm in Florida is not by crushing it in school or working your way up. You simply have to work for free on the right political campaigns in your early twenties and you will get opportunities you never dreamed of. It's crazy how much I see this happen around the state and it's not exclusive to any political party."

Just saw this. and it's true all over America.  I went to school with Trey Gowdy. He spent summers in HS working for Republican politicians in SC. I can honesty say no one who remembers him recalls him being especially bright. But there is an amazing quote in our 1981 yearbook where he responds to a question: "I'm too conservative to ever be elected..."  He was probably 18 at the time.

I had the misfortune to be his constituent while he was in Congress.  Did he change his hair every week when he was in HS too?

Your point is right though. It is not what you know but who you know. Hitch your trailer to the right candidate and if he wins, you do too. If they pulled an upset, there is a good chance you won't have as much competition for a position either.       

[bl8jaxnative]

Why would the Carlucci bill have sent the Jags packing? Is there some other market out there willing to fork over hundreds of millions of dollars without having their downtown folks even look at it? And regardless, why wouldn't they put the blame the mayor for making no attempt to get buy-in from the taxpayers?

If part of this question is are their other cities that will spend stupid amounts of money to get an NFL franchise to move to their city?  Yes. A  butt ton of them.

IIRC it's a little sticky in that the NFL seems to have some concept of protecting regional markets.  As much sense as it may make, the NFL + the Bucs would probably oppose a move to Orlando for that reason. 

But other than that, you have all sorts of folks that may be game from ones that recently lost a team like San Diego and St. Louis to  San Antonio,  Sacramento, Portland, Austin, etc, etc.   Hell, I wouldn't rule out someone buying them to set up shop in Toronto or Mexico City.