Jax. Business Journal - Shameful!

[tufsu1]

The editorial board at the Business Journal should be ashamed....I'm not sure that a downtown marketing campaign is the best use of limited funds, but to imply that downtown has nothing to market.....abysmal!

Jacksonville now has an umbrella organization to market Downtown to Jacksonville residents. The idea is simple: More people would come Downtown to shop and eat and spend their leisure time if they knew of all the great things happening Downtown.

There are people who believe that marketing can solve just about any problem. We are not among those people. We think marketing works best when you have something to market.

Otherwise, in the case of Downtown Jacksonville, you can entice people to come Downtown with a good marketing campaign, but if there’s little for them to do once they arrive, ...

http://www.bizjournals.com/jacksonville/print-edition/2012/07/13/opinion-selling-downtown.html

[fsujax]

wow. that is shameful. I may just cancel my subscription. Maybe there is something we are missing in the piece?

[tufsu1]

sadly no...I only copied the first part here, but I read the whole thing in my hard copy

[fsujax]

I plan on posting something on their facebook page.

[carpnter]

After reading the entire OpEd piece I don't think it was that far off the mark.  I used to work downtown 2 years ago I don't really have a reason to visit downtown in my leisure time and marketing isn't going to make me want to visit the place.  They do need stuff downtown that will make people want to go there and right now that just doesn't exist.

You aren't going to get people to come downtown by marketing the same old things that haven't worked yet and trying to repackage that isn't going to work. 

[ben says]

wow. that is shameful. I may just cancel my subscription. Maybe there is something we are missing in the piece?

Cancel your subscription? Extreme measures. I share your angst, but it is an OpEd after all, not an endorsement by the journal itself. Moreover, while we like it or not, whether we agree or not, the opinion expressed in that OpEd is the opinion of probably 500,000 plus people in Duval County...I happen to disagree w/ the article, but I also happen to agree that we need more "stuff" and "things to do" downtown. Our downtown is more a civil center (jail, courthouse, bail bonds, states attorney, PDs office, business) than a beacon of entertainment and culture. We can't keep reverting to the same old "there's bars" and "the landing has some great new stores" and "downtown is on the rise." I love downtown, but outside of my once a day Chamblin's Uptown trip, I'm at a loss for reasons to keep going down there.

[thelakelander]

Although I have not read the Jax Biz Journal editorial, count me in the camp of believing that marketing downtown to suburbanites won't amount to much.  Too often we focus on blowing hot air instead of addressing reality and getting our hands dirty to change it.  Have we really asked ourselves what we even want to be?  What are the overall goals and vision and are we making sure that every little thing we do pushes us closer to meeting those objectives?

I'd say take that $300k and use it to keep the public ROW/parks clean and well maintained, program a few public spaces or incentivize a few small businesses to open in key locations to help stimulate walkability and connectivity. 

Without spending cash, spend the time to revisit and modify the restrictive ordinances limiting small business and residential opportunities in downtown and the surrounding core.  In fact, consider tax abatements if that's what it takes to level the playing field.  Instead of raising money for more hot air, use that time and influence to push COJ to do something with all the dead property its been sitting on for years. 

Without spending cash, make sure all of our governmental agencies with projects impacting downtown are properly coordinating with one another.  Such a concept will save taxpayers money, improve several agency's image and reduce the possibility of projects like downtown BRT coming online without proper bike facilities, despite them clearly being identified in a publicly accessible plan already adopted by the council and approved by the state. 

Doing little things like these, in combination with the national trend of revitalizing urban cores, will naturally create all the marketing buzz people desire.  The key here is to recognize that things occur incrementally and learning to walk before attempting to do cart wheels.

[Dog Walker]

+1

Words of informed wisdom from Lake as usual.

[finehoe]

Can someone post the entire op-ed?  It wants me to subscribe to see the whole thing.

[tufsu1]

It isnt an op-ed....it is the paper's official editorial....much different thing!

[tufsu1]

And my issue with the editorial is that it implies there is nothing to do downtown....so lets see...

20 nightlife spots. MOCA. Fl theatre. TUPAC. Arena. Baseball stadium, football, riverwalk, library, etc.

[thelakelander]

^The same group that praised that 1960s Soviet Cold War era concrete plaza, anchored with Seattle's Space Needle, a few weeks back?

[ben says]

And my issue with the editorial is that it implies there is nothing to do downtown....so lets see...

20 nightlife spots. MOCA. Fl theatre. TUPAC. Arena. Baseball stadium, football, riverwalk, library, etc.

most of which are barely programmed at all, situated in a spartan environment that doesn't have any daily life or traffic or interaction on the streets.  The businesses are mostly gone, there isn't any retail and assmonkeys keep trying to de amenities the few remaining public spaces that they haven't already completely shut down.

Im sorry, as much as I demonstrably love downtown, I happen to agree with the premise.

+1000

[carpnter]

And my issue with the editorial is that it implies there is nothing to do downtown....so lets see...

20 nightlife spots. MOCA. Fl theatre. TUPAC. Arena. Baseball stadium, football, riverwalk, library, etc.

most of which are barely programmed at all, situated in a spartan environment that doesn't have any daily life or traffic or interaction on the streets.  The businesses are mostly gone, there isn't any retail and assmonkeys keep trying to de amenities the few remaining public spaces that they haven't already completely shut down.

Im sorry, as much as I demonstrably love downtown, I happen to agree with the premise.

True, you know 20+ years ago the southbank riverwalk was a place that people visited, there were vendors, restaurants, street performers, and other things to do.  It wasn't uncommon to have trouble finding a place to park so you could visit the riverwalk on a Friday or Saturday night. 

[ronchamblin]

I haven’t read the article but from what I suspect it implies that we need more “good stuff” in the core before we promote that suburbanites visit it.  To spend too much money on promotion for people to visit the city core now doesn’t make sense to me.  To be blunt, anyone advising it would be a fool.
 
I’ve always advised small businesses for years to put money into the quality of their inventory and service, and to hell with advertising.  You can advertise all you want, but if there is nothing of quality there when the customer arrives, it will be the last visit for that customer.  Same dynamics for the city core.  Get good quality inventory.... small businesses and entertainment, residents.... then the suburbanites will not only want to visit, they just might want to open a business, or live in the city core.  Amazing thought.   

Now if the promotional money is set for spending on enticing small businesses and residents to move into the core, then I can agree.  Every single business entity we can settle into the core will make it that much easier to bring the next one in.  It’s the same with residents.  The more of anything we bring into the core, the easier it will be to bring the next in.  Soon, there will be a threshold, after which we will not have to expend much energy or money to bring businesses in.  They will come in by their own initiative simply because it makes business sense.
After the threshold gains strength, the residents will no longer have to be enticed to move into the core.  They will come by their own desire.   

In my view, anybody encouraging excessive spending on enticing suburbanites to visit the core at this time is off the mark.  The money should be spent on “building” life into the city core, no matter what it takes, even enticing small businesses in via tax abatements and other incentives.  The best energy and most effective results will be found in many small businesses, not in the grand projects which are the favorites of the big money and the big tax dollars… which often are failures because they are artificial, are superficial, and miss the real dynamics involved.

Not one dollar have I received from the city for my entire business history in the city core.  I am due to receive, by the program initiated by DVI, the $10,000 grant for façade improvements once I spend the $20,000 for it.  This is grand, and will be appreciated, but I could have used some assistance in the early stages by some form of tax abatement.

I’m already past the critical state of survival in the city core, but it would be great and quite effective in my view if the city offered in the future, to newly arriving small businesses a partial or full property tax abatement to assist in their gamble with the core so that they might survive the difficult first three or four years.  After all, if the city is serious about enticing new small businesses into the core, the city powers should be willing to “share” in the gamble which exists as a small business attempts to endure the relatively low foot traffic downtown. 

The almost non-existent foot traffic in the city core is not the fault of the small business owner attempting to make a go of it.  It “is” mostly the fault of a city which, by stupid decisions over decades, has allowed the foot traffic to descend to a level which makes it almost impossible for a new business to survive.

And some wonder why nobody but a fool will gamble with opening a business in the city core.  I have seen where many well intentioned individuals have tried, and they have lasted from six months to two years before closing, and after losing whatever funds they had in the venture.

The individuals who have the funds to be in business will not enter the city core because of their good sense.  However, if the city chose these individuals, these successful businessmen and women, to offer tax and other incentives, they just might make decisions to enter the core.  With each one entering, the threshold we seek will arrive, after which no incentives will be needed.

Then…. city powers…. and this might be somewhat difficult to comprehend I admit…. after the threshold is achieved as a consequence of reasonable incentives to small businesses willing to gamble with the low foot traffic in the city core…..  guess what?…   â€œTHERE WILL BE VIBRANCY IN THE CORE, AND THERE WILL BE GREAT INCREASES IN THE PROPERTY TAXES COMING FROM THE CITY CORE."