The Downtown Investment Authority's Future

[Ken_FSU]

By my rough math, the tale of the tape is:

Gateway Jax
Plans to deliver:
1,121 Apartments
70,000 square feet of retail space
on a $419m project

Is asking the city for:
$38 million in cash (completion grants)
$57 million in tax rebates via REV grant

Southeast/Atkins at the Trio
Plans to deliver:
312 units (143 hotel, 169 apartment)
6,500 square feet of retail space + a restaurant
on a $179m project

Is asking the city for:
$49 million in cash ($25m completion grant from the city + $24 million in forgivable loans)
$14 million in tax rebates via REV grant

I can't imagine it's going to help Southeast's case with City Council when you've got one developer laying out significantly more capital, assuming much more upfront risk, and loading their incentives on the back end in incremental tax rebates, while you're asking the city to lay down 30% of the project cost in cash upfront as a condition of moving forward.

[fsu813]

Apples and oranges.

But to your comment, no it won't help. Quite a bit of effort will have to be put forth sharing why the Trio is a different animal than the Gateway Jax project.

[Jax_Developer]

Pretty sure the Trio is being held hostage...

58,000 SF new construction + 14,000 total SF bank building + 50,500 SF + 23,600 SF = 146,100 SF total

$179,000,000 / 146,100 SF = $1,225 PSF

The entire cluster of projects was once only $90M, per Atkins himself.

https://www.jaxdailyrecord.com/news/2017/dec/21/barnett-bank-building-owner-applies-for-dollar22-4-million-renovation-permit/

For reference, the Barnett Bank building was performed for roughly $170-$190 PSF. ($35-38M ish in total project costs as a high estimate). So the Trio must have gold toilets!

[jaxlongtimer]

I don't know the square footage, but I recall that Cowford Chophouse came in around $10 million.  Adjusted for construction inflation, I would guess that might be around $20 million today.

Maybe one of you could check this math and make that comparison as an historic renovation can easily cost much more than new.  Question is how much more is appropriate.

[Ken_FSU]

The Trio is such a tough one to figure out.

On one hand, you absolutely cannot create a vibrant Laura Street corridor without redeveloping the Trio. Thus, if you consider Laura Street key to jumpstarting downtown, the Trio might be the single most important project in the CBD. Letting it sit blighted and rotting for even 5 more years should not be an option.

On the other hand, it is really hard to make a compelling case for handing a private developer $50 million in cash and forgivable loans to build a mid-sized hotel and luxury housing. With so many needs elsewhere in the city, I really can't fault anyone for thinking that it would be insane to give Southeast more money that we're putting into Riverfront Plaza, Friendship Park, and Musical Heritage Park combined for a development that they'll own and the city won't even realize full property taxes on for like 20 years.

Apparently Southeast has some sort of bridge loan on the Trio that matures before the end of the year. Would be interested to know what would happen to the property if they defaulted.

[Jax_Developer]

I don't know the square footage, but I recall that Cowford Chophouse came in around $10 million.  Adjusted for construction inflation, I would guess that might be around $20 million today.

Maybe one of you could check this math and make that comparison as an historic renovation can easily cost much more than new.  Question is how much more is appropriate.

Generally with you on that. I guess the trio could be in a "very critical" condition and needs complete structural shoring. Chophouse I believed had a partially collapsed roof system and required an expensive brick preservation process. My impression is simply that the Trio is much more structurally sound, but maybe I'm wrong there. Also, the trio being 10x larger should have better economics (in theory).

The part that does not pencil out, is the fact that 40% of the trio build is new construction. Certainly crazy to put that build cost at $1,200+ PSF. So really what that means is the historical rehab is more than $1,200 PSF. That's where I think it approaches Chophouse levels on a PSF, which it never should. Hard to say how the city should move forward on this one. I think it sets a bad precedence.

[Captain Zissou]

I don't know the square footage, but I recall that Cowford Chophouse came in around $10 million.  Adjusted for construction inflation, I would guess that might be around $20 million today.

Maybe one of you could check this math and make that comparison as an historic renovation can easily cost much more than new.  Question is how much more is appropriate.

While you can't compare the Trio to a modern tilt up concrete structure, I think there's also a distinction between the work needed here and what was done to Cowford.  Cowford was falling in on itself and essentially was disassembled and rebuilt brick by brick.  Each brick's location was noted as it was taken out of the building and then placed back in the same location.  That added extreme costs.  The trio's buildings were stabilized years ago and are not in danger of collapse.

[jaxlongtimer]

I don't know the square footage, but I recall that Cowford Chophouse came in around $10 million.  Adjusted for construction inflation, I would guess that might be around $20 million today.

Maybe one of you could check this math and make that comparison as an historic renovation can easily cost much more than new.  Question is how much more is appropriate.

While you can't compare the Trio to a modern tilt up concrete structure, I think there's also a distinction between the work needed here and what was done to Cowford.  Cowford was falling in on itself and essentially was disassembled and rebuilt brick by brick.  Each brick's location was noted as it was taken out of the building and then placed back in the same location.  That added extreme costs.  The trio's buildings were stabilized years ago and are not in danger of collapse.

The reason I brought up Cowford, aside from historic renovation costs, was to highlight what can show up unexpectedly.  I know the owners of Cowford did not bargain for rebuilding the walls brick by brick when they started.  I was trying to suggest maybe such unexpected issues are present in the Trio that may not be well known in the public domain at this time.  Absolutely, they need to be transparent and justify their ask, including if there are such "surprises" they have uncovered.

[marcuscnelson]

New from Nate Monroe: City Council President Ron Salem is forming a special committee to review the DIA and its effectiveness on Downtown Development.

[jaxlongtimer]

FYI, Mayor Deegan was on First Coast Connect Tuesday discussing DIA and Downtown issues, along with stadium negotiations and more for over 45 minutes.  Monday, Lori Boyer was on discussing 2 way streets and more.  Can play back both shows on WJCT's news web site. 

[tufsu1]

New from Nate Monroe: City Council President Ron Salem is forming a special committee to review the DIA and its effectiveness on Downtown Development.

one that doesn't include the Council member elected to represent downtown

[Captain Zissou]

New from Nate Monroe: City Council President Ron Salem is forming a special committee to review the DIA and its effectiveness on Downtown Development.

one that doesn't include the Council member elected to represent downtown

And what use is Gaffney going to be on that committee? He's going to do whatever his donors want him to do.

[jaxlongtimer]

New from Nate Monroe: City Council President Ron Salem is forming a special committee to review the DIA and its effectiveness on Downtown Development.

one that doesn't include the Council member elected to represent downtown

I noted that too.  And absent most urban core reps otherwise. The committee is stacked mainly with anti-Deegan reps except a token one in Joe Carlucci.  You can bet he will be outvoted so he won't be any threat to their agenda but they can say they attempted to be "inclusive" to cover themselves.

If the City Council really cared about DIA and Downtown, where were they under Curry's administration?  Salem appears to be trying to operate as a shadow mayor and/or set himself to run next cycle by claiming to have engaged in all major City issues while simultaneously working to counter Deegan's chances for successes.

[Ken_FSU]

So, here's where I fundamentally disagree with the lens through which Salem is choosing to look at this, per his bill.



The assertion here that progress downtown has been stagnant for 14 years isn't necessarily true, and fails to consider a third factor beyond just the efficacy of the DIA as an entity and the appropriateness of the CRA. Instead, it seems to treat the DIA's entire history as a singular thing, divorced from DIA leadership.

We saw a LOT of momentum under previous DIA leads, particularly Aundra Wallace. There was genuine momentum. Significant retail was moving in. Volstead. Superfood. Bold City. Breezys. 20West. Cowford. Island Girl. Sweet Pete's. Candy Apple. Vagabond. Happy Grilled Cheese. Bellwether. Jimmy John's. Olio. Tossgreen. Quality residential developments like the Penisula, FSCJ Dorms, and Barnett opened. Hemming Park, under the first FHP group, was lively. OneSpark was huge.

Conversely, under the current leadership group, that momentum has drastically reversed, during an economic boom. Retail openings downtown dropped from 8 in 2018 down to like 2 last year. Meanwhile, places like Zodiak, Jumping Jax, Mags Cafe, Jacob's, and Olio have closed. River City Brewing was demolished. Despite a half dozen high profile RFPs, no private development has taken place on key riverfront sites.

I don't love everything about how the DIA is structured, but it would be tossing the baby out with the bath water to look at the last five years specifically and suggest that the issue with the DIA is foundational without considering who's running it and whether they've succeeded in that position relative the opportunity that Jax found itself in coming out of the recession.

Instead, we're getting these weird scorecards where Lori Boyer is getting all A+'s from the rest of the DIA for weird things like "Communicating with the public!" whilst we downtown workers trip over tweaked out vagrants in search of a restaurant serving food after 3 PM.

We've also got these weird stories coming out about how this whole audit is being done because we don't know how we can possible survive after Lori Boyer retires following what seems to be a guaranteed two year extension of her contract, and we need to make sure she's around to properly mentor the new hire.

It's not personal, but WHAT NOW?

We're investing way, way, way too much money into our urban core to keep wearing white gloves with DIA leadership as they say things like, "a lot of progress is being made, the public just won't see it for another 4 years." Life's too short and taxpayer money is too valuable to not be absolutely ruthless if we're not seeing growth and tangible results. Proofs in the cranes, not the drawings.

Zero accountability or willingness within the city to point out an obvious problem.

[marcuscnelson]

Instead, we're getting these weird scorecards where Lori Boyer is getting all A+'s from the rest of the DIA for weird things like "Communicating with the public!" whilst we downtown workers trip over tweaked out vagrants in search of a restaurant serving food after 3 PM.

We've also got these weird stories coming out about how this whole audit is being done because we don't know how we can possible survive after Lori Boyer retires following what seems to be a guaranteed two year extension of her contract, and we need to make sure she's around to properly mentor the new hire.

It's not personal, but WHAT NOW?

We're investing way, way, way too much money into our urban core to keep wearing white gloves with DIA leadership as they say things like, "a lot of progress is being made, the public just won't see it for another 4 years." Life's too short and taxpayer money is too valuable to not be absolutely ruthless if we're not seeing growth and tangible results. Proofs in the cranes, not the drawings.

Zero accountability or willingness within the city to point out an obvious problem.

For some reason this seems to be a problem across multiple authorities around here. Appointed boards that constantly heap high praise and lavish salaries and insist that everything is just fine until someone finally decides otherwise, at which point everything implodes.

It would be really Jacksonville to suddenly decide all at once to blow up the DIA and completely start over instead of doing the hard work of objectively reviewing Lori Boyer's leadership.