“You have to get it right,” says Aundra Wallace of Jacksonville Landing

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The public will have another chance Wednesday night to sound off on their vision for a redeveloped Jacksonville Landing, and the man leading the redesign project says this “charrette” process is key.

“We want to hear from the community,” said Aundra Wallace, CEO of the city’s Downtown Investment Authority.

“What’s their vision for the Jacksonville Landing?” he said during an appearance on WJCT’s First Coast Connect

“It’s one of the key assets downtown. You have to get it right. And it takes time. There will be varying opinions. You try to come to as much of a consensus as you possibly can.”

The DIA is sponsoring a second public forum, or “charrette,” as design professionals, the public, and other officials discuss how to reconfigure the Landing with an emphasis on public open space, increased river access, attractions such as “the right bars and restaurants,” and how to build parking and private businesses into a small urban space.

“One of the challenges is, it’s only a 6.6 acre site,” Wallace said. “It’s a very compact site. How much development can you put in to generate a rate of return? That’s where you get into some good debates. But it sits in the heart of downtown, and we can’t make a mistake. Right now, the square footage of retail space at the Landing is not working. Right-sizing that is critical for this project to succeed. But if you have the right type of retail, people will want to go there.”

That’s been the ever-elusive unicorn bedeviling the Landing almost since its inception, of course. Finding the right mix of businesses and attractions to keep visitors coming. For Wallace, opening up the site to the St. Johns River is a must. New eateries and bars — the right ones — are also part of the vision.

“It has to be something you can’t get anywhere else in Jacksonville,” he said. “You need the right type of restaurants and bars, microbreweries, when you are able to connect those to other nodes, like the Performing Arts Center, then you have something.”

Still an open question: how the Landing redesign will be funded. Wallace says City Hall’s buy-in will be a key piece of the process.

“The DIA, while it has its independence, we are seamlessly interlocked in with the current administration and that process is working very well. We have to have that relationship, because the DIA does not have all the investment capital we need to do those projects, so we need to partner with the city.”

“First, we’ve got to come up with the right design. Second, I need to sit with Mayor Lenny Curry and his team. Is there the need for any additional public sector investment? Right now it’s premature to have a discussion on the financing, but there are certain things that will need to be done in terms of roads and infrastructure for this development to be done well,” he said.

“For the Landing to be successful, this has to be something Northeast Florida owns. Once we are drawn to it, then others will come to it.”

Melissa Ross

In addition to her work writing for Florida Politics, Melissa Ross also hosts and produces WJCT’s First Coast Connect, the Jacksonville NPR/PBS station’s flagship local call-in public affairs radio program. The show has won four national awards from Public Radio News Directors Inc. (PRNDI). First Coast Connect was also recognized in 2010, 2011, 2013 and 2014 as Best Local Radio Show by Folio Weekly’s “Best Of Jax” Readers Poll and Melissa has also been recognized as Folio Weekly’s Best Local Radio Personality. As executive producer of The 904: Shadow on the Sunshine State, Melissa and WJCT received an Emmy in the “Documentary” category at the 2011 Suncoast Emmy Awards. The 904 examined Jacksonville’s status as Florida’s murder capital. During her years in broadcast television, Melissa picked up three additional Emmys for news and feature reporting. Melissa came to WJCT in 2009 with 20 years of experience in broadcasting, including stints in Cincinnati, Chicago, Orlando and Jacksonville. Married with two children, Melissa is a graduate of Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism/Communications. She can be reached at [email protected].



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