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March 25-31, 2021
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Record & Observer
AN EXPANDED VISION Record & Observer JACKSONVILLE
Downtown Vision Inc. wants a bigger service area, larger staff and a new HQ. JACKSONVILLE
Special to the Daily Record
RD River City Brewery apartments are planned at the site of River City Brewing Co. on the Downtown Southbank.
Record & Observer
RD River City apartments take step
Project design is “moving in the right direction.”
JACKSONVILLE
Record & Observer BY MIKE MENDENHALL STAFF WRITER
Photo by Mike Mendenhall
Downtown Ambassador Lionel Roberts, Downtown Vision Inc. CEO Jake Gordon and ambassador Michael Ryan meet at the public lounge area on Hogan Street. The nonprofit DVI is seeking to expand its service area and increase its staff.
BY MIKE MENDENHALL STAFF WRITER
D
owntown Vision Inc. — the agency whose ambassadors greet visitors and help keep the Urban Core clean and safe — wants to expand its borders, increase its budget, nearly double its staff and move to a new headquarters. The nonprofit DVI, founded in 2000, provides advocacy and services a business improvement district in a halfmile-square area of Downtown’s North-
bank and Southbank. The DVI board of directors wants City Council to expand its boundaries to 1.3 square miles. DVI CEO Jake Gordon said it’s a “commonsense expansion” and would allow DVI to deploy ambassadors into more areas on the Northbank and Southbank. Gordon says the expansion would capture recent and proposed residential and public park development in LaVilla and retail and corporate office growth on Riverside Avenue, including Fidelity National Information Services Inc.’s
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new headquarters in Brooklyn. It would extend its work on the Northbank Riverwalk to the Riverside Arts Market. “We want to be able to add more value and add more people. With a lot more residents Downtown and with a lot more activity, there’s just a lot more need,” Gordon said. Increasing DVI’s footprint and taxable base would increase the nonprofit’s budget by about $875,000 annually from $1.5 million to $2.38 million, according to SEE DVI, PAGE 6
Downtown Development Review Board members said March 23 the latest design for Miami-based Related Group’s RD River City Brewery apartments is “moving in the right direction” and granted conceptual approval. The board voted 7-0 to advance architectural plans for the proposed $92 million apartment project to replace the River City Brewing Co. restaurant on the Downtown Southbank. The Driver, McAfee, Hawthorne & Diebenow law firm represents Related Group in Jacksonville. Firm partner Cyndy Trimmer said the developer and Miamibased MSA Architects redesigned the apartment in reaction to feedback that it did not fit “contextually” along the St. Johns River. “We’ve gone through many iterations of the site plan and the elevations to get where we are today,” Trimmer said. Before the final review, the Downtown Investment Authority staff asked Related to show plans to “soften” the top floor on the parking deck visible from upper floors on the nearby Prudential Financial building, with trees in raised planters.
MMENDENHALL@ JAXDAILYRECORD.COM
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