Daily Record Financial News &
Friday, August 5, 2016
Vol. 103, No. 190 • One Section
35¢ www.jaxdailyrecord.com
The long pursuit of Amazon.com
Deal’s certainty came only after company delivered news
Until Amazon.com made it official it would open a fulfillment center in Jacksonville, economic developers figuratively held their breath. Even with City Council approval of the incentives April 26, site clearing by July 13 and the land sale to the project developer July 21, there still was an underlying concern. “There were a number of things that happened between council approval and a couple of days ago when it was announced
Wendland
that you kind of go, ‘oh no, is this the thing that’s going to kill it?’ But everybody was able to work through those issues,” city Office of Economic Development Executive Director Kirk Wendland said last week. JAXUSA Partnership President Jerry Mallot said he wasn’t completely confident until a week before the announcement when the JAX Chamber was reviewing a final draft of the company news release, which finally was posted by Amazon.com the morning of
July 27. “We wanted them to do a huge celebration. They did not want to do that,” Mallot said, although there might be one later. Wendland, Mallot and Tim Vanderhoof, vice president of business development for Enter-
prise Florida, presented “Winning Project Rex: What it Means for Northeast Florida” at the JAXUSA Partnership Regional Economic Development Forum last Friday, just two days after the announcement. Seattle-based global e-commerce retailer Amazon.com will open a $200 million center in North Jacksonville that will pick, pack and ship small consumer goods. The center will comprise 2.4 million square feet of space Mathis continued on Page A-4
Drawing attention Downtown Hemming group in fight for survival
Landscape architects sketch the streetscape
By Max Marbut Staff Writer
Public
Lack of confidence puts funding at risk By David Chapman Staff Writer
Photo by Max Marbut
A cadre of landscape architects spent the hot and humid Thursday morning moving from shady spot to shady spot Downtown between East Bay Street and Hemming Park. They left the climate-controlled confines of the Hyatt Regency Jacksonville Riverfront, where they are attending the state convention of the American Society of Landscape Architects, to document the urban environment and hone their sketching skills. The tour was led by artist James Richards, who is the keynote speaker for the convention. He’s also associate professor of landscape architecture at the University of Texas at Arlington and a member of the advisory board of the global nonprofit Urban Sketchers. He travels the world helping revive the art of drawing by hand, which he said has been practically lost due to technology. “For the past 15 years, most designers have been trained on computers,” Richards said. “Now, we’re figuring out we may have thrown the baby out with the bath water when we stopped drawing.” As the group Richards walked around Downtown, they stopped at Bay and Newnan streets, Adams and Laura streets and then Hemming Park. They spent a few minutes at each site sketching the streetscape, creating their interpretations of what they saw. “Sketching forces you to really look and it gives you confidence to take a leap of imagination,” said Richards. After the group made sketches at each stop, they had what Richards called a “throwdown,” when the sketchbooks were tossed down onto the sidewalk in an impromptu exhibit, which caught the attention of quite a few passersby. Richards critiqued the drawings and offered tips on technique, composition, perspective and proportion before members of Sketching continued on Page A-2
Emily O’Mahoney, a landscape architect from Jupiter, was drawing the fountain and statue in Hemming Park on Thursday morning.
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Bill Prescott took a walk through Hemming Park on Thursday morning, not long after the latest sit-down with city officials to discuss the future of the park and the nonprofit that’s operated the Downtown venue for nearly two years. There have been a lot of those sit-downs recently. Last week, a special committee met to talk about the Friends of Hemming Park and its short- and long-term funding along with the future of the park. On Monday, a council committee approved $150,000 for the group to ensure it survives through Oct. 1. Then Wednesday, another committee balked at that idea and deferred the issue. As one council member said Thursday, that might have been the best course of action. Based on the tone and the comments at that meeting, it would have “gone down in flames,” said Bill Gulliford. Without council confidence, Friends won’t receive $250,000 to run the park next year. Prescott Without council confidence, Friends won’t even receive the $150,000 needed to make it through the month. “Hemming Park is in limbo right now,” said Prescott, who this week stepped down from the Friends board to become interim CEO after a reorganization. Changes announced Monday came after former CEO Vince Cavin resigned, weeks after an audit opened the floodgates for council to scrutinize how the nonprofit spent its $1 million operating contract. The white-knuckled approach has led Hemming
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