Daily Record FINANCIAL NEWS &
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 9, 2016
Vol. 103, No. 215 • oNe SectioN
35¢ www.jaxdailyrecord.com
Will Hemming contract be rebid?
Council wrestling with what’s next for Downtown park operations
By David Chapman Staff Writer
Friends of Hemming Park for sure will operate the Downtown venue for the next couple of months. And there’s growing City Council support for the group to continue overseeing the city block for the first six months of the fiscal year. After that? It’s a question a special council committee determining the future of the park is wrestling with.
It came up with a couple of possibilities Thursday. One option could be to tweak the current Friends operating contract to include a new scope of services and performance standards. The contract between Friends and the city has a couple of years left on it but has been criticized by council members and Mayor Lenny Curry’s administration for not having proper metrics in place. The current standards are more event and attendance driv-
en. Officials would rather see success defined more by safety and cleanliness. However, tweaking the contract to such a degree could pose a perception problem. If it’s determined such changes are considered a major departure from the deal in place, it effectively would be sole sourcing a contract to Friends and would require waiving procurement rules. To council members like President Lori Boyer, that could bring a level of discomfort given the
history of concerns with Friends. A mid-July audit showing how the nonprofit spent parts of its $1 million taxpayer-funded contract led to criticism from the special council committee and council as a whole. Shortterm restrictions were placed on funding and questions of the group’s long-term viability mounted. In response, Friends shifted leadership and made financial changes in hopes to continue operations. Boyer said given those con-
$60M park planned on Philips Highway
Pat McGarry’s sons never met their Aunt Katie. The baby of the family went to the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001. She never made it out.
Still missing Katie 15 years later
First two phases include office and retail space
By David Chapman, Staff Writer
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By Karen Brune Mathis Managing Editor
Photo provided by Pat McGarry
Pat McGarry often thinks about what his youngest sister would be like today. Would she have had children? How old would they have been? What would she be doing with her life today? Katie McGarry-Noack would have been 45. She was a newlywed when she attended a technology conference at the Windows on the World restaurant at the top of the North Tower at the World Trade Center. She was one of almost 3,000 people who died in the terrorist attack that shook the country’s foundation 15 years ago Sunday. “It doesn’t feel like it’s been 15 years,” McGarry said Thursday. So much has happened since that day. McGarry met Mariana at his sister’s New York memorial service. Their relationship turned from long distance to longterm when they married. They have two sons, Shane, 10, and Jonathan, 9. The boys had only heard stories about Aunt Katie and 9/11 Noack until the family visited New York during the Thanksgiving holiday last year. It was odd for McGarry. He grew up in New York. He’s always been an avid New York sports fan. He worked at the World Trade Center in 1993 when a terrorist detonated a truck bomb in the basement. So to be back as a tourist seeing sites like the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island? A little weird for him, he said. One of those visits was to the National September 11 Memorial and Museum, a “pretty powerful experience” for his boys who had only heard but never seen. The experience helped them better comprehend the impact, he said. They saw
cerns and the six-month window of funding for the group, there isn’t enough time to see a significant change or provide her with enough confidence to sole source the contract. The other option — the one the committee seemed to favor Thursday — was to craft a new request for proposals that features new metrics and see how many vendors would apply. That could include Friends, which was the only group to respond to the request in 2014. HEMMING CONTINUED ON PAGE A-3
Pat McGarry with his wife, Mariana, and sons Jonathan and Shane, at the Survivor Tree last fall. The New York monument is a reminder of the 9/11 terrorist attacks for people like McGarry, who lost his youngest sister, Katie, in the attack almost 15 years ago.
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Now undeveloped, 61 acres along Philips Highway south of Florida 9B are slated for an almost 600,000-square-foot commercial park that would start taking shape over the next decade. The Powers Bay Business Center, led by applicant and landowner Frapag Powers Bay LLC, would start with two phases at a budget of more than $60 million, according to an application filed Wednesday with the St. Johns River Water Management District. Applicant John Zehmer said Thursday nothing was imminent and the drawings were preliminary. “It’s a conceptual filing to get our permits lined up,” said Zehmer, a lawyer and part of the property ownership group. According to the filing, the first two phases would create 310,000 square feet of Class A office space and 35,000 square feet of retail space, including a veterinarian’s office. About an acre of the property is owned by a group led by two Jacksonville veterinarians. A third phase is shown as two fourstory, 116,000-square-foot buildings. The applicant and landowner is Frapag Powers Bay LLC, led by Frapag Realty Services Inc. Zehmer is president of Frapag Realty Services Inc., whose officers and directors include executives in Ponte Vedra Beach and top managers with Viennabased Frapag. Frapag is an international group of companies whose holdings include real estate properties in Europe and the United States. Its Jacksonville investment includes the Waterview Office Park along Deerwood Park Boulevard. Peacock Consulting Group is the environmental consultant for Powers Bay Business Center. The engineer is RS&H. About 45 acres are uplands, primarily pine plantation. The remainder is wetland PARK CONTINUED ON PAGE A-2
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