Two Jacksonville advocate groups extol its virtues
Bring visitors to Jacksonville, get residents Downtown
Last month there was an interesting juxtaposition of annual meetings by two groups that have, ostensibly, the same goal: to promote Jacksonville – either the metropolitan area at large or Downtown – as a desirable destination.
DVI board members Pamela Smith, El-Ad Florida, LLC; Bill Prescott, Heritage Capital Group; Numa Saisselin, Florida Theatre, Vince McCormack, Perdue, Inc.
First, Downtown Vision, Inc. (DVI) held its annual meeting on Nov. 6 at the Museum of Contemporary Art. At that meeting, several people gave presentations, including board chair Chris Flagg, executive director Terry Lorince, Downtown Investment Authority (DIA) CEO Aundra Wallace, State of the Re:Union radio host Al Letson, and Brunet-García vice president and partner Diane Brunet-García.
It was Brunet-García’s presentation that provides a bit of drama to these back-to-back meetings. But first, the backstory.
Over 18 months ago, about six months prior to the January 2013 hiring of Paul Astleford as CEO of Visit Jacksonville, Brunet-García (the agency) indicated there was possibly a conflict of interest in the process of awarding a City of Jacksonville $20 million marketing bid to Visit Jacksonville (formerly the Jacksonville & the Beaches Convention and Visitors Bureau).
Brunet-García took issue with the procurement process, stating that two Tourism Development Council subcommittee members who scored the proposals, M.G. Orender and Fred Pozin, are past chairmen of Visit Jacksonville.
During the 2013 DVI annual meeting, Diane Brunet-García unveiled a branding for Downtown that, on the surface, seems to justify Astleford’s concerns about organizations battling for supremacy in guiding Jacksonville’s place on the world map.
Earlier this fall, Astleford was quoted as stating that “if the city wants to attract more tourists, it’s time for a major philosophical overhaul from community leaders.”
He was also noted as having said that “some of the major players supporting Jacksonville may be the city’s unintentional worst enemies, stunting the city’s progress in breaking out into a major destination for tourism, commercial conventions and other events.”
On Nov. 13 Visit Jacksonville held an awards ceremony and celebration titled Destination: Celebration at the Prime Osborne Convention Center. At that event, Astleford said “Jacksonville is unlike any other destination I’ve ever experienced and has among its many attributes an incredible variety of unique geographic areas to explore.”
Brunet-García has taken one of those geographic areas – Downtown – and christened part of it Spark District. The agency even went so far as to have a custom font designed and has proposed “tagging” buildings and other structures with the Spark District logo.
This new Downtown brand was rolled out informally during the 10th anniversary celebration of Art Walk on Nov. 6.
“It’s not just a region; it’s an attitude,” said Brunet-García. “It’s not just about art or dining outside at a café. It’s about the activities that will go on in this area.”
One week later, at Visit Jacksonville’s annual awards ceremony, Bill Gulliford, City of Jacksonville City Council president and Tourism Development Council chair, noted “I’m excited to see where the leadership of Visit Jacksonville, under Paul, is taking us and his progressive, out-front vision of where we need to go and how we need to get there. We need better community-wide focus, support and collaboration in this important economic arena and community benefit. From the trends I’m seeing, we’re clearly headed in the right direction.”
“Collaboration” was bandied about at the DVI annual meeting as well.
Said Chris Flagg, current chair of Downtown Vision, Inc., “Developing collaboratives…we want to be a horizontal agency, reaching out to make all of us stronger. It’s been wonderful to become transparent and all-embracing of the other organizations that are focused on Downtown and other
communities as well.”
Terry Lorince, DVI’s executive director stated that the [DVI] board has identified five goals. They include developing strategic partnerships; continuing place making in the public realm (making the street environment look better); continuing to tell the story of Downtown; providing value to stakeholders; and working on sustainability, which includes diversify funding sources.
In the end, the two organizations need each other. In order to increase convention and meeting business in Jacksonville, the city needs to present an attractive face downtown. Nonprofit groups like DVI , DIA and the Cultural Council, among others, work to improve the Downtown streetscape and provide the type of events that draw in residents and visitors.
“Knowing that visual arts, performing arts and cultural activities create the necessary vitality that will drive our downtown economy, we’ve become very deliberate about that and we’ve joined forces to spark change,” said Brunet-García.
In a panel discussion at Destination: Celebration, State Representative and JAX Chamber CEO Daniel Davis, head of the Tourism Development Council in 2007-2008, said “People have no idea what Jacksonville is or where it is; these are opportunities for us to bring people here and show them the hospitality, the natural resources, the diverse economy and quality of life. Once people come here, they don’t leave.”
By Kate A. Hallock
Resident Community News
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