GAI Consultants’ Community Solutions Group (CSG) conducted a comprehensive update to the Business Investment and Development (BID) plan, which is comprised of the BID strategy and the Northbank Downtown and Southside CRA plans. The project involved four discrete tasks, each of which involved extensive public and stakeholder engagement.

Update Downtown Design Guidelines: Using text, images and illustrations, CSG refined the Downtown design guidelines to both articulate the purpose and intent of the regulations and the prescriptive requirements necessary to provide direction to developers and focus for reviewing entities and staff.

Develop a Parks Master Plan: CSG conducted a comprehensive inventory of existing public parks, indoor recreation facilities, and outdoor recreation facilities and assessed the capacity, functionality, accessibility, convenience, and condition of each amenity found within. The final Parks Master Plan developed by CSG included recommendations for designated parks and open spaces taking into consideration the unique demographics and desires of Downtown residents, as well as estimates of capital and operational costs for land acquisition, construction, programming, staffing, technology, and maintenance.

Develop a Branding Plan: CSG created Downtown Brand Guidelines for the City of Jacksonville’s BID and CRA plan boundaries, which included brand identity, position, and plan to launch the brand as a whole and create connected and relational sub-brands for each district based on both existing areas as well as those planned based on the BID and CRA plan. The Downtown Brand Guidelines were articulated through logos, text, graphics, key messaging, graphs, charts, maps, precedent imagery, and conceptual drawings.

Update the BID and CRA Plans: CSG produced an update for both the CRA plans and the BID Strategy for Downtown Jacksonville. The CRA update identified and prioritized new projects, recommended modifications to existing incentive programs, creation of new incentive programs, and elimination of ineffective programs in order to better serve the CRA’s goals. CSG updates to the BID strategy mirrors the CRA plans and includes an overall market snapshot of Downtown and Downtown-specific incentive programs, as well as summarizing the near-, mid-, and long-term project and development priorities.