JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 As major development projects loom large for the city of Jacksonville, Downtown Vision\u2019s annual \u201cState of Downtown\u201d report shows there\u2019s still much work to be done.<\/p>\n
The report was released on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
One of the biggest areas for improvement, the report highlighted, was the need to fill empty office space. According to the report, Jacksonville\u2019s office vacancies sit at 25.7 percent, which comes in more than six percent higher than both the national average as well as the next highest mark by a major Florida metro.<\/p>\n
>>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <<<<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cAs long as we keep improving our quality of life throughout our entire city; our neighborhoods, our parks, so forth, but also Downtown, making our Downtown more attractive, that\u2019s gonna wanna draw businesses from other cities and states to wanna come to Jacksonville,\u201d explained Jacksonville City Councilman Matt Carlucci, who sits on the Special Committee for the Future of Downtown. \u201cAnd they\u2019re gonna wanna locate Downtown.\u201d<\/p>\n Carlucci also said on Thursday that while filling office vacancies will be key in spurring economic growth, so will bringing more people to live in Jacksonville\u2019s urban core.<\/p>\n The \u201cState of Downtown\u201d report shows there have been more than 1,700 residential units added Downtown in the last five years.<\/p>\n [DOWNLOAD: Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks<\/a>]<\/p>\n \u201cThe residential impact is hugely important because that brings life 24\/7 Downtown,\u201d Carlucci said. \u201cThat\u2019s what will sustain retail down there and restaurants and so forth.\u201d<\/p>\n One other area Carlucci added is vital to focus on is maintaining and redeveloping historic properties around the city as well.<\/p>\n Downtown Investment Authority officials approved $1.9 million in incentives Wednesday to revitalize the old Mag\u2019s Cafe Building<\/a>, a designated historic landmark in the heart of downtown.<\/p>\n You can find a copy of the full \u201cState of Downtown\u201d report by clicking here<\/a>.<\/p>\n [SIGN UP: Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter<\/a>] <\/p>\n Click here<\/a> to download the free Action News Jax news and weather apps, click here<\/a> to download the Action News Jax Now app for your smart TV and click here<\/a> to stream Action News Jax live.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 As major development projects loom large for the city of Jacksonville, Downtown Vision\u2019s annual \u201cState…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":54975,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[982,18624,187,18613,2318,31052,24478,969,116,118,117,34263,634,6455,18614,34262],"class_list":{"0":"post-54974","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jacksonville","8":"tag-action_news","9":"tag-carlucci","10":"tag-city","11":"tag-councilman","12":"tag-downtown","13":"tag-downtown_investment_authority","14":"tag-downtown_vision","15":"tag-jack","16":"tag-jacksonville","17":"tag-jacksonville-headlines","18":"tag-jacksonville-news","19":"tag-landmark_maxs_cafe","20":"tag-local","21":"tag-logan_mcdonald","22":"tag-matt_carlucci","23":"tag-state_of_downtown"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54974","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54974"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54974\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54975"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54974"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54974"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54974"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}