The Jacksonville Jaguars are promising not to displace Eastside residents as the team embarks on a massive renovation of TIAA Bank Field.
Team President Mark Lamping said Monday that the team is looking to develop property surrounding the stadium, but not gentrify to the point where current Eastside residents can no longer afford to live in their neighborhood.
Lamping spoke at a community meeting at Strings Sports Brewery. It was the first of 14 community meetings the team will hold throughout Duval County this month to pitch its Stadium of the Future idea.
More than 100 people shoehorned into the Springfield restaurant. Lamping outlined the team’s vision for renovating a stadium that was rebuilt from the ground up before the Jaguars’ first NFL season. Then he took a handful of questions from fans.
One of the first questions was the fate of residents Out East.
The Jaguars have invested in home repair programs, playgrounds and community redevelopment initiatives on the Eastside for years.
“What that is designed to do is bring about needed change in the neighborhood in the way that residents want, so they don’t get displaced; but, there are services — so they are not a food desert any longer, it’s a safer neighborhood — all of those things,” Lamping said.
Jaguars owner Shad Khan stood in the back of the brewery as Lamping spoke. He acknowledged there is a need for public dollars to be spent eradicating homelessness and on public safety. Nevertheless, he said money alone is not the only solution for solving Jacksonville’s issues.
“We’re to the point, you can cut corners, try to save money, or you can invest in the city,” Khan said. “I believe we invest in the city — public-private — and it’s going to pay dividends for generations to come. … This is not a tradeoff for a social cost versus a stadium. That'd be a terrible thing.”
Lamping said stadium renovations would revitalize the Eastside similar to the ways Brooklyn and LaVilla have been redeveloped in recent years.
Brooklyn and LaVilla, like the Eastside, were suburbs of Downtown that were majority Black neighborhoods a century ago.
Earlier this year, as the Eastside was being considered for inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places, Ruben Acosta, a survey and registration supervisor with the Florida Division of Historical Resources, noted the Eastside has been able to maintain its historic flavor better than LaVilla and Brooklyn.
“What makes (the) Eastside unique is that it has preserved its historic collection of buildings, its configuration, its sense as a neighborhood, versus LaVilla and Brooklyn,” Acosta said during a meeting Jan. 19. "It doesn’t mean (the) Eastside has not been impacted. … But, they were able to better weather the storms.”
On Monday, Lamping reiterated that mixed-use entertainment is a part of modern stadium construction and redevelopment. He also mentioned that taxpayers in smaller NFL markets — such as Buffalo, Nashville and New Orleans — often pay for stadium improvements.
What he didn’t say is that the state governments in New York, Tennessee and Louisiana all provided more than $100 million for stadium improvements or construction. That is unlikely to happen in Florida.
If all goes to plan, Lamping said, early work for the stadium would start after the 2025 NFL season and be completed by 2028. That timeline, he said, includes being far enough along in the “schematic design” by October that the team sees a pathway toward beginning work in less than three years.
He proposed two options for construction: consistent construction that would move games and take 30 months to complete, and delayed construction that would not move as many games but take nearly four years to complete.
Jacksonville resident John Parker, a season ticket holder since 1995 and a retired sheet metal worker, said the team should explore options that keep the Jaguars playing here during renovations.
“I don't think it should take four years,” Parker said. “And whatever it takes, we should not move these games out of Jacksonville.”
Though the Jaguars have touted the Shipyards and other properties near Out East for development, Parker said he would be unlikely to use the amenities near the stadium.
“I come and tailgate, I use my grill, I bring my own liquids … and then I go home,” Parker said. “The entertainment district around the stadium is not that important to me.”
As proposed, the stadium would cost between $1.3 billion and $1.4 billion. Parker said he has doubts about the distribution of funds toward the development around the stadium.
“I think that [development outside the stadium] should be done entirely by private business and private entrepreneurs that are interested in building restaurants and bars and hotels on their dime, not the city’s dime,” Parker said. “The stadium is ours. Let’s partner with the Jaguars and if we could get 50-50 on the stadium, the rest will come.”
The Jaguars’ lease at TIAA Bank Field ends after the 2029 NFL season. This month’s community meetings are the team’s attempt to ensure its aspirations are in line with city of Jacksonville's realities and the public’s desire.
“We’ve talked through all the details, spent a lot of money,” Khan said. “The top global architects in the world have come up with the ideas. They were paid and put in a lot of time and energy to come up with the best, we think, the city needs. And, we want to get that vision shared with the people and let them decide.”
