The coronavirus pandemic has slowed down efforts to revive Jacksonville’s once-vibrant, historically African American Eastside neighborhood, but advocates and business owners are optimistic that progress will resume.
Today the Eastside is a low-income area just north of TIAA Bank Field and the sports and entertainment district.
At one point, its streets were crowded with thriving African American-owned businesses, but Suzanne Pickett, president of the Historic Eastside Community Development Corporation (HECDC), said the area hasn’t seen any significant development or investment in decades, and the coronavirus pandemic has put even more of a damper on efforts to return the neighborhood to its former glory.
“Our organization has had a plan to start building homes, and we've had to pause those efforts due to the coronavirus. Also a lot of our community, as other communities have, have lost employment,” she said. “We have a large population of children at home with their parents. And we've had to really just put a pause on our redevelopment efforts and focus on essential services.”
To prevent the displacement of the Eastside community, Picket and her partners are working to help neighborhood residents become property owners and to engage outside investors.
They’re also trying to help people who already own land get access to the resources and opportunities that will allow them to stay, even if the area sees some drastic changes over the coming years.
The coronavirus pandemic has definitely been a setback, but Pickett says the Eastside is getting a lot of support from people and organizations throughout the city, which hasn’t always been the case.
“There's such a huge history of mistrust on the Eastside, of organizations coming in, making promises, and then disappearing for whatever reason,” she said.
Angie Nixon is a community organizer and Democratic candidate for House District 14 who recently opened a restaurant with her daughter on the Eastside.
She lives on Jacksonville’s Northside, but she started focusing on the Eastside neighborhood about four years ago when she helped establish the Melanin Market, a quarterly marketplace that showcases black-owned businesses from across the city and state.
Nixon and her daughter, Natalie McGriff (who co-wrote The Adventures of Moxie McGriff children’s book), had a soft opening for their new restaurant, Natalie’s Nook and Candy Shop, on Mother’s Day.
Nixon said her business opened at the same time many in the neighborhood are struggling.
“Some of these businesses unfortunately weren’t able to go after some of the loans and grants just because they didn’t have the proper paperwork in alignment,” she said. “It would be really helpful for the city to step up a little bit and to assist some businesses like these, located on the Eastside, with things like the Bridges program that the JAX Chamber has and things like that.”
Nixon and others are trying to help local business owners, teaching them how to take advantage of grants, loans and other forms of financial assistance.
But, she said the most important thing is community members’ supporting each other, and she sees that in action as regulations to help stop the spread of the coronavirus are gradually lifted.
“With the reopening of this stuff, there's still pride in the community. So people have been coming and showing up in record numbers to support them [local businesses],” she said. “It takes a village, and the village is stepping up and is super excited about it.”
At the same time, the pandemic has set back the Jacksonville Armada FC’s plans to build a professional soccer stadium on the Eastside by at least six months, according to Armada President and General Manager Nathan Walter.
“We do not have a definitive timeline and timeframe for that. It will completely depend on the backlog of permits and zonings that's going on within the city, how the city responds coming out of this pandemic,” he said.
Walter believes the stadium, the plan for which is expected to include a corporate building for some of team owner Robert Palmer’s businesses, will create a slew of part-time and full-time jobs for people in the area and contribute to local economic development.
Pickett, who isn’t concerned about the delayed stadium timeline, says she’s been impressed with Walter and his team.
“Ever since we found out about the stadium, the Armada has been integral and coming into the neighborhood, working with us and assisting us. They’re working with us to figure out what type of community benefit agreement is going to be best for the Eastside neighborhood,” she said.
But, she said, community members are not yet convinced that the stadium will be good for the neighborhood in the long run.
Pickett has reached out to residents of similar communities in other cities, who described mixed results after a sports stadium was built nearby. Some of those communities saw gentrification and a loss of local businesses. Others saw an influx of jobs and the establishment of beneficial youth programs.
“We’re hoping for the best possible outcome. We are fully aware of the possibility of it going either way,” Pickett said.
Brendan Rivers can be reached at brivers@wjct.org, 904-358-6396 or on Twitter at @BrendanRivers.
