Twenty years after the idea first surfaced for creating a special improvement district along New Kings Road and Soutel Drive, the district finally is embarking on the kind of multimillion dollar project that supporters envisioned.
The King Soutel Crossing Community Redevelopment Agency has set aside nearly $12 million so far for a 2.2 mile stretch of New Kings Road from Soutel Drive to Trout River Road near Interstate 295.
“We promised them a premier corridor,” said Karen Nasrallah, redevelopment manager in the city’s Office of Economic Development. “We’re going to deliver it. We’re not doing this on the cheap.”
“What other communities have, now we will have it on the Northside of Jacksonville,” City Council member Ju’Coby Pittman said.
The work will start in the coming months and unfold in phases over a multiyear time frame. The existing medians will get new oak trees, pavers and ground cover such as peanut grass. Construction of sidewalks and crosswalks also are on tap.
The corridor could get decorative lighting so it feels like a gateway into Jacksonville for drivers traveling down New Kings Road from I-295 toward the direction of downtown.
The redevelopment agency previously approved $100,000 in 2024 to bring a Zaxby’s restaurant to New Kings Road near Interstate 295 by helping to pay the developer’s tap fee for connection to water service.
Nasrallah said New Kings Road can attract more restaurants and stores serving a market made up of highway travelers and neighborhood residents.
Long time coming for New Kings Road corridor work
The roots of the King Soutel Crossing Community Redevelopment Agency go back to 2004 when Mia Jones represented the area on City Council. The city approved a redevelopment plan in 2008.
From that point on, any increase above the 2008 baseline for total taxable property value in the special district spins off tax revenue that is dedicated for carrying out the redevelopment plan.
Downtown Jacksonville, the University Boulevard corridor of Arlington and two areas in Jacksonville Beach also have community redevelopment agencies that are authorized by state law.
The redevelopment agencies cannot make headway, however, unless property values are going up, which has taken awhile for King Soutel Crossing. A decade ago, King Soutel Crossing got about $506,000 in property tax revenue for its 2015-16 budget.
At that level, King Soutel Crossing was able to do sidewalk construction and landscaping at the intersection at Soutel Drive and Norfolk Boulevard.
Economic growth since 2015 has pumped more money each year into the community redevelopment agency’s budget. This year, the amount of property tax revenue for the redevelopment area is $4.8 million.
The concept behind redevelopment areas is that doing redevelopment plan projects will further grow the tax base by attracting private development, which in turn will generate tax revenue for continuing redevelopment in a cycle that reverses the decline of aging neighborhoods.
King Soutel Crossing advisory board member Vanessa Cullins Hopkins, a longtime resident of the area, said the redevelopment agency “can’t do it alone.” She wants to see affordable housing as well that brings in more residents.
But after years of doing plans and studies while securing money for the New Kings Road corridor, she’s looking forward to seeing visible improvements.
“Timing is the big issue,” she said. “We’ve all been been waiting so long to have investment in this area.”
Pittman said getting to this stage has required passing the baton from one set of political leaders to the next.
“We have partners that will be able to help us do this, and for me to carry on the legacy that Mia Jones started along with Karen Nasrallah, this is a big deal,” she said after a Nov. 14 groundbreaking ceremony. “It’s not just a conversation any more. It’s an implementation.”
This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Multimillion dollar upgrade to New Kings Road is result of 20-year push for redevelopment
Reporting by David Bauerlein, Jacksonville Florida Times-Union / Florida Times-Union
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