Jacksonville builders seek extension of mobility fee moratorium

[John P]

You will see a united front of civic organizations against extention. If everyone reading this sent an email to the city council and mayors office it would help. Private meetings are not the on;ly thing that matter. They are inflenced by public opinion too.

[simms3]

This just came through my email:

So, you wanna build a commercial building? Have you priced your labor? Found your bricks? Estimated your other materials? Better hurry: Many development pros are worried about inflation.

A number of our execs raised the red flag on rising construction costs during Bisnow's third annual Atlanta Multifamily Summit last week. JLB Partners’ Hudson Hooks (above) started that ball rolling, saying “inflation was creeping” into materials costs. AMLI Residential’s Fred Schreiber says his firm is seeing a 10% hike in construction costs on its apartment developments. And at our recent San Antonio State of the Market Summit, Embrey Partners EVP of development Robert Hunt also rang the warning bells with an abnormally large spike in shell construction costs—15% in the past year. Drywall prices also have jumped 25% this year, he adds. All in, costs are outpacing rent growth and run a real risk of making planned projects unworkable.

But it’s more than just raw material costs. Many regions are reporting labor shortages, where subcontractors must lure workers back from other states to staff development projects, particularly among wood framers, Fred says. (You ever try transporting a wood framer across state lines? It's a mess. Lots of splinters.) “It’s even difficult to select brick you like that’s within 500 miles of your project,” Hudson says. Click the above video to hear Crescent Resources’ Benjamin Collins talk about how sub cost increases could threaten the pipeline of new development.

Just a hunch that if replacement costs are rising faster than market rent growth (and it sounds like they are), the demand for new development will fall anyways.  And if the rent growth is not there, how is their room to increase the basis in your land (i.e. urban development deal) when your hard costs are rising?  Things to consider.  You start a podium apartment deal in say Brooklyn where you underwrite net effective rents of $1.35 upon stabilization, and all of a sudden throughout the 18 months the thing is UC your hard costs rise 10%.  Does that mean you can now underwrite $1.49?  Doubtful as I'm sure while $1.35 is your "aggressive base case", I'm also sure $1.49 wasn't even on your radar of possibility for years to come.  Now you're screwed (but I would guess suburban development deals conceal some of this risk to a degree).

[jcjohnpaint]

If there is any area of town that is underserved in terms of retail, its downtown and the urban core neighborhoods.  The mobility plan puts the in town areas on equal footing with the 'burbs and essentially opens up a new and densly populated area to new development.  This development may not be in the form or layout that Toney is used to, but if he was smart he would embrace the mobility plan and capitalize on growth opportunities in the urban core before other developers do.  Like Simms has previously stated, if Sleiman moves quickly he can build out the downtown and urban core retail sector and create high barriers to entry for smaller developers.  His time would be better spent fighting for the mobility plan than against it.

Because people like this cannot see past their own political agenda. 

[sheclown]

MJ's Doug Skiles made a great presentation to the Urban Core CPAC last night.  The UC CPAC voted to recommend that the moratorium not be extended.

[thelakelander]

Sweet!

[jcjohnpaint]

Well Done! 

[Tacachale]

Awesome. Good work, Doug!

[Gators312]

MJ's Doug Skiles made a great presentation to the Urban Core CPAC last night.  The UC CPAC voted to recommend that the moratorium not be extended.

Can we start a collection on MJ to send Doug out to lobby the entire CoJ ?

[JeffreyS]

^I'm in. Can we get some pledges from council members not to go along with this garbage.

[Ocklawaha]

It's very nice that Doug was able to convince the board to end the moratorium. We've won a great battle, but the war rages on, so "keep fighting the good fight."

(Nothing like quoting the Apostle Paul, one of the worlds early rail passengers, for encouragement).

[thelakelander]

This was just emailed to me:

Tonight at the BPAC meeting we learned from Councilman Redman that a bill to extend the mobility plan moratorium has been filed. He did not discuss it any further with us.

The BPAC passed a resolution to support full implementation of the mobility plan including the fee and giving reasons regarding the implementation of bicycle and pedestrian facilities in Jacksonville. Attendance at the October 9 meeting is important to speak for the sunset of the moratorium and letters of support from organizations showing how the mobility plan will help them are also important.

[simms3]

Sent the following email to CC members (had to slip an "RE:" in subject line to spur curiosity, hahaha):

RE: Saving One of Jacksonville's Most Competitive Edges


Mr. xxxx,

Hope you and your wife and kids are doing well!  Glad for your decision on the one version of the human rights bill (real setback for the city that was, worsening the negative perception that already exists).  Here is what I have sent your fellow city council members, speaking to an issue near and dear to my heart.  I am honored to work for one of the most reputable and one of the largest private equity real estate shops in the world and through my job I get to travel to other cities and witness their amazing transitions.  It makes me sad that Jacksonville has not joined the nearly nationwide fray of re-establishing real estate as a tool for economic development in the 21st century (2012 meet 1920, 1920 meet 2012).

QUOTE:
I am writing you as a former resident of Jacksonville to consider passing legislation that would ultimately prevent the needless destruction of significant buildings in Jacksonville and to sunset the Mobility Fee Moratorium in a related attempt to spur economic development in the heart of the city. How I or your or anybody else defines significant is a matter we could all debate until we are blue, but one thing remains true: Jacksonville is in danger of losing something very important that many other cities in the state of FL have never even had the opportunity of benefiting from. That is a rich tie to the past.

Speaking to a macro view of real estate nowadays, many development firms are migrating to older, crowded, dirty coastal gateway markets. There are many reasons for this, but perhaps the two most important reasons are for the educated and skilled workforce these “cool” cities seem to attract and for the impossibly high barriers to entry these dense markets offer, allowing for dividend like returns and safety from oversupply and treacherous cycles.

This is relevant to Jacksonville, being a somewhat older coastal port city very unique to the state of FL. That uniqueness is rapidly deteriorating. As evidenced by the sudden explosion of the Park and King district, the educated professionals in Jacksonville (and everywhere else) desire vibrant walkable communities with culture, CHARACTER, ties to the past, and convenience. Jacksonville once looked like a smaller San Francisco or smaller Boston. Now sadly, most of what was once a dense, vibrant city center is instead a moonscape surrounded by a very large overbuilt mess of strip centers and subdivisions with no end in sight to a lack of proper planning and a lack of adequate transportation to serve such unsustainable growth/development.

Every city has suburbs, but the suburbs are not what make a city attractive to the young, skilled, college-educated workers firms need in their ranks. Emphasizing new suburban development is a route contradictory to the route Jacksonville's most successful peers are taking. One need only to spend a few hours in Charlotte, Nashville, Austin, Indianapolis, Oklahoma City or Salt Lake City to see that development patterns of transit-served infill and adaptive re-use are creating a sense of place that in turn is creating a perpetual cycle of attracting the best and brightest young people and the firms that employ them.

I urge you to find a way to work with the rest of Council, the various development agencies and city planners, the Mayor, and the people of Jacksonville to allow the Mobility Fee Moratorium to sunset and to enact a citywide program to prevent needless destruction by incentivizing the private sector to create new uses for old buildings.


Warm regards,

[dougskiles]

Should make for an entertaining evening.

I also heard that the preservation of the Bostwick Building will be up for discussion at the October 9th meeting.

Even more reason for those with a heart for Jacksonville to make your opinions known.

[Bridges]

What are those 6 vision plans?   I can't expand the picture.

[thelakelander]

Here you go:

http://www.coj.net/departments/planning-and-development/community-planning-division/plans-and-studies/vision-plans.aspx

You can use that link to access the six Vision Plan documents in the graphic.