1. Khan, Curry and Cordish

In July 2017, Jacksonville Jaguars President Mark Lamping took Mayor Lenny Curry and Chief Administrative Officer Sam Mousa on a cross-country trip to tour mixed-use entertainment projects adjacent to sports facilities by The Cordish Companies. At the time, Lamping stated that “They’re one of the developers that are interested in helping us.” In early December, Mayor Curry went as far as to hint about a possible entertainment district coming soon to downtown. You don’t have to be a Rhodes Scholar to figure out where this is headed. Expect the smoke with Khan, Curry and Cordish to turn into a fire in 2018.

2. LaVilla is Rediscovered

More than two decades after the City of Jacksonville razed most of LaVilla in hopes of stimulating revitalization, new construction finally materialized in Downtown’s historic African-American district. In fact, 2017 ended in a bang with the Lofts of LaVilla opening its doors and Summer Classics announcing plans to convert a long vacant LaVilla building into a high end furniture retail showroom, assemblage and warehouse. As we head into 2018, LaVilla currently has a intermodal transportation center and an additional 180 residential units under construction and more proposed. Centrally located between I-95, Brooklyn and the Northbank and home to city blocks of vacant parcels, LaVilla’s days of being overlooked, ignored and disregarded are over.