Not Your Average Investor Show
Not Your Average Investor Show
427 | Investing In Solutions For The Affordability Crisis w/ JAX Mayor Donna Deegan
Jacksonville is tackling the housing affordability crisis head-on—and we’re bringing in Jacksonville’s very own Mayor Donna Deegan to share how the city is leading the charge!
On this episode of the Not Your Average Investor Show, we’re shining a light on how a city's public sector can help solve big challenges, and create an environment where residents, businesses, and investors can all thrive.
Join JWB co-founder Gregg Cohen and show host Pablo Gonzalez to hear about:
- The city’s plan to add 40,000 affordable housing units, including 4,000 below-market-rate homes by 2025
- Programs like the Revolving Loan Fund and Affordable Housing Fund that are driving solutions for families and investors
- Why this makes Jacksonville a unique market where investors can help solve the affordability crisis
Mayor Deegan will share her vision for aligning city resources, private capital, and community needs to create a win-win for residents and investors alike.
If you’re ready to see how Jacksonville is leading the way in housing solutions—and how you can be part of it—don’t miss this episode.
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Welcome everybody to the weekly edition of the not your average investor show I'm your host, Pablo Gonzalez. Today. We're here to talk about how to invest in the affordable, uh, in solving the affordability crisis, right? Like how can you be part of the solution? It's not just coming from investors. It's not just coming from developers. It's often a public private solution. And for that conversation today, we have. the, uh, man that I affectionately like to call GC because he's got the genius concepts. He knows how to generate cash flow. He's a great co host and cause his name is Greg Cohen. Say hello, Greg.
Gregg Cohen:Hello, everybody. Fantastic to be with you today.
Pablo Gonzalez:The guest of honor today is a, a Jacksonville native, founder of the Donna foundation, three time breast cancer survivor hosts a beloved event here, the Donna marathon that is the only marathon that supports breast cancer in the United States. I just learned that. The
Mayor Donna Deegan:national marathon to finish breast cancer. That's what we call it.
Pablo Gonzalez:I love it. I love it We are half marathon finishers. We got the half. We talk about it all the time
Mayor Donna Deegan:We won a big award this year for for Being in the top five of favorite half marathons in the country So we had a blast not surprised and there's that's that's really the distance of the moment Everybody loves to run that half marathon because you don't have to kill yourself Still still
Pablo Gonzalez:hard And the first Ever female mayor of Jacksonville, Mayor Donna Deegan. How cool is that? Super cool. Super cool. Welcome to the Not Your Average Investor Show.
Mayor Donna Deegan:Thank you. It's great to be here.
Pablo Gonzalez:It's, it's really awesome to have you. Um, Mayor, you know, we, we talk a lot here about, you know, Obviously real estate investing, but how important the market is for real estate investing and how a great market to invest in is kind of like the thing that everybody is looking for, right? Like a, like a rising tide floats all boats. And in today's conversation, we want to. Talk a little bit about how great the market is the downsides of a great market, right? The things that we got to look out for this affordability crisis and how we can all how we can all be a part of it And the public private partnership that's that's really important and things you're bringing to the table And then just a little bit about the future of jacksville, right and and what we're excited about So we'd love to just kind of let you know You know, you as, as mayor, you're kind of the CEO of the city. The CEO is kind of like the chief salesperson of like why this place is great, right?
Mayor Donna Deegan:It's not a hard job. Not
Pablo Gonzalez:a hard job. Well, tell me more. I
Mayor Donna Deegan:mean, well, look, you know, we, we have so many natural advantages here. I mean, and I know your audience probably already knows all this, but I mean, it is, it is just insanely wonderful. It's a place to live. We have this gorgeous river that runs through our whole city. We have the beautiful beaches. We're right on the interstate. We've got a wonderful port where we've got a rail system. I mean, logistically, we are, you know, in just the sweetest spot in the world, but the quality of life here is so good. We have great weather. We have low taxes. In fact, the lowest taxes of any large city in the state of Florida, by far, frankly. And we also have a great business friendly environment. So, so. You know, and the people are just so nice. We were talking about that earlier. Jacksonville, people think I'm, you know, when, when people come down for the marathon, I always talk to people that come from Canada and we have like 25 countries, people that come here. And, and the number one comment is always, gosh, can people really be that nice? Yeah. Yeah, they are. They are here. Sort of, you know, we pride ourselves in that. So I just think for anybody that would want to invest in this city, it's, it's a perfect opportunity to be part of a community that is on the rise. Look, we're growing like crazy. 17, 000 people came here last year. 17, 000 people moved to Jacksonville last year. The other, the other piece is, uh, that we have a lot of college graduates that are moving here. You know, we were just recently listed, um, as, as one of the few cities that, that, that have a brain gain as opposed to a brain drain. The big cities. Yeah. Younger people seem to be leaving big cities a lot. Yeah. Except for ours. And they're coming here in droves. We were four in the country, I think. Um, so, and, and of course, you know, I mean, I, I could go on and on about all the wonderful things about the city, but at the end of the day, we have so much going for us and, and that's only getting better.
So when I came into office, you know, uh, I can't say when I first started to run that this was the issue that hit the top, but if you look at all the polls right now, um, you'll see that affordable housing is. easily in the top three. Absolutely.
Mayor Donna Deegan:Um, in the latest poll in Jacksonville, it was number two behind crime. Everybody, everybody puts crime first, right? Number two is affordable housing. And, and you look at, you know, what we have to offer here, what we're missing is about 35, 000 units of affordable housing. So, so we're, we're heavily focused on folks investing in that. And as you said, public private partnerships are, are, are really a key to that piece. Thanks.
Pablo Gonzalez:I feel like I've told this over and over again on the show this idea that I moved here from Miami six years ago I I knew that my quality of life would go up I knew that my cost of living would go down what I didn't see coming and what I expected to pay like. Attacks in economic opportunity and the people that I meet and whatnot. And it's just not been the case, right? Like it has been so welcoming for me as an entrepreneur, for my wife, as a W2 employee, as an architect and every opportunity that we've had to gain has really like exceeded expectations on everything. Greg, you got some stats on other lists and things like that that we're on, right? Well,
Gregg Cohen:I can, I can definitely jump on this conversation because I often talk with my own network, even friends, college friends, But he's friends like Senna, who's helping us out with the audio
Mayor Donna Deegan:when you're when your mayor is five foot one and everybody else is a normal size person, it's a challenge logistically to to make everything work when I was when I was on the air and I'm not going to hijack. No,
Gregg Cohen:no, no. This is your show. I
Mayor Donna Deegan:was when I was on the air for you. You know, 25 years here, um, people always thought that I was tall because they would give me this back when you used to use phone books, give me this phone book and tape and, and they'd have me sit on with everything that I did. And if I was, and if I was at a live shot someplace, they'd give me an apple box to stand on. And she'll often see me use today, but people are always shocked when they see how tiny I am, you know, I thought you were tall, man. That's an optical illusion.
Gregg Cohen:We should have done the prep ahead of time and gotten the phone book ahead of time for, for Mayor Deegan. I just talk with, with everybody I can about how blessed I feel like I am to be raising my family here in Jacksonville. And for so many years, we were this. Undiscovered best kept secret. And you know, we've been in business for going on 19 years now. So I remember when we had to convince people of not just investing in Jacksonville, but where is Jacksonville? Right. And, and now people see this, They believe it that it's on all of these wonderful headlines about how Jacksonville is one of these cities that is on the rise. We have wonderful leadership in place. and the stats. I always I'm a big stats nerd on the show. So our our audience knows it. But I mean, the stats when we talk about how well Jacksonville is doing and growing. I mean, Jacksonville's population has grown Five times the national average since 2019 and our median incomes, which I know we're going to talk a lot about today and how important it is to drive median incomes. Our median incomes have doubled the national average. The growth of the median incomes have doubled the national average since 2019. So there are so many wonderful things, uh, from a numbers perspective. But if you live here, you just get it and you're proud to be from Jacksonville and you want the next best thing for Jacksonville, which
Pablo Gonzalez:there you go. There you go. Yeah. Well, so you surprised me when you said that stat of the brain gain, I thought you were going to go to that wall street journal report saying that we were the second hottest job market in the United
Mayor Donna Deegan:States. There's so many, there's so much to choose. But, but I did love all that because, because what that says is when you have young people, that are, they're coming out of college that are choosing you. I mean, I talked about this. I had the opportunity to speak at, at my alma mater, FSU for, um, commencement this year. Oh, amazing. And one of the things that I, that I pitched is I said, listen, I've talked about all these things. And I said, come home. You know, I know a lot of times you think about all these other cities, you can't find a better city than Jacksonville. Come on. And, and apparently a lot of them are doing that. And also people from elsewhere are seeing what we have here. Young people are looking for a community where. They can build a life that, that is a place where they can afford and also have a great quality of life. And we have, we have all those things going for us here.
Pablo Gonzalez:I totally get it. I go to a lot of conferences around the country. I'm hard pressed to find a better market to build a foundation for, for a family, for a career, um, while enjoying your life. Right. And as somebody that. As somebody that came from Miami and I used to be very intimately involved in like economic development down there. It was really about reducing the brain drain and get into the brain gain, right? So, like, that's a, that's a major, major thing. Now, the other, the other side of it, the other side of this like explosive growth and all these wonderful things that are happening. It's that sometimes. Folks from, from the place, they hear all these people moving here, right? Like we're talking about a brain gain, right? Like within that is this idea that our brightest stay, which is awesome. But often people feel left behind, right? Like the, the, the, the downside of a booming market is this affordability crisis and the folks that got left behind. And I find it really interesting that you run on this platform that really, really understands that piece. And I would love for you to just kind of like. Talk about from, from the, from the public sector, you know, what you think the solutions are and, and what we've got going there.
Mayor Donna Deegan:Well, part of the solution is that we have to begin investing a general revenue dollars in this issue. I mean, and, and hopefully partnering with, with outside entities as well. But, but Jacksonville had never used general fund dollars for affordable housing. I mean, you had, you had, Some communities around the country investing 30, not invested anything. So, so when we, when we created our transition committee, and, um, and you know, Alex, uh, Sifakis was on that, was on that, um, on that committee, he was in fact, I think he chaired the committee. You know, one of the things we talked about was the need to invest as a city in affordable housing and to create those partnerships would make it better. So 6 million, I know it's not, Everything, but it was a big, you know, it was, it was a big investment for us in the transition, um, in the, in the initial inaugural budget as a pilot program. Um, and, and so I, I think we've seen a lot of progress out of that, but there's, there's, there are other things, you know, there are, there are just, you know, Things that don't have to be huge, but they can give people a little leg up in terms of making sure if, if, if you're in a situation where you, where you do get yourself into a funding crisis, where you can't pay a payment, that you've got a little bit of, of, uh, help there, or, or you, you get some help for, for a down payment, or, or you get some help for any number of issues that you're dealing with when you're trying to afford a house. We've got, uh, 50 percent of our people. And Jacksonville are paying at least 30 percent of their income on housing, which is, which is starting to be a stretch. Then you've got, you've got another 40%, I think, that are, that are extremely stressed and paying more than 50 percent of their money in terms of what they're paying. So for a young person, that's a big, that's a deep dive. So, so we've tried to create some of these programs where we, where we offer, and I know you all have done that too, where we offer a little bit of help. Um, that's got to grow. Online right now are, are about 4, 000, mostly affordable housing units that are going to be coming into the market over the next year. That's pretty exciting. Got to do a lot more.
Right.
Mayor Donna Deegan:So, so one of the things that we're looking at, which I'm, which I'm really excited about, and I hope we can get it across the finish line with city council. We, we put it in the budget last time, but it got taken out of the budget. Challenging budget year for sure. But my feeling is, you know, you have to invest in those things where you're going to get the best return. And I think affordable housing is one of those
things for
Mayor Donna Deegan:sure. Right. So, so we had a, a model that, that other cities have been very, very successful in where we put in a 10 million loan, there's 30 million that comes in from the private sector that turns into, you turn that over four times, that turns into 160 million, but you're creating a thousand affordable housing units in that, in that. What would that find? And eventually the city gets that money back, you know, so it's a great investment and we've already got a lot of those folks who want to make that investment lined up.
Yeah. I was reading on it.
Mayor Donna Deegan:Yeah. So, I mean, it's, it's a fantastic program that has shown some success in other cities. We have to get into the mindset of you have to spend money to make money, even in, even in challenging budget years, because that's how you grow. That's how you grow. That's how you get. The money back into your coffers, right? You have to invest on the things that, in the things that bring you the greatest return. So I'm very hopeful. We're talking to council about that now. We're trying to figure out a way to bring it back. And I think hopefully we'll have some legislation crafted very soon that we'll bring that, bring that legislation back.
Gregg Cohen:Absolutely. And, and is that the affordable housing jumpstart program? Is that, that the program that we're talking about? That
Mayor Donna Deegan:this is, this one largely, this one largely deals with gap funding.
Gregg Cohen:Gap funding. Yeah. I, I am just so in as a as a business owner here, somebody who obviously is a developer in real estate, but is also an investor and has many clients here. It's just so nice to hear that these initiatives are coming from the mayor's office, right? And to understand that it's not just about the incentive dollars or the It's not just about the dollars there, but then there's an incentive for the, for the private sector to get involved together to come together. And then of course create, you know, a thousand new units from this initiative and, you know, 40, 000 units, 35, 40, 000 units. That's going to take, that's going to take a lot of support from every, every department there. So, and when you relate it to, you know, the, the first or second most important topic for those in Jacksonville today, affordable housing, You know, the initiatives that we want to do and spending that money, even though it's a tight budget year, makes so much sense again, because affordable housing is one of the reasons so many people love Jacksonville and we are largely an affordable place compared to our brother and sister cities out there. But how do we stay as an affordable city knowing that this type of population growth, this type of brain gain is coming to our city? What can we do today to make sure that we're set up for the next 10 or 20 years as successful as we've had as the
Mayor Donna Deegan:last we have to collaborate, you know, it has to be that effort of everybody coming in. And that's why it was so important to me when I came in with this issue and really every other issue that, that is involved in growth. Is we wanted to invite the development community and to help us make those decisions, because we obviously want you to be successful as well. Um, I think people often want to set up sort of an adversarial relationship. You know, between like renters and landlords or developers, and that's just, it's all very much interdependent. We want everybody to be successful. And the only way to do that is to bring everybody to the table. So, you know, another thing that, that, you know, we heard from, from a lot of folks, um, and, and it's not perfection yet, but it's gotten a lot better is the permitting process was slowing people.
Gregg Cohen:Yeah, exactly. So
Mayor Donna Deegan:we created in house our own platform called Jack's Epics, um, which has really been. with, with the input of developers. We're still asking you guys to use this stuff so that they know how to know how to make it better. But, but what we did is we, we, we created a, a system where people could go online, track where their permitting is and see where the pinch points were and see if we could solve those more quickly, you know, we, we have been so enamored with paper, you know, for so long. If I could tell you how much paper is on my desk right now, you're not even
a believer.
Mayor Donna Deegan:So, so to even get a get, get, get, you know, city government is one of those things. Government, I guess. I've never been in government before, so, so when you run a, a nonprofit, you know, you have to be so nimble, right?
Yeah.
Mayor Donna Deegan:You get into government and everybody goes, well, we've always done it this way and this is just how we're gonna do it, right? The, the bureaucracy sort of grinds everything to, to it, to a halt. So we said, let's see if we can get into this process and remove the friction that is causing these permitting. You know, issues. So we've been able to reduce, um, residential permitting time by about 25%. Um, which is, which is pretty good. Um, we still have to improve and we're, we're just getting to where we're rolling that out in commercial, but, but it's, it is absolutely my. My absolute promise that we are going to get to the place where we are, we are kicking with gas on these things in a way that gives people confidence that they can invest because it's, it's, it's incredibly, incredibly important that we make it as seamless as possible. As you know, Jacksonville, you know, it's not the first place people necessarily think it is.
Gregg Cohen:Yeah,
Mayor Donna Deegan:so we have to show them all the ways in which it's better to invest here.
Gregg Cohen:Well, I can speak from the developer community and from somebody that's building about 400 houses this year. My team is raving about Jack's epics and I'm so glad they are. I was talking with Alex in preparation for our, for our show here today, Alex is our president and he's been lucky to be involved in certain aspects of the transition committee and other parts. So thank you for, and for including, you know, his perspective there. But one of the things he talked the most about was like. What a big win. This has been for our ability to bring more housing to Jacksonville. And the type of housing we focus on is what's known as that missing middle housing, right? It's workforce housing. And if we if we were to break down, not just the deficiency in housing units that we have, the biggest deficiency is in that affordable housing. So changes like this under your leadership have allowed us 25 percent improvement sounds Sounds really, really substantial. And the best thing is it didn't take a new budget item to do it, right? It didn't take more incentive dollars to do it. You just enabled us as developers just to do our job a little bit quicker. Right? And time
Mayor Donna Deegan:is money, right?
Gregg Cohen:Exactly.
Mayor Donna Deegan:That's true in all of business. And so we need to make sure that we're eliminating that, that friction as much as we can. I think the next, the next piece, when you, since you bring up the missing middle is going to be dealing with zoning issues,
right?
Mayor Donna Deegan:You know, we're in the process of creating a new zoning codes. Um, in fact, where we have a very comprehensive look at that, that that's going to fold everything in from, you know, um, Where the growth is going to resilience to, you know, all the things we have to look at that we never have. I don't think our zoning codes have changed in since it builds. It's like, I don't know, the 80s
long time.
Mayor Donna Deegan:It's been a long time.
Yeah,
Mayor Donna Deegan:but but it's really important that we create the type of zoning that will allow for density to replace that missing middle.
Gregg Cohen:100%. And, you know, I think the big problem here is supply. And there's so many ways to attack the supply problem, right? And we're going to need every way of attacking this problem. And the programs that we have, we've just talked about are so important. But then, you know, from a developer's lens, you know, supply problem You just increase the number of units that you can build on the existing land. And, you know, this is something that doesn't, again, require budget items or incentive items. Incentive dollars are hard to come by, right? There's, there's just not enough. Out there really, um, for us to fulfill right now what we want to do, but density can be this thing. If we can take a look at the zoning and say, okay, well, does it really need to be limited to this number of units per per acre, but it's hard to do and knowing that it's coming from your office is saying, listen, supplies the problem. We're going to attack this from a number of different angles. Zoning is one of those angles is so, and it's so nice to hear because many times people, you know, and. Neighbors fall into this idea of, listen, we don't want to touch zoning. We don't want to touch that. Sure.
Mayor Donna Deegan:No, I get it. But it can be touchy, but, but there are certain areas in which it absolutely makes sense in areas where we want to drive the growth anyhow. I'm sure in following the things that we're involved in and our initiatives, and you're very involved in downtown, you know, downtown is one of those areas in those surrounding neighborhoods where we're, we're. We feel like if we invest in downtown, we really make downtown go. Somebody said to me the other day, you can't be a suburb of nowhere. And I absolutely loved that. I've used it so many times. I wish I could remember who said it so I could give credit.
Pablo Gonzalez:We've said that a couple times on the show too.
Mayor Donna Deegan:But the truth is, you know, if we invest in downtown, it will end up giving us the resources we need to invest in the rest of the city.
It's
Mayor Donna Deegan:just critical that we do that. And you see everything that's happening downtown. You all are a big part of that. Oh, we love it.
Pablo Gonzalez:You know,
Mayor Donna Deegan:that gateway project, uh, I gotta tell you, and I know I'm, I'm getting off on a tangent. No,
Pablo Gonzalez:this is perfect. This is, this is where the show is going to go afterwards to downtown.
Mayor Donna Deegan:Um, you know, uh, but I remember when, when the whole gateway thing was announced. Yeah. What are we calling it now? The Pearl Street?
Gregg Cohen:Pearl Square.
Mayor Donna Deegan:Pearl Square. And I can't, all my, all my, you know, I said, yeah, renderings, that's never going to happen.
And
Mayor Donna Deegan:I said, I will, I will bet you everything I own right now that that one's going to happen.
Yep. That will happen. And
Mayor Donna Deegan:because you guys have been so, you know, consistent in, in what, in, in how you work and what you do. And Ryan malls, an incredible, amazing, just, just, um, He's done such amazing things in Tampa and elsewhere. And, and, and I, and I just knew that was going to go in the day that we broke ground on it. I can't tell you how many people I called and said, uh huh. Uh huh.
Exactly.
Mayor Donna Deegan:But so we have, we have that that's, that's starting to come out of the ground. We have, we have, um, this whole riverfront park system and, and the, and the greenway that's going to be the, the Emerald trail that are all going to connect and bring, you know, All sorts of opportunities there. Um, you have, uh, you have the Four Seasons that's going up. You have, what else? I mean, I've got, I should, I should have brought my Yeah,
Gregg Cohen:Riverfront Plaza. Yeah. I
Pablo Gonzalez:mean I
Mayor Donna Deegan:mean, I mean, you have on the, on the South Bank, you have that, you have that big, um, related tower that's going Haven't
Pablo Gonzalez:even touched the stadium.
Mayor Donna Deegan:Right,
Pablo Gonzalez:right. Yeah. We haven't
Mayor Donna Deegan:started that one, but the stadium, absolutely.
Pablo Gonzalez:And the surrounding developments. So, so
Mayor Donna Deegan:all of those, you have river's edge. Um, so all those things that are happening in addition to all the, the other. Smaller projects that are going up and then you have the stadium that when attached to the, to the, um, you know, community benefit agreement is going to put, you know, tens of, of, of millions of dollars into things like affordable housing and workforce development and, and, and, and those issues
Gregg Cohen:homelessness.
Mayor Donna Deegan:Homelessness. I mean, You can't, you can't separate those, right?
Gregg Cohen:I don't know if people, you know, in our audience, largely is from outside of Jacksonville, and they hear, I think, some details, but I don't know if they truly understand how, uh, wonderful this Community Benefits Agreement is. It's the largest Community Benefits Agreement ever for any type of NFL deal, uh, and this was under, you know, Your leadership and of course, working with the Jags, but what a win for the city, not just to have this beautiful stadium of the future, but to be investing in those neighborhoods downtown and right surrounding downtown to make sure that those folks are set up for success as we grow as a city.
Mayor Donna Deegan:Well, listen, You know, I will say that as somebody who's a fifth generation native here, the fact that we made so many promises when the city was consolidated in 1968 and we haven't kept a lot of those promises, you know, has always bothered me. And it was one of my big promises when I came into office is we're going to focus heavily there. The East side is probably one of our most, if not the most historic neighborhood that we have. And it sits right next to all this development that's happening. We can make sure we bring those folks into the success. Right. Um, and so it, Along with their, their partners with us in that, you know, we're not telling them what, what, what we want, they're telling us what they need. And, and so all of that was just that community benefits agreement. I know a lot of people looked at that number and went, you know, because what we did was we went to the NFL and we said, look, we know these are normally 50
million, right?
Mayor Donna Deegan:If we will, if we will match you, you know, dollar for dollar, will you come in at 150 and, and I know it's a, you know, Big inhale when you look at spending that kind of money, but you look at the return, you're going to get on that in the generations to come, you know, makes me wish I was 20. I could be here to see.
Gregg Cohen:Well, we're hoping that you'll be mayor for at least eight years. So
Mayor Donna Deegan:I don't think I can be mayor for a long, I
Gregg Cohen:don't think you can. So at least eight years, uh, then we'll let you take a break.
Pablo Gonzalez:I love the, uh, I love the investment mindset over budgeting mindset, Mayor, that you have, and you know, it's, it's very clear to me that we, you know, there's this like push for people with business experience and public position so that we can bridge this gap. I think what, what people don't understand is that I believe that the nonprofit scene creates, like to me, the nonprofit world is equivalent. In a training ground to being a Silicon Valley startup in the need for resourcefulness, ingenuity, the ability to feed multiple stakeholders and run stuff and like.
Mayor Donna Deegan:It's just the first thing that gets left off once the people get distressed. A hundred percent. You have to be so creative.
Pablo Gonzalez:Yeah.
Mayor Donna Deegan:And I agree with you 100 percent on that. And it's one of the reasons we've been so excited to work with nonprofits in this process too, because they get it, you know, they understand what it takes. I'm so glad you said that. I appreciate that. I agree with that. Yeah. A lot of, a lot of, of course.
Pablo Gonzalez:Yeah, no, but like a lot of what I understand about cities came from my, from my experience. My involvement in Miami in like the 2010s through like 2018 economic development and how all that fits in. And I've seen this thing done the wrong way, right? Like I've seen a city being built for people for from the outside. I've seen government that what they care about is they're kind of like institutionalized lining their pockets and and corrupt deals and and like to be able to see. The other side, this collaboration between the public and private partnership that's so, um, genuine. It's so local focused. It's, it's reversing all the trends of the things that happen in the, in the other places that struggle with this and the private sector, quite frankly. Right? Like one of the things that I obsess about with JWB is this idea that their incentives are completely aligned as, as, as developers as well. The fact that they can take long bets before everybody else because they understand that a downtown, that. Works increases real estate values, and they happen to have real estate all over the, you know, like all the way around downtown. So just the alignment of incentives to me is like really, really real. And it's really encouraging as a as a resident as somebody that wants to live here for the rest of my life as somebody that's invested the majority of my my wealth for now, you know, in the city. It's really incredible to see happen this collaboration. Yeah,
Mayor Donna Deegan:I agree. I agree. It's it's It's been one of the most satisfying parts of the job, I have to say. Just watching everybody sort of, because there's so much love for this city right. In, in, in, in every, every sector of this community. And to see it all brought to bear in, in, in a way like this is, is exciting. Well,
Gregg Cohen:I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but this was your vision in running. It was not just, are we going to grow as a city, but we're gonna grow together. Right. Inclusivity.
Absolutely.
Gregg Cohen:Right. And I think we're, I'm feeling that we as the business community are feeling that. Um, I see it in and, and I get, you know, maybe some additional information of like, what's going on behind the scenes from Alex. Cause you know, he's very well connected and all those good things, but, but all I hear is just like, wow, it's not just, um, you know, it's, So how do we get stuff done as a city? It's not about Republican or Democrat. It's all sides. The, uh, you've put, uh, everybody, uh, on your leadership committees comes from various different political backgrounds.
Mayor Donna Deegan:Well, and frankly, also in, in my administration, I have, I have Republicans and independents in my administration. I just think you have to bring all the voices into the room. And I, frankly, and I've said this forever, and this is probably comes from another, a place of. from the nonprofit community, when, you know, when you're talking to a breast cancer patient, you don't care if that person is a Democrat or Republican or independent, you're trying to solve a problem. And that should be local politics in my mind. I just don't, you know, we all belong to a party or, or, or, or an independent. Right. But at the end of the day, we're talking about. You know, we're talking about things like sidewalks and streetlights and development and all the things we all want, and that really was my message coming into to the city council, who is largely an opposite party for me, I don't care what parties we are, let's decide the priorities that we have together, and let's push those things through because streetlights That's what our job is, you know, and I, and I think we, we very much, at least largely have had that, have had that mentality and, and the business community has been wonderful, um, to partner with us on so many things. Um, I, I, I think in addition to bringing in the vision, I also, Really love to be the head cheerleader for the, for the city. I think we need it. I think we need all of it. So I think I bring a pragmatic approach to what I do, but I think I also think it's really important for the city to believe in itself and for a long time. I think it has.
Really?
Mayor Donna Deegan:Yeah. Tell me more. So, so when I was growing up, I mean, we used to always, that's what, that's where this whole city of renderings thing came from.
Gregg Cohen:Yeah, right.
Mayor Donna Deegan:When I was, when I was growing up, I, I, everybody would always just, Oh, well, Jacksonville can't, can't do that. We can't do that. We were, I think getting the NFL team, and I've said this several times, getting the Jaguars. Um. I think it was the first time many people, because we all went through the whole iterations of every time an NFL team would come here and basically use us for
fodder.
Mayor Donna Deegan:And when we actually got the Jaguars, it was, I think it was the first time many people in this city said, you know what, we are pretty good. We are a can do city. And so I've, I've, I've just sort of tried to bring that into everything. There's no reason why, I mean, there are so many cities that are doing great that don't have half of these enemies. I say that all the time
Gregg Cohen:too, absolutely. It's a
Mayor Donna Deegan:mindset. Yeah. It's a mindset.
Gregg Cohen:Sometimes the toughest thing is to convince the people that are closest to it, right? That's why we see all of these, these people from the outside, Nashville, Charlotte, all these other successful cities, see what's going on in Jacksonville. And they're the first ones to make that investment bet.
Mayor Donna Deegan:Right.
Gregg Cohen:I mean, it's getting
Mayor Donna Deegan:the local people to, to understand what we have. Right. And it's, it is a, it is a constant job to remind people of, of who we are and why we are so, you know, Everything that we are I just it is interesting, but I do think that we are building that in Jacksonville I think people are feeling that confidence and I and I I hope so Anyway,
Gregg Cohen:I do too. I did too and and I and I just wanted to just talk about The way that you're accomplishing certain things. It's it's It's just this wonderful feeling of inclusivity like we talked about and like things are getting done and people certainly not everybody agrees, but people feel included. People feel a part of it. People come out of these deals that you have put together and everybody looks like winners, right? When we think about the stadium deal, everybody looks like a winner there. And I think the only way that happens is With strong leadership that really values this inclusive approach, and I just think it sets us up for not just this type of growth growth to take care of those who are here in Jacksonville, and it's one where it's sustainable. It's enjoyable, and people don't feel like they're left out.
Mayor Donna Deegan:Yeah, no, I didn't. But it's, but it's also the only way forward, right? Because if you leave people out, then you're constantly going to have. You know, jabs from here, there, and you're going to get some of that politics, no matter what. But at the end of the day, if you are bringing every voice into the room, not everybody's going to get exactly what they want, but you're going to get most of what, of what you need. Right. And, and so my, well, you talked about getting things done and I think more than anything beyond the unity piece, which I think is the most important. I think the mentality of speed, uh, because not only is time money, right, but what we've seen take things off the rails decade after decade has been we spend so much time just absolutely mind bogglingly going into the minutia of things that this person or that person and, and, and it passes us by, you know, you can't allow that to continue to happen. So whether it was the stadium or whether it was some of these affordable housing initiatives or whatever it is. Get it done. And let's get it done quickly. So people see that we mean what we say.
Yeah.
Mayor Donna Deegan:And I think that when everybody's involved in that process, it is like you said, it's a win for everybody.
Gregg Cohen:Yeah, I think it's so important with some of these things that have been accomplished to the way that they're getting accomplished. I can kind of share a story for JWB and Alex who drives a lot of our downtown development. You know, when when we were putting these projects together and we were working Of course, raising the money and acquiring the properties and putting all those plans together. You know, I'm the marketing guy. So I'd say, Alex, when is this going to hit the paper? And he's like, we're not talking about this. And I was like, oh, okay. But I, you know, I know that renderings are a part of the process. And I'm like, hey, buddy, I know I've seen the renderings. When are you going to talk about it? He's like, we're not going to talk about it. Until it's literally the last second I can talk about it. And the reason is because I want to change perception for how developers can work here in conjunction with the city so that when we actually put a rendering there, we can show up with a, a press conference and breaking ground ceremony soon thereafter.
Pablo Gonzalez:That is so key.
Gregg Cohen:Right. And, and that's a part of changing the perception of those who are, who are most closest to it, but, but have the most influence, you know. But it's
Mayor Donna Deegan:also part of changing the culture. And I think that's important too. Yeah. Because I think you do have to signal to folks that, that are used to running things in a certain way,
bureaucratically,
Mayor Donna Deegan:that we're not doing it that way anymore. It has to be faster. It has to be streamlined. It has to be business friendly and it has to be good for the community. And, and I think that once, you know, I will tell you. You know, although some of some of the attorneys in the general counsel's office may never speak to me again after how fast I push that stadium deal through, I think they were, they literally felt that it was impossible, you know, and the reason is because we had gotten so used to this, we're going to lob it over here and the attorneys are going to keep it for three weeks and then a lot of like, listen, now we have a deadline and we're going to meet that deadline. So everybody just get in a room. But, but yeah. You know what happens when everybody gets in the room? Stuff happens.
We figure it out.
Mayor Donna Deegan:If you know you have to figure it out, you figure it out. And I think that, that, that constant communication and showing what happened at the very end of that, when we got it done, is um, you know, several of them came to me and said, Hey, this is great. That turned out to be a really good deal and I said, and you know what, we, we, we did it on time and, and it's that muscle memory of being able to do that that gives people confidence going forward. I think we still have a lot of stuff to do. Look, not things are, things are never as, as perfect as you want them to be. Right. Um, but I think we're making progress on that front. You know, I think we're making progress on that front. I just want everybody to understand it's a fabulous city. It's a fabulous city.
Gregg Cohen:You got a lot of believers. You got a lot of believers in you. You got a lot of believers in the city. Um,
Mayor Donna Deegan:well, thanks for all you guys do. I, I really do appreciate you and I, and I, you have, you have really worked to be part of the solution in these affordable housing issues. Um, you know, it's like, seems like every other week you're coming up with something, some, some new program to help people to be able to, to, um, You know, better afford their, their places. And I think that's, that's really what it's all about. Get everybody, everybody believing in rowing in the same direction. So we brought in,
Gregg Cohen:we're, we're just happy to be a part of the solution, like you mentioned, and we feel like we have this wonderful platform, you know, we manage over 5, 500 homes, that's tens of thousands of family members. And when you, when you have the ability to impact lives like that, and you are just one great idea away from creating really rippling effects for generations and generations, we get to see. sit in a really fun seat. And, um,
Mayor Donna Deegan:I do. And I, and I know you must get thanked all the time. I had somebody that, that actually walked up to me on the street the other day and said, I want you to know, because of these, these initiatives that, that I'm actually for the first time able to buy a house and I'm so excited. And I, and I, you know, I got goosebumps, you know, I mean, what, there's just nothing that makes you feel, you know, Really more settled, more, more rooted, more invested in your own community than if you can buy, buy your first home.
Gregg Cohen:That's what we think too. So yeah, just, just so, so excited to have your support, especially on the Homestead program, which we just announced not too long ago, uh, which, which is the ability for our residents to be able to earn money. Build, build wealth, build equity just simply by renting with JWB and paying rent and turning that not just into, I don't know, a loss, right? Many people think, Oh, I just pay rent and I lose out on potentially building wealth. Well, now through the Homestep program, folks are able to take those rent payments and turn that into a hundred dollars a month goes towards their, their future home purchase. Um, and so, yeah, and you know, it's a, it's a, It is a, it is something that just stacks onto all of these good things that we're moving as a city in this direction. And we're just, we're just excited to be a part of it.
Mayor Donna Deegan:Thank
Pablo Gonzalez:you. Me too. I'm just so pumped. Like I, I'm, I'm, I'm just fangirling over here about everything that we're talking about, because it's, you know, I, I, I thought we were coming into, you know, we, we came here to talk about economic development in the city that we love and the public private partnership and getting people to be homeowners and plugged into the economic flywheel. But. You know, at my heart, I'm a business nerd and, and everything that I'm hearing is this like startup culture of, of like the new generation, but looked at it from a economic development, you know, macro economy standpoint for a city that I'm fully bought in on a city that I recently became a homeowner in. And, um, I love that this, this has been, this has been really, really cool. So thank you. I, you know, we, we have about 80 folks that join us live here and, and they've been having questions. Normally it's a much more interactive, um, experience, but no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I'm just going to say that I just want to thank the community for joining us right now and being a part of this conversation, even though it's not normally as, as interactive as usual, it's by design, right? Like this was designed to have you come here, but, um, just really want to thank the Not Traverse Your Best Show community for being here. Making the show what it is and Donna, like this has just been such an over delivery of a conversation around like what is possible when incentives are aligned when we're dealing with something that we all really, really care about and creating win win. So thank you for making time to be here.
Mayor Donna Deegan:Thank you. I really enjoyed it.
Pablo Gonzalez:Yeah. Likewise.
Gregg Cohen:Do you see any last words? I just, uh, I'm so thankful for you spending your time here, uh, with us. I'm, I'm just excited about our show. You know, we started this show about five years ago and in the beginning, Pablo and I really had no clue what this show would become. We were hoping somebody would just take some time and, and listen to us rap about this and that and economics and real estate. Uh, and we probably had, I think two or three people that watched the show the first time. Um, and now we just have this wonderful show. It's a beautiful community that takes time every single week to be here. Uh, so the community is the reason that we have this opportunity to have the mayor here. So thank you all for being here. It's just such a special moment for us. And again, thank you for taking the time to be here.
Pablo Gonzalez:Great day guys. Yeah. And we always sign off with one little bit of advice, right?
Gregg Cohen:That's right.
Pablo Gonzalez:Don't be average. Don't be average. See ya.