Invigorating a Commercial District to Create Economic Opportunity for Adjacent Neighborhoods

LISC JACKSONVILLE

Jacksonville, FL

The Practice

U.S. Route 90, as it heads west from Downtown Jacksonville, is called Beaver Street. The stretch of road serves as the spine of an area that has historically been a collection of businesses that served or benefited from the massive freight depot in the northwest part of the city. “It’s a 100-year-old industrial district beside the CSX rail yards,” says Chuck Shealy, real estate and lending program officer at LISC Jacksonville. But, recently, smaller manufacturers and other businesses began popping up in the area next to long- standing ones, like Beaver Street Fisheries. LISC Jacksonville began studying the market more closely and found that it houses more than 100 unique small businesses. The newer businesses in the area, which was rechristened the Rail Yard District, include architectural salvage company Eco Relics; social enterprise Rethreaded, which trains former sex trade workers in soft goods production; and Engine 15 Brewery.

“There are about 6,500 jobs in the one- square-mile area now, but only about five percent are held by residents from adjacent communities,” says Shealy, describing Jacksonville’s predominantly African American Neighborhood. “Our goal is to try to reverse that.”

One way they’re aiming to do that is by stepping up support to identify entrepreneurs of color and help them launch or grow their businesses. LISC Jacksonville partners include the Beaver Street Enterprise Center, a small business accelerator in the neighborhood with a diverse clientele. In addition, Northwest Jacksonville CDC is an outreach partner in the communities around the Rail Yard District and provides temporary outdoor retail pop-up space for entrepreneurs in the neighborhood.

LISC Jacksonville is also looking at innovative financial products to support entrepreneurs of color. They are exploring opportunities with local philanthropies to create a first-loss fund. First-loss capital is socially- and environmentally-driven credit enhancement provided by an investor or grant-maker who agrees to bear first losses in an investment in order to catalyze the participation of co-investors who can’t
be exposed to higher risk in their lending. “The fund will allow us to lend to business owners who may not have as strong a balance sheet,” Shealy says. “We’re aiming for it to support about $1 million in lending to up to 20 businesses. To my knowledge, this would be the first fund of its kind in the region. ”

The new lending capacity comes just as the business community in the Rail Yard District is also galvanizing, Shealy adds.

Given the influx of new businesses, the neighborhood has the potential to become a regional destination. LISC Jacksonville has been supporting area business owners to formally organize into a business council that will capitalize on the area’s assets, add new signage, paint murals on blank walls, market the neighborhood, and improve long-neglected infrastructure. “The time is ripe for the businesses here to come together and advocate for themselves and those that will come after them,” he says. “And LISC and the other community funders are here to support them in doing that.”

The Practitioner

Chuck Shealy

LISC Jacksonville

LISC has had its Jacksonville operation up and running for over two decades. One accomplishment that lending officer Chuck Shealy finds exemplary of their impact is all the new movement going on in the city’s Rail Yard District.

The district is a historic brick-building industrial area that has long fallen outside local politicians’ redevelopment radar. LISC assisted in organizing business leaders there so they can call political interest to the area with a unified voice, and petition for more neighborhood improvements.

That work started three years ago, just after Shealy joined LISC. “Today when you say the Rail Yard District, people know what you’re talking about,” he said.

But there’s still a lot of work ahead. Vacant buildings dot the area. Perhaps most glaringly, only five percent of the employees there come from surrounding neighborhoods. Shealy joined UMA’s Pathways to Patient Capital cohort because he’s hoping to attract more manufacturers to the area and build up local jobs.

“Small manufacturers create more jobs than a retail store or even a microbrewery,” he said. “It only takes a few people to make beer but if you’ve got a manufacturing concern they’re going to be hiring more people as they grow.”

That would align with LISC’s overall strategy, which is to lift up local businesses who in turn will lift up the neighborhoods where they’re located. Those strategies aren’t developed in a silo — LISC neighborhood development plans are designed by the residents and businesses themselves.

Throughout Jacksonville, LISC has helped neighbors establish a farmers’ market, launch an urban business development incubator, and form business associations like the one in the Rail Yard District. That’s on top of their work creating more space for retail tenants, supporting affordable housing, and improving the infrastructure of vital public corridors.

Right now Shealy is helping a women-owned manufacturing business access LISC loans and consulting. It’s a first step towards building a more manufacturing- heavy portfolio that enshrines their long- standing approach of people first, revenue second.

“We look at our work a lot more as helping people as compared to just trying to find a deal and place money,” said Shealy.

UMA has assembled our Pathways to Patient Capital practitioner cohort because each member has found a successful or promising approach to helping entrepreneurs of color — including makers and manufacturers — to get access to the capital and know-how they need to realize their business ideas and plans at scale. We know there is great benefit in lifting up and sharing this information among other practitioners, but also with other audiences, such as policymakers, lenders, and other funders. We compiled the brief profiles you are about to read to give these audiences a sense of both the personal and the practical: one section describes the people and organizations doing this work and the inspiration that guides them (“The Practitioner”); the other describes the innovations in capital access or readiness that each is pioneering or bringing to scale (“The Practice”). You can read the full report here.