Community Redevelopment Areas in Jacksonville, Florida

A community redevelopment area, or CRA, is a district where the growth in property tax revenue is set aside and spent inside the district instead of flowing into the general fund. The Office of Economic Development explains the legal basis: under Chapter 163, Part III of Florida law, local governments can designate CRAs when certain conditions exist, such as substandard structures, a shortage of affordable housing, inadequate infrastructure, insufficient roadways and inadequate parking. The city has to survey the area and adopt a Finding of Necessity first. Because all the money is locally generated, CRAs are not overseen by the state, though each redevelopment plan has to be consistent with the Jacksonville comprehensive plan.

The city lists four active CRAs in Jacksonville: KingSoutel Crossing, Renew Arlington, Downtown Northbank and Downtown Southbank. The two downtown districts are governed separately by the Downtown Investment Authority, which is a different story with its own budget and board. The other two, one on the Northside and one in Arlington, are run by the City Council. A third non-downtown district, the Jacksonville International Airport CRA, ended on September 30, 2023.

The answer is the whole Jacksonville City Council. According to the city's CRA page, all 19 members of the City Council serve as the CRA boards for KingSoutel Crossing and Renew Arlington, meeting as separate agency boards when CRA business is on the table. Staff support comes from the Office of Economic Development at 117 W. Duval St., Suite 275, in City Hall. Each CRA also has a citizen advisory board that meets monthly to review progress and recommend policy to the council-as-board.

Whether a given Jacksonville parcel sits inside a CRA is a map question. The city posts a single boundary map covering KingSoutel Crossing, Renew Arlington and the downtown CRAs, and the Office of Economic Development offers a determination by email for owners who cannot tell from the map. Each district also posts its annual audited financial statements and FY 2024-2025 performance measures on the CRA page, the closest thing to a public scorecard for how the Northside and Arlington increments are spent.

As of October 9, 2026, the KingSoutel Crossing advisory board page lists Russell Jackson as chair and William Price as vice chair, with a meeting on the fourth Thursday of every month at 3:30 p.m. at City Hall. The Renew Arlington advisory board page lists Matthew W. Tuohy as chair and Steve Matchett as vice chair, along with council members Ronald B. Salem of At-Large Group 2 and Ken Amaro of District 1, and meets the second Wednesday of every month at 3:30 p.m. in Conference Room C on the second floor of City Hall. Last verified: October 9, 2026, on the City of Jacksonville website.

KingSoutel Crossing takes its name from two Northwest Jacksonville roads, New Kings Road and Soutel Drive. The city's KingSoutel page says the CRA was created to jumpstart housing, retail and commercial development in an underserved, but budding area in Northwest Jacksonville, and that the plan is themed around new town centers near transit, minimum service standards, stronger existing neighborhoods and attractive gateways. Enabling legislation is listed as Ordinances 2006-0357, 2008-0919 and 2018-0011.

The Jacksonville Daily Record laid out the boundaries when the Jacksonville Economic Development Commission reviewed the plan in August 2010. The area includes the New Kings Road and Interstate 295 interchange, the Pritchard Road and I-295 interchange, parcels fronting New Kings Road, Soutel Drive and Pritchard Road, and parcels around Soutel Drive and Moncrief Road. The memo split the CRA into four districts: New Kings Road as the commercial gateway with about $9.9 million in estimated improvements, Soutel Place with $6 million, Old Kings Road with $1.1 million for low-density workforce housing, and Pritchard Road with $575,000 for industrial development. It credited former council member Mia Jones with leading the CRA's creation.

The 2010 KingSoutel Crossing memo also flagged the weak point of a tax increment district created during a recession. The commission said tax increment financing was a potential source but might take time, warning that the TIF for this area would be slow to create a generous revenue stream. The 2025 roadwork described below arrived 15 years after that memo.

The largest visible project is roadwork. Action News Jax reported on Nov. 14, 2025 that the King-Soutel Crossing Community Redevelopment Area project totals just over $6 million for new sidewalks, medians and frontage upgrades along a 2.2-mile stretch running from Soutel Drive to the Trout River. The work was planned in four phases: frontage improvements between I-295 and Trout River Boulevard, new sidewalks at the corner of MLK and U.S. 1, median upgrades from Soutel to Trout River Boulevard, and sidewalk and crosswalk upgrades. Council member Ju'Coby Pittman spoke at the launch, and the station reported no set completion date while the first phase was under way.

The other tool is the storefront grant. The KingSoutel Crossing Building Renovation Grant Program matches one dollar of city funding for every dollar of eligible capital investment by an owner or tenant, up to a maximum of $50,000, paid as a reimbursement after the work is done. It covers exterior renovation of existing commercial and retail buildings: painting, masonry repairs, entrances, doors, windows, awnings, signage, roofing, decorative fencing that is not chain-link, required landscaping and exterior lighting. It does not pay for residential property, property acquisition, working capital, inventory or refinancing, and eligibility is limited to one address per year. The city's stated reason is that weak building equity along these Northwest Jacksonville corridors does not support traditional renovation loans.

Renew Arlington is the city's CRA east of the St. Johns River. The Renew Arlington CRA page says it covers three major commercial corridors within the Arlington community: University Boulevard, and Merrill and Arlington roads. The city calls the plan the result of a decade of community efforts to renew Arlington and a framework for redevelopment over the next 20 years. Studies behind it include the Old Arlington Neighborhood Action Plan of 2007, the Greater Arlington/Beaches Vision Plan of 2010 and a 2015 Finding of Necessity, and the enabling legislation is Ordinance 2015-0738.

Arlington's CRA leans on zoning as much as on spending. The Renew Arlington CRA Zoning Overlay adds design and performance standards on top of the base zoning inside the CRA boundary, and where the two conflict the more stringent regulation applies unless the overlay says otherwise. To help existing businesses meet those rules, the Mandatory Compliance Grant Program reimburses 100 percent of the awarded allowance or the actual cost, whichever is less, for fencing, signage and landscaping that bring a property into compliance with the overlay. Businesses had a compliance deadline of April 28, 2025, so the grant was aimed at existing businesses along Merrill Road, Arlington Road and University Boulevard.

The third council-run district is gone. The JIA CRA page states that the term of the Jacksonville International Airport Community Redevelopment Area expired on September 30, 2023, under Resolution JIA/CRA-2023-03 and Ordinance 2023-496-E. Created under legislation dating to 1990 and 1993, it was meant to stimulate development and fund infrastructure improvements within a 14,245-acre area of North Jacksonville around the airport, with the stated goal of increasing the tax base by creating jobs and recruiting businesses that enhance the image of the area.

With the term over, the district no longer sets aside new tax increment for that part of the Northside. The city still posts the JIA CRA's end-of-term report, past budgets and audited financial statements through 2023 on the CRA page, so the record of what the district spent remains public alongside the active KingSoutel Crossing and Renew Arlington files.