DJP's Extravaganza plays to packed house

Mississippi Business Journal, The, Jul 28, 2008 by Chandler, Clay

Downtown Jackson Partners (DJP) held its second Development/Marketing Informational Extravaganza July 17 at the Mississippi TelCom Center. Shortly after the event started, officials with DJP noticed it had made a mistake.

It had prepared for a crowd of approximately 400 people, which would have mirrored the previous Extravaganza's attendance. Instead, says John Gomez, more than 500 showed up.

"It was packed," said Gomez, associate director of DJP. "It was a great sight to see."

Leading off the festivities was a kickoff-party for BOOM Jackson, a publication highlighting the developments and happenings in the City of Jackson.

After the BOOM rollout party, the audience saw a video that laid out the development downtown, followed by a recap of the DJP delegation's trip to Little Rock, Ark., to glean some ideas that city has put in place that has led to a renaissance of its downtown.

The meat of the order came when developers from different projects in downtown and the surrounding areas gave progress reports. Among the presenters were developers with the King Edward Hotel, Fondren-Whitney Place, Timber Falls mixed-use development in South Jackson, the Belhaven Baptist Hospital Project, City View Condominiums, the Belhaven Heights Carriage House Mixed Use Development, the Downtown Arts/Campus Complex, the Downtown Jackson Incubator Project and the plans DJP has to turn Capitol Street into a two-way thoroughfare. Also highlighted were projects slated to begin work some time in the future, which total $1.6 billion worth of investment.

All told, the developments represent $2.218 billion being pumped into downtown.

Building credibility

It's one thing for marketing and development groups such as DJP to push economic development projects, but it's all together different for the folks who are spending the money to talk about them.

"That lends a lot more credibility," Gomez said. DJP's efforts center around converting downtown from a place for people strictly to work into more of a neighborhood where people work, shop, dine and eventually live.

Similar efforts have been met with success in Little Rock, Ark., Memphis and Birmingham, Ala.

"There are really some amazing projects (downtown). Overall, it's looking very good, Gomez said."

At the Extravaganza, DJP unveiled its new interactive website that offers virtual tours of the restaurants, museums, condos and other attractions that form the foundation of places DJP officials hope will bring the kind of results other Southeastern cities have had in their downtown-revitalization plans.

"We've been working on it for the past several months, and we got a great response from it," said Gomez. "It gives people who have never visited downtown a better grasp of what's going on here.

"And the BOOM Jackson unveiling turned out really well. It's a great read. We're in the process of configuring our distribution now."