A crowd fills A. Philip Randolph Boulevard during a Melanin Market in 2023. | LIFT JAX
Published on February 5, 2025 at 2:49 pm
Free local news and info, in your inbox at 6 a.m. M-F. Sign up for the Jacksonville Today newsletter.
A new organization launched Wednesday with hopes of transforming Jacksonville’s historic A. Philip Randolph Boulevard into a bustling corridor of business, jobs and prosperity.
The beginning of the Florida Avenue Main Street program included updates on new business development in the community just east of the city’s sports complex — among them, the Vantage Point Coffee Co., a new coffee shop in the renovated Union Terminal Warehouse on East Union Street.
Jacksonville Today thanks our sponsors. Become one.
Nigelle Kohn, executive director of Florida Avenue Main Street, invited people to tour the community where she said the Main Street program will bring even more economic investment.
“Please, please, please come back and visit,” said Kohn. “We really do want you to take advantage of everything that is on the avenue. We really want you to visit because we want you to watch the transformation.
“What you see today, you will not see in three, five, 10 years. Hopefully you won’t see it in a year — you’ll see some changes in a year. But please come back.”
Jacksonville Today thanks our sponsors. Become one.
Vantage Point owner Leo Baker remembered his younger days when he drove through the community en route to Stanton High School. He said he has seen tremendous growth along A. Philip Randolph Boulevard in recent years. Now he will join that growth in the nearby Union Terminal Warehouse.
“We wondered how, as a coffee company, we could become part of it,” Baker said. “So when I heard that the Union Terminal was coming available, I had an initial meeting with my team and knew this was a great, ideal location for our second storefront.”
Main Street origins
Just over a year ago, Jacksonville’s Historic Eastside and Main Street Hastings were named new members of the state’s Main Street Program.
That 40-year-old Main Street program offers technical assistance to community-based redevelopment programs under the Florida Division of Historical Resources. It helps communities create jobs through revitalized business districts and can help improve an area’s tax base, while also protecting existing investments. It also helps preserve a community’s historic resources, according to its website.
The Historic Eastside, just north of the Mathews Expressway and the Downtown sports complex, is one of the largest and most historically intact African American neighborhoods in Florida. The community has a documented Black presence dating before the Civil War. It saw many former slaves move there after the war due to its proximity to the St. Johns River and the city’s rapid growth and industrialization, state officials said.
That growth led to multiple restaurants, bars, grocery stores, retail shops and a theater on A. Philip Randolph Boulevard. Then urban renewal began affecting the neighborhood. The Mathews and Hart bridges and expressways displaced many residents, as did the addition of baseball and concert venues around the football stadium nearby.
Since the designation, LIFT JAX, the philanthropic organization responsible for Eastside’s Main Street campaign, has worked with partner organizations like the Eastside Legacy Business Council to revitalize the business corridor.
Kohn will lead Florida Avenue Main Street in partnering with property and business owners, residents and community leaders to continue strategic investments along the corridor.
“Florida Avenue Main Street will prove that we can return, and this isn’t the beginning,” said LIFT JAX Chief Operating Officer Travis Williams Williams. “The many folks who came before us, whether it’s Mother Pearl, the longest tenured property and business owner; whether it’s the Eastside Legacy Business Council, Florida Avenue has really taken the baton and continued work that others have done before to return this corridor to what is was, and even greater.”
City Councilman Jimmy Peluso thanked everyone who has worked hard to make this Jacksonville’s first-ever Main Street district, he said.
“Since 1985, the Florida Main Street program has been in existence yet Jacksonville has never had a Main Street,” Peluso said. “That ends today. This avenue is the perfect first avenue for the city of Jacksonville. May it not be the last, by the way, but man, is it great that it’s out here, Out East.”
Main Street plans also include efforts to beautify 10 blocks of businesses with six new murals, plus improved lighting and signage to help local businesses.
The Historic Eastside community also hosts the Melanin Market. The next is set for noon to 6 p.m. Feb. 22 with a Black History Month Celebration and Parade as well as more than 150 Black-owned businesses, nonprofits and artists lining A. Philip Randolph Boulevard.
In Hastings
As for Hastings in St. Johns County, it grew from agricultural importance as Henry Flagler expanded railroads through Florida. Now Hastings Main Street Inc. has been formed to redevelop the downtown off Florida 207, working to capitalize on momentum gained from recent community events, the state said.
Those include the Hastings Fall Festival of Art, the annual Cabbage, Potato, and Bacon Festival, and Saturday’s Hastings Boulevard Car Show, with vendors, music and food.
