LISC Jacksonville & Groundwork Jacksonville: Partners in Revitalization

When LISC Jacksonville helped establish Groundwork Jacksonville in 2014, what resonated most with LISC’s leadership was the model in which Groundwork USA and its network of Trusts operate. Under LISC Jacksonville’s broad yet meticulously executed approach to transforming distressed neighborhoods, there were numerous consistencies in how the two organizations accomplish similar goals: community revitalization, environmental cleanup and resiliency, and facilitating community-driven plans for restoration, to name a few. In this, LISC Jacksonville recognized a highly valuable partner that could help accomplish its own community revitalization plans for Historic Eastside, Springfield, and other urban core neighborhoods.

“While unique in its own way, Groundwork Jacksonville is also an excellent example of LISC’s mode of operation,” said John Sapora, disaster recovery and resiliency manager for LISC Jacksonville, who has been involved with Groundwork Jacksonville’s work since he joined LISC in 2019. “We don’t have many examples of the variety of ways that LISC Jacksonville works within our communities all in one project. Because of this philosophical alignment and the parallels of our two missions, LISC has been privileged to play an important role in supporting Groundwork Jacksonville’s work during the past seven years.”

Groundwork Jacksonville’s mission is to promote environmental, economic, and social wellbeing through the sustained regeneration, improvement, and management of the physical environment – which checks a number of LISC Jacksonville’s boxes as well. Among its numerous program areas, Groundwork Jacksonville is implementing multiple key initiatives, three of which include:

• Working with the City of Jacksonville to build the Emerald Trail, a 30-mile network of trails, greenways and parks that connect Jacksonville’s urban core neighborhoods with Downtown and the North and Southbank Riverwalks
• Restoration of the McCoys Creek and Hogans Creek watersheds
• Community engagement and equity planning

Overview of the Emerald Trail system.

To accomplish this work, Groundwork Jacksonville had to establish an infrastructure based upon a strategic public-private partnership with the City of Jacksonville and begin to generate funding, build organizational capacity, and engage the community. In the seven years since it was founded, Groundwork Jacksonville’s staff and leadership have successfully navigated this with the support of LISC Jacksonville and numerous other partners.

The public-private partnership with the City of Jacksonville was formalized in early 2019, establishing clear roles and responsibilities for each. While both entities are involved in resiliency planning, Groundwork Jacksonville’s primary role is leading design with an aesthetic, ecological and environmental justice lens. In addition, Groundwork Jacksonville is raising millions in private funding to support the project design and construction.

“We are proud to be a valued partner for the City of Jacksonville,” said Kay Ehas, CEO of Groundwork Jacksonville. “Groundwork’s design and community engagement approach makes these projects especially attractive to potential funders and partners. Additionally, as a mission-based organization, we are able to remain laser-focused on ensuring these projects move forward and benefit the residents who have lived in the neighborhoods for generations.” 

While the partnership and implementation moved forward, Groundwork Jacksonville was also responsible for engaging community partners, businesses, and residents in its geographic areas of focus. To accomplish this, it leveraged LISC Jacksonville’s guidance and equitable development planning model to organize residents and business owners to prioritize their strategies and use these initiatives as an opportunity to revitalize their neighborhood, address housing and storm resiliency issues, and create commercial corridors.

“The community engagement that Groundwork Jacksonville is facilitating around the Emerald Trail and the two creek watersheds is the same way that LISC goes about bringing community members together to determine their own future, and then empowering them with resources and connections to bring it to life,” said Sapora. “Plus, the work directly correlates to the engagement we are helping facilitate in several of our neighborhoods of focus, including the Brooklyn / North Riverside, LaVilla, and northwest Jacksonville communities.”

Another area of alignment is the role that both Hogans and McCoys creeks play in the City of Jacksonville’s storm resiliency efforts, at which LISC Jacksonville has a seat at the table and is playing an integral role in developing long-term solutions. While LISC Jacksonville is working to improve the economic vitality of its target communities, it is also working to mitigate the impact of future storm disasters on the city’s most vulnerable communities – a couple of which happen to be located around these same watersheds. As such, LISC Jacksonville has helped Groundwork Jacksonville identify and pursue new funding streams from outside of the community to keep both organizations’ priorities moving forward while broadening the impact of those dollars. In doing so, these dollars have helped illustrate the importance of these initiatives to local funders, helping generate additional funds to support implementation – another key focus of LISC Jacksonville’s.

Alongside community engagement and resiliency, LISC Jacksonville is particularly supportive of the Emerald Trail because it helps accomplish its macro goal of revitalizing distressed, historically diverse neighborhoods in a unique way: the Emerald Trail provides connectivity among neighborhoods that have never been intentionally connected before. By bringing the Emerald Trail to life, new commercial centers and recreational opportunities will come to life alongside it, integrating existing residents and potential new residents and businesses that were previously – and largely intentionally – separated.

“The Emerald Trail has the ability to ‘mix’ people like Jacksonville has never mixed people before along racial and economic lines,” said Dr. Irvin “PeDro” Cohen, executive director of LISC Jacksonville. “This directly relates to our work in advancing racial equity within our city because of the very neighborhoods – which are historically Black – that the Emerald Trail progresses through. It has the ability to create the level of connectivity and inclusiveness that we have been pursuing for decades. Underneath it all, it’s a transformational project on so many levels.”

For more information about Groundwork Jacksonville’s work and initiatives, click here.