JACKSON, Miss. (WLBT) – Multiple private donors want to invest in the capital city, but they’re not going to open their wallets unless the city has a plan.
That’s the message that was shared at three pop-up workshops held Monday in downtown Jackson.
JXN Rising hosted the gatherings, which were designed to flesh out the city’s needs in areas including public works and blight elimination, and to come up with ways on how they could be funded through public-private partnerships.
“So, we have 14 areas that grew out of eight campaign promises that the mayor made. And so, of those 14 areas we’re working to come up with up to three actionable ideas that can be achieved,” said Josh McMunn, who helped facilitate Monday’s events.
“We’ll then take those out to private-sector actors, companies, and philanthropies, that might be interested in helping.”
Three workshops were held Monday, including one focusing on Public Works that afternoon.
Attendees included city officials, business leaders, and community leaders, who came up with several ideas, including improving the city’s entryways, addressing stormwater drainage, and decommissioning streets that are no longer used.
During the roughly two-hour event, attendees discussed the pros and cons of the ideas, as well as the challenges the city has had in implementing similar projects in the past.
McManus, the co-founder of MBP, a group that focuses, in part, on drawing up urban revitalization plans, challenged the group to come up with proposals that would cost no more than seven figures, take a year or less to put in place, and can be tested in an area of 10 or so square miles.
“I’ve been a part of this work for the last 30 years, and it really does start with a conversation. And from conversations, you oftentimes create some sort of cohesive idea that becomes one sentence, that one sentence becomes one page, and that one page becomes 10 pages, and… a public-private partnership.”
“What happened today forms the basis of the ideas that then shape [into] actionable outcomes.”
Mayor John Horhn dropped in at the meeting after attending a hearing before the Senate Study Committee on Jackson and Housing.
He expects an initial report from JXN Rising by the second week of November.
“We’re doing a comprehensive plan, but that won’t be available until after the first of the year,” he said. “This is a means of being able to get something in potential investors’ hands so that they’ll have something that they can consider.”
It’s unclear what groups are interested in investing in the capital city. Names mentioned during the public works workshop included the Kellogg Foundation and Jamie Dimon, the chairman and chief executive officer of JPMorganChase.
Said Horhn, “We think that Jackson checks the box for a lot of entities, for a lot of foundations, a lot of corporations… And rather than waiting for the comprehensive plan next year, we’d rather strike while the iron is hot.”
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