BLOCK BY BLOCK

Metro North Community Development Corporation’s (MNCDC) mission is to improve quality of life and restore pride in Jacksonville’s urban core communities through residential and commercial real estate development; community-based programming; recreational enhancements; neighborhood beautification; and health and education initiatives. To meet this goal, MNCDC is embarking on a new strategy, our signature “Block-by-Block Initiative,” which began in 2012. The purpose of this program is to incrementally transform a targeted twenty-block area in Jacksonville, Florida’s urban core, the Metro North/Greater Brentwood neighborhood. Using holistic and sustainable community development planning and strategies, we will change our target area one block at a time and implement a three-year pilot project (January 2014 – December 2017), the “Block-by-Block Initiative”: Housing, Health, and Education = Transformation. In doing so, MNCDC seeks to turn the concept of community development into more than a list of lofty goals and delayed results. Many of Jacksonville’s urban core neighborhoods are in a critical condition, much like the patient who enters a hospital in need of critical care. Physicians respond to such patients aggressively, with precise actions and strategies aimed at achieving full recovery. With this same methodology, MNCDC will partner with other non-profit agencies, volunteers, and private corporations to transform our target neighborhood block by block, addressing the housing, health, and education needs and concerns of the community and its residents.