The Jackson City Council is ending its agreement with a recruiter hired to draw retailers to downtown.
The council, without any discussion, authorized Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba at its June 21 meeting to terminate the professional services agreement with NaviRetail.
NaviRetail is to be paid $10,000 for its services.
The council approved hiring NaviRetail on March 16, 2021 at a cost not to exceed $60,000. NaviRetail was to recruit retailers for downtown Jackson, perform market analysis and create custom marketing material for the area.
Casey Kidd, CEO of NaviRetail, said in a letter dated June 8 and emailed to this reporter that NaviRetail “has not yet seen a business locate in Downtown Jackson; however, many talks are still ongoing and can sometimes take many years to see a business opened. As you can imagine, retailers are especially cautious about the investing of capital for new stores. We did not have a signed contract with the city of Jackson until April 20, 2021, which means we did not even begin our outreach until roughly June 2021.”
NaviRetail provided the city’s Department of Planning and Development with 38 individual reports, Kidd wrote.
The Department of Planning and Development on April 12, 2022 asked that the mayor amend the scope of the agreement for NaviRetail to provide services to identify the highest and best use of city-owned property across from the Jackson Convention Complex and complete analysis and implement an approach to increase the sales tax base by recruiting qualified developers.
In May, the council voted down changing NaviRetail’s focus to updating the city’s feasibility study for a convention center hotel.
The city lacks a convention center hotel that some believe would increase the use of the Jackson Convention Complex. In 2019, the city began talks with two firms it hoped would develop the roughly eight-acre site across from the convention complex, but nothing happened.
Kidd wrote in his letter to this reporter that “in our opinion, the City will not see a return investment until reasonable overnight accommodations are available to convention attendees. Currently, we see the convention center as a losing endeavor and were attempting to change that by including hotels as part of our recruitment for Downtown. Unfortunately, the council didn’t see that as a high priority.”
Ashby Foote of Ward 1 said during the May meeting he would rather hire another city employee to work on a feasibility study instead of expanding the work of NaviRetail.
Virgi Lindsay, who represents Ward 7, said she agreed with Foote.
“I think we need to beef up our own department so we can address these issues internally,” she said.
