This Week in Jacksonville: Business Edition – The Phoenix Arts and Innovation District

The Phoenix. Greek mythology created it.

It’s described as “a mythical bird known for its ability to be reborn from its ashes, symbolizing immortality and renewal.”

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Cho is CEO and Founder of Cho Ventures and a company called Future of Cities.

“I’ve been in Florida for a long time, traveled all over the world,” Cho said. “In 2019, I had the privilege to come to Jacksonville to start poking around and exploring if there were places to bring our regenerative placemaking practice on the road and in fact, it did. It didn’t pan out that way. And we’ve made a big bet on Jacksonville, and I think we’ve made a good bet.”

Cho calls Future Cities a think tank and real estate developer. I asked him what he meant when he talks about “regenerative development.”

“Sustainability means that you’re sustaining an ecosystem, that you’re basically utilizing the amount of resources that you’re taking from a particular place or a particular system,” Cho explained. “Regeneration implies that you’re actually putting back into the system more than you’re taking from it. So that can be you know, that can be a family system, that can be a city system, that can be an urban or a community system, that can be an ecosystem as well. And so we’re focused on culture, we’re focused on community, and we’re focused on nature. And when you can balance all of those things, that’s when you’re fully regenerative.”

The project also weaves into the vision for the Emerald Trail. Cho explains more of the philosophy for developing during this episode of This Week in Jacksonville: Business Edition.