{"id":381,"date":"2019-11-21T12:27:27","date_gmt":"2019-11-21T17:27:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mattcarlucciformayor.grndctrl.net\/?page_id=381"},"modified":"2026-10-20T23:11:56","modified_gmt":"2026-10-21T03:11:56","slug":"richard-reichard","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/karennasrallah.com\/?page_id=381","title":{"rendered":"About"},"content":{"rendered":"

Meet Karen Virginia Nasrallah<\/strong><\/p>\n

For more than 30 years, Jacksonville native Karen Nasrallah has helped build better, safer neighborhoods and create jobs and opportunity in her hometown. As Redevelopment Manager for\u00a0the City of Jacksonville’s Office of Economic Development, Karen has also built consensus and relationships \u2013 within the community and at every level of government from Congress to City Council \u2013 and contributed to a better quality of life throughout Duval County.<\/p>\n

Karen\u2019s ability to get things done was forged in the nation\u2019s capital, where she served as a legislative aide to Congressman Bill McCollum and worked in President Reagan\u2019s Office of Management & Budget. She honed project management and networking skills representing large corporate accounts for Thompson & Company government affairs before returning to Northeast Florida, where she served briefly in the Hazouri and Austin mayoral administrations and traveled the country as national sales manager for a locally-based manufacturing corporation.<\/p>\n

In 1998, Karen was hired by the Delaney administration to project manage the closure and redevelopment of NAS Cecil Field. As part of that\u00a0timely and highly successful conversion, Karen secured $25 million in grants to bring the property into local code compliance, demolish unsafe or unusable structures, and construct vital infrastructure, including new roads, a new entrance, and specific improvements related to projects such as Flight Star. That work was foundational to\u00a0the creation of Cecil Commerce Center, which has brought over 5,500 jobs and\u00a0$3.2 billion in\u00a0private capital investment to Northeast Florida.<\/p>\n

Since then, Karen\u00a0has managed projects in some of Jacksonville\u2019s most blighted areas, including parts of Downtown, Northwest, Arlington and Springfield. She has served in the administrations of additional mayors \u2013 Peyton, Brown, Curry and Deegan \u2013 working with residents, city departments, City Council, state agencies and federal officials to rebuild infrastructure, enhance public safety, and create thousands of jobs and housing units. Highlights include:<\/em><\/p>\n