Downtown officially out of the running for big Citizens office deal

[BoldBoyOfTheSouth]

Downtown is centrally located at the intersection of 1-95 & I-10 with plenty of office space available. Secured high-rise concrete parking garages are much safer for employees during storms than massive suburban offices complexes with exposed cars and wafe-like trees.

Traffic around Baymeadows is horrific and will stress out employees on a constant and daily basis.

[IrvAdams]

Downtown is centrally located at the intersection of 1-95 & I-10 with plenty of office space available. Secured high-rise concrete parking garages are much safer for employees during storms than massive suburban offices complexes with exposed cars and wafe-like trees.

Traffic around Baymeadows is horrific and will stress out employees on a constant and daily basis.

+100%. This would be so good for the core. I sincerely hope they can arrange a deal. Something to celebrate.

[ronchamblin]

My two locations in the suburbs, one on Roosevelt Blvd, and our warehouse on Forest Street, have power outages once every two months or so, each lasting from two minutes to an hour or so.  This is very disruptive and costly when its busy, when we have several dozen customers trying to browse and purchase books.  When power goes, our phone system, cash registers, and computers go down, along with the lights. 

My point is that the reliability of electrical power in the core is a plus.  I cannot recall having had a single power outage at our downtown location, and we've been in the core since 2006.

I'm not sure as to why there is increased reliability of power in the core, as compared to the outlying areas.  Perhaps its simply the fact that there is a secure power substation near the core, and as one is distanced from this power source, one is at the mercy of transformers that can blow and be hit by vehicles or trees etc.

In any case, if one is compiling a list of persuasive points to offer any company entertaining the idea of moving to the core, this "power reliability" would be a big plus.  Of course, some of these downtown towers like Everbank might have their own power backups in the form of generators and battery banks.   

     

[ChriswUfGator]

Oh that's easy Ron, it's the buried power lines there vs the poles where the lines get knocked out by a strong gust of wind.

[ronchamblin]

Oh that's easy Ron, it's the buried power lines there vs the poles where the lines get knocked out by a strong gust of wind.

Makes sense Chris .... And even more sense now that I have my morning espresso 

[acme54321]

You will also have much faster responce times from JEA to any issue in the core due to the density of costumers. 

[Steve]

Good for the EverBank Center folks for being aggressive. This would be a huge win for them. The EverBank deal kind of got cancelled out when AT&T pulled out of the building. This would be a huge win.

[edjax]

Per article on JBJ, 4 bids were received and the one for Everbank Center came in as the second lowest.  So most likely will be between there and the lowest bid in the Baymeadows area (Deerwood Center). These two were substantially lower than the other two. I would think if downtown there would also have to be some parking incentives perhaps from the city similar to what they just did for the DuPont Center.

[thelakelander]

I'm surprised The Oaks on the Arlington Expressway came in so high.  Isn't that place completely empty?

[simms3]

http://www.bizjournals.com/jacksonville/news/2014/06/25/see-how-much-four-jacksonville-landlords-bid-for.html

I think this is very bad reporting.  I [obviously] work in this industry and read a lot of articles and I have never heard anything worded like it is in the JBJ.

"Bid?"

What do they mean by that?  Is that what it would cost for a 5 or 10 year lease deal?  I'm guessing with 130 employees and a tad room for expansion they have a commitment out in the market for 40-55,000 SF?  Since basically all of Jax is around ~$16-22psf rent, for a 10 year term at the low end you're talking $7MM in rent for a start rate of $16psf FSG for 40,000 SF to $14MM for a start rent of $22psf FSG for 55,000 SF.

Now, I backed into the SF they may be looking for if 2 landlords are "bidding" $30MM for a 10 year lease deal with Citizens.  At a start rate of $20psf FSG and 3% bumps, Citizens would need 130,000 SF, or roughly 1,000 SF per employee, which is just ridiculous (I've only seen that with tech startups that triple in size per year and never go for 10 year terms and always ask for termination clauses or ROFOs on additional space).

Anyway, regardless, I'm a real estate whiz and I have no fucking clue what this lady is talking about when she says 4 landlords "bid" between $30MM and $60MM for Citizens Bank to lease space and relo 130 employees from Tally and Tampa.  Those numbers don't make any sense for anything I can conjure up in my mind.

When Jacksonville's marquee office tower just traded for $79MM, "bidding" $60MM for a standard lease deal makes about as much sense as, well, basically nothing.  Shameful reporting (as is usual for JBJ's real estate pieces)

[simms3]

edit: 226,000 commitment.  For 130 employees?  What's their growth trajectory!  LoL I mean sometimes with tech that happens, but Citizens Bank?

Also, at the low end these LLs want $133psf for that kind of commitment (now I'm assuming they're talking sale).  If that is basically a record for Jax, why does a LL in Arlington think they can get Midtown Atlanta Class A pricing for a shit Arlington building?

This is all just ODD.

[thelakelander]

I believe they are moving 130 from other cities to join employees already in Jax.

[river4340]

Citizens Property Insurance Corp. plans to move 148 IT jobs to Jacksonville next year. The company now has close to 900 employees spread among four locations in Jacksonville.
But it plans to consolidate those, along with 130 positions from Tallahassee and 18 from Tampa into one office complex here.


Read more at Jacksonville.com: http://jacksonville.com/business/2014-04-25/story/148-jobs-moving-jacksonville-citizens-property-insurance-have-1000-plus#ixzz35g3h4tv4

[edjax]

Hmmm. Bad reporting or bad reading comprehension?

[simms3]

I wouldn't say bad reading comprehension considering I have no problem reading and interpreting dozens of other real estate articles a day as part of for subscription private equity journals dealing with rather complex issues.  We've established their employment numbers, plans, and space commitment/RFP, much more effectively from the FTU/Jacksonville.com article than the JBJ article, I might add.

Now edjax, please decipher this:

Bids for the 226,000-square-foot need were opened yesterday, and the landlords of four Jacksonville office properties bid the following:
8800 Baymeadows Way West, Deerwood Center: $31.66 million
301 W. Bay St., EverBank Center: $34.95 million
8900 Freedom Commerce Pkwy, Prominence: $58.63 million
7960 Arlington Expressway, The Oaks: $62.97 million

Source

In lieu of this:

A New York buyer has acquired the Wells Fargo Center and its parking garage for $79 million.

Source

Please tell me what in the hell this author of this article in JBJ is referring to when she says an Arlington LL bid $63MM for a 226,000 SF commitment from a technical non-profit (FTU frames Citizen as a GSE).  Please, honestly, I invite you to make me look like an idiot.  I'm trying to really dig deep to decipher what it is I'm missing here.