New York Financials Looking to Move to Florida

[jaxlongtimer]

Instead of spending $245 million on Lot J, maybe the Mayor should be using it to incentivize these companies to come to Jacksonville vs. South Florida or elsewhere:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-12-06/goldman-plots-florida-base-for-asset-management-in-a-blow-to-nyc

Might propel Jacksonville's economy far more than Lot J ever will.  With FIS, Fidelity National, Fidelity Investments, Black Knight, Chase, PNC, Bank of America/Merrill Lynch, Deutsche Bank, E & Y Financial Services, SoFi, Macquarie, Citi, TIAA, Vystar, etc. with major divisions in Jacksonville, we should be on the short list for these relocations.  Mayor and Chamber say FinTech is a targeted industry for recruitment too.

[jaxlongtimer]

Oracle is moving its HQ's from Silicon Valley to Austin, TX:  https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/11/oracle-is-moving-its-headquarters-from-silicon-valley-to-austin-texas.html 

This follows Hewlett Packard Enterprise's recent move to Houston and and a string of other tech companies to Texas from Silicon Valley or other west coast tech hubs.   It appears this could be the tech version of the dash by financial service companies looking to move to Florida.

Curry should be front and center recruiting these companies for a once-in-a-lifetime sea change in the corporate landscape due to COVID and the new work-from-anywhere mode.  Maybe he is, maybe he isn't.  It should clearly be his top "special" economic development project at this point.  It appears from his recent pronouncements it is instead Lot J.

Wonder what hidden costs to Lot J there could be if we are missing out on a full blown effort to recruit these companies?

[jaxlongtimer]

"Texas governor says companies moving headquarters to the state has turned into a 'tidal wave' "

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/11/gov-greg-abbott-on-oracle-companies-moving-headquarters-to-texas.html

[marcuscnelson]

What's odd to me is that these aren't mutually exclusive. Is it really that out there to attract a financial services company to fill a subsidized office tower at Lot J? I don't get how the Jags completely failed to find anyone who would be interested. That, or they never actually thought beyond JEA and just gave up when that fell through.

Austin is very rapidly becoming a tech hub, between Apple, Oracle and a lot of other companies. I think there's certainly room for us to try and snag at least one fiserv company away from Miami. If we really wanted to think big, getting Brightline in the room with concrete plans for Jacksonville and a 3.5-4 hour trip to Miami would be a great way to offer a clear alternative with that "it's easier here" charm.

[jaxlongtimer]

Austin is very rapidly becoming a tech hub, between Apple, Oracle and a lot of other companies.

FYI, the largest company of any kind, which also happens to be a tech company, headquartered in the Austin area (in its suburb of Round Rock) that already had it on the tech map is Dell Technologies (formed by the merger of Dell and EMC/VMWare) with current revenue of about $92 billion.

Here are a few other tech companies in, moving or rumored to be moving to Austin recently, most notably, Elon Musk/Tesla:

A tech company decamping to Texas, and especially to Austin, is hardly groundbreaking. The tech hub, nicknamed "Silicon Hills," is already home to industry leaders including Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), Dell (DELL) and others.

As of November, 39 companies -- in tech and other industries had relocated to Austin so far this year, according to data from the Austin Chamber of Commerce. Among those are 8VC, the venture capital firm run by Palantir co-founder Joe Londonsdale. Tesla (TSLA) is also building a 4 million square foot facility just outside Austin that's expected to create 5,000 jobs, the Chamber's records show.

And though it's not a tech firm, e-cigarette maker Juul Labs moved its corporate office from the Bay Area to Austin last year.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/13/tech/silicon-valley-moving-to-austin-miami/index.html

[bl8jaxnative]

Instead of spending $245 million on Lot J, maybe the Mayor should be using it to incentivize these companies to come to Jacksonville vs. South Florida or elsewhere:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-12-06/goldman-plots-florida-base-for-asset-management-in-a-blow-to-nyc

Might propel Jacksonville's economy far more than Lot J ever will.  With FIS, Fidelity National, Fidelity Investments, Black Knight, Chase, PNC, Bank of America/Merrill Lynch, Deutsche Bank, E & Y Financial Services, SoFi, Macquarie, Citi, TIAA, Vystar, etc. with major divisions in Jacksonville, we should be on the short list for these relocations.  Mayor and Chamber say FinTech is a targeted industry for recruitment too.

Neither type of venture tends to be very benefitial for taxpayers.