Plan to lure 1,000 Everbank jobs downtown

[ronchamblin]

      You have heard this kind of thing before, but I’ll say it again.  Our city core has suffered a steady decline over five decades while the growth and sprawl of the suburbs and office parks have prospered and built anew.  Neglect has allowed our city core to become vacant in both the business and residential realms. 
     One could almost say that our neglect has allowed our city core to become ill or diseased, and as with many diseases, an injection of antibiotics is needed if there is to be a return of health and vibrancy.  The most effective part of any antibiotic compound prescribed for injection into our core is “people”, especially in the form of workers.  As the population of workers increases, more retail will survive, and the increased retail will bring more residents.   A successful effort to bring Everbank into the city core would be one of the most productive methods to “begin” bringing health back to our city core.
     Anyone opposing the Everbank’s move into our city core will, by their shortsighted and perhaps selfish motives, be perpetuating the diseased condition of our city core; a condition which also negatively affects the health of northeast Florida.  An unhealthy city core imposes ill health upon the entire area.  A mediocre city center encourages mediocrity for the entire area.         
      It is time we understand and act upon the fact that our city core is like the heart or the soul of northeast Florida.  For too many decades we have exercised the freedom of haphazard and heady growth in the suburbs; making decisions for immediate convenience and profits at the expense of the health of our city’s center.  The result is the current weak and diseased condition of our city core, the vacancies, the stagnation, and the momentum of failure.  Shame on us for allowing our city center to become so, and shame on us again if we allow it to remain so.   

[Tacachale]

^Opponents of the deal aren't necessarily against Everbank coming downtown, they mostly oppose using tax dollars to pay for a company to move from one part of town to another. Some probably don't want them to move from their current locations for their own reasons, but we wouldn't hear anything about it city money wasn't involved.

This is understandable. If they were trying to use $2.7 million relocate 1000 employees from, say, Arlington to Mandarin, I think most of us here would oppose that.

As far as I'm concerned reason to support this isn't just to get 1000 Everbank employees from other parts of the city to Downtown, it's to see it as part of a wider spectrum of things the city's trying to accomplish, including decreasing downtown vacancy, establishing the transportation center, and generating 200 new jobs.

[thelakelander]

I see the $2.7 million as a small business investment.  Getting 1,200 people walking past the front door of hundreds of small businesses on a daily basis is a very cost effective way to stimulate small business growth from a public level.

As for incentivizing private businesses to relocate from areas of town, I still wonder why no one complains when we spend billions of new highways that do just that.  For example, was there a huge cry when the Arlington Bridge and expressway were paid for by taxpayers to subsidize the development of places like Regency, which led to the relocation of major downtown anchors like Sears (topic of today's front page article)?  Where was the cry for fiscal responsibility when we dropped $2 million for landscaping the 9A/JTB interchange or created those streets to allow places like BCBS and MODIS to relocate to different areas of town?  In general, I think the whole argument against Everbank consolidating their operations downtown is a highly hypocritical one.

[fieldafm]

was there a huge cry when the Arlington Bridge and expressway were paid for by taxpayers

I agree with you on the Everbank deal and the fiasco of a parking garage(Peyton's specialty) deal that is being put together.

But the Matthews Bridge caused quite an uproar when it was built.  It was driven solely be developers and traffic engineers, and was the city's original 'road to nowhere', but sold to taxpayers as a new way to reconnect to the beach.  It didn't exactly get built quietly by any means.

In fact, the Hart Bridge/Expressway(another subject of much public debate/fanfare) was originally designed to link up to JTB... however developers forced the realignment of the Hart Expressway to terminate at Beach Blvd like it does today.

Write your councilman.

YES!!  Several outgoing councilman are trying everything possible to get some of this garbage legislation passed through this Tuesday... notably the parking garage and the reopening of Monroe.  Both will be very big disasters for the city.

[Tacachale]

From Abel Harding:

The Jacksonville City Council is gearing up for a familiar fight this week â€" a battle over the use of incentives to lure corporate jobs downtown.

Some oppose the proposed legislation, which would give fledgling financial power EverBank $2.75 million in return for locating 1,000 jobs downtown.

The argument against the proposal, simply summarized, is that government is choosing winners and losers by pitting one neighborhood against another. Tea party activists argue that the role is not a traditional one for government.

But those objections don’t jive with history. Jacksonville has long used tax dollars to choose winners and losers.

It was done in 1953 when the John E. Matthews Bridge opened.

That span, first rejected by voters in the 1930s, was billed as the original “bridge to nowhere.” Erected at a cost of $14 million dollars ($112 million in 2010 dollars), the bridge went to empty land crisscrossed by dirt roads.
In the early days of the bridge, “You could practically walk to the top of the bridge and back without seeing a car,” Pete Signoretti, the regional toll booth supervisor, told the Times-Union in 1978.

The bridge enticed residents in downtown neighborhoods and those surrounding it to newly-created developments in Arlington. Businesses followed and within several decades, the Regency Square Mall had sucked retailers from downtown.

Then there was J. Turner Butler Boulevard in 1979. Now one of the regions major commuter routes, it was originally decried as a “road to nowhere.”
It sparked massive Southside developments, including those that eventually drew many employers that previously occupied downtown. (Incidentally, one major employer at one of those office parks, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Florida, recently received $500,000 in city money to make road improvements. Nary an objection was raised.)

Taxpayers have shelled out tens of millions of dollars as the road has been expanded over the years, including $80 million in 2008 to build the massive interchange behind the now-booming St. Johns Town Center.

Those are just two of the numerous examples in Jacksonville history where tax dollars have designated winners and losers. There are countless others.

But the proposed EverBank deal isn’t about who loses. It’s simply a logical step after city officials, led by outgoing Mayor John Peyton and private entities like the Jacksonville Regional Chamber of Commerce and the Jacksonville Civic Council have made the case for the necessity of a vibrant downtown.

“Feet on the streets” is a pressing need for the urban core. An influx of 1,000 new employees will create a boon for restaurants, retailers and existing taxpayer-subsidized parking garages. And tax incentives, which in this case are funded by the sale of downtown real estate, are available to further this goal.

A hometown employer is willing to demonstrate its commitment to helping solve a stated community need.

The proposal makes sense.

Downtown Jacksonville needs EverBank.

http://jacksonville.com/opinion/blog/401574/abel-harding/2011-06-24/abel-harding-everbank-deal-winner-jacksonvilles-downtown

[duvaldude08]

I read that article. It pretty much sums everything up in a nutshell.

[ProjectMaximus]

Yeah, Abel Harding rocks.

[simms3]

Wow.  One of the best editorials I have read in a long time.  As soon as I get off work I will enjoy reading all of the idiotic replies on the FTU website.

[jcjohnpaint]

TU replies are really hard to read without a good laugh. 

[Dog Walker]

TU replies are really hard to read without a good laugh. 

Or throwing up, or shaking head at the complete, blind idiocy of the commenters.  Like watching Fox News, reading that stuff will rot your brain.

[MusicMan]

Thank you  Metro Jacksonville. The above thread is informative and re-assuring. I now know I am not alone when I read the editorial blow back in the TU, I can't believe an editor over there prints the garbage people send them.......

I always wondered about the history of the JTB. It seems it's purpose is to allow folks who live (and pay Taxes)
in Ponte Vedra to get home ( and out of Duval County) as fast as possible.  How 'bout putting a toll booth near the end?

[Charles Hunter]

Thank you  Metro Jacksonville. The above thread is informative and re-assuring. I now know I am not alone when I read the editorial blow back in the TU, I can't believe an editor over there prints the garbage people send them.......

I always wondered about the history of the JTB. It seems it's purpose is to allow folks who live (and pay Taxes)
in Ponte Vedra to get home ( and out of Duval County) as fast as possible.  How 'bout putting a toll booth near the end?

There used to be toll booths on JTB, but they came down in 1989 with those on some of the bridges after the half-percent sales tax was passed.  Good idea, though!

[iMarvin]

EverBank has signed Downtown letter of intent

Via the bizjournals:

EverBank has signed a letter of intent to lease space in the AT&T Tower in Downtown Jacksonville, according to sources.
A letter of intent in commercial real estate is a nonbinding outline of the terms of the deal â€" in this case, a lease for about 200,000 square feet of Class A office space. EverBank has said the Downtown move is one of several options it is considering, including keeping back-office employees where they are at the Cypress Point Business Park, which is along Philips Highway near J. Turner Butler Boulevard on the Southside.
In June, the Jacksonville City Council approved a multimillion-dollar incentive package to entice EverBank to move 1,000 back-office employees Downtown.
The incentive package includes $2.75 million to help with relocation expenses and up to $10,500 for each of the 200 jobs EverBank plans to create in Qualified Target Industry tax refunds.
The city’s share of that refund is 20 percent, or $2,100 per employee.
The Jacksonville Economic Development Commission    and former Mayor John Peyton originally approached EverBank about moving Downtown after learning executives had considered developing a campus on the Southbank.
The City Council approved the incentive package June 28, giving EverBank 90 days to decide whether it would relocate Downtown. The JEDC executive director has the authority to extend that deadline another 90 days at his discretion.
The deadline for EverBank physically moving the employees Downtown is Sept. 30, 2012.
EverBank’s corporate headquarters are at 501 Riverside Ave. and would remain there if the lease at the AT&T Tower is signed.

Read more at: http://www.bizjournals.com/jacksonville/news/2011/09/12/everbank-has-signed-downtown-letter-of.html

Is EverBank Plaza fully occupied?

[Dog Walker]

Is EverBank Plaza fully occupied?

No,  They have for lease signs up, but they might just be for the little retail spaces next to the sidewalk.  There is not enough room in the building to absorb the operations they are moving in from the Southside campus.

[Tacachale]

It's good to know that one of their other options is the Southbank. That would be a good location as well.