Winn Dixie - Bi Lo

[MusicMan]

Greenville, much smaller than Jax in population, is an incredibly hip small southern city. They are very similar to Austin TX but as I said a lot smaller. They actually have Starbucks in downtown Greenville, and had a Whole Foods a couple years before we did.  Having lived and worked there on and off for several years I can tell you it boasts a very high quality of life. And the downtown area is really beautiful with the Reedy River Falls, Peace Center for Performing Arts, Bi-Lo Center (10,000 seats) and their cool downtown business dictrict.

[ben says]

Greenville, much smaller than Jax in population, is an incredibly hip small southern city. They are very similar to Austin TX but as I said a lot smaller. They actually have Starbucks in downtown Greenville, and had a Whole Foods a couple years before we did.  Having lived and worked there on and off for several years I can tell you it boasts a very high quality of life. And the downtown area is really beautiful with the Reedy River Falls, Peace Center for Performing Arts, Bi-Lo Center (10,000 seats) and their cool downtown business dictrict.

I hear good things. Pictures look beautiful.

[vicupstate]

If Greenville were consolidated like Jacksonville, it's population would be 450,000.  It is smaller than Jax, but the city population is deceiving small because of SC's restrictive annexation laws.  The Greenvillle-Spartanburg metro area is very
similiar in size to Metro Jax in population. 

Considering there were over 1,000 employees in Jax and less than 500 in Greenville, that was probably the overriding factor. 

[mtraininjax]

Gee, last time I looked, Greenville did not have an NFL team, so that probably had a major impact on the decision. That, CSX, FNF and a number of other prominent companies surely had nothing to do with it.

Lake - Front cover of this week's Jax Business Journal stated that the MAIN reason the Bi/Lo people came around to Jacksonville was due to the size of the city. The NFL would not have been here without that same size and in fact having the NFL helped bring in FNF, maintain CSX, and allow others to come to Jacksonville.

From the JBJ Week of March 19:

And while financial incentives were important, the decision to relocate to Jacksonville was ultimately made based on size, scope and location.

[thelakelander]

I still think its a stretch to say the NFL helped bring them here but the city size and amount of local facilities both (Bi-Lo and FNF) took over makes a strong case for shifting headquarter operations to Jax.

[mtraininjax]

Well, respectfully, I disagree. Without the NFL here, it would really bite the big one for many, many reasons. Those reasons can be viewed during the 1980s in our string of disappointments.