JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — The Jacksonville City Council spent the majority of Thursday hearing from several presentations on the Lot J Development project.
Presentations were given from the City Administration, the Jaguars, Cordish Companies, the City Auditor, and the Office of General Counsel.
During the presentations, the City’s administration and the City’s Auditor’s Office gave different reports on the return of investment for the Lot J development. Chief Administrative Officer Brian Hughes said that for every dollar of city investment, they would gain $1.69. The City Auditor, Kim Taylor, said that for every dollar of investment, the city would only get back 44 cents.
They each used the the financial analysis released by the Johnson Consulting on behalf of Shad Khan’s development company. The only difference was that the Auditor moved the Developer Contribution to the City Owned Live! from the “returns” to the “incentives" and also added infrastructure costs to the “incentives”.
Mayor Lenny Curry made a brief appearance at City Hall, saying that this deal would be important for downtown Jacksonville’s development.
“We are absolutely at a crossroads for our downtown. Local, national and global development interests are watching the decisions we’re about to make. They want to know are we ready to be bold," Curry said.
During the Council discussion, questions were raised about how final this bill is as a lot of details have not been finalized or submitted to the legislation.
“It makes zero sense to me that we are talking about a lot of project without a commitment on the extension of the lease. Zero," Council member Randy DeFoor said. "Because the worst case scenario could happen is that we have a Lot J entertainment center in the middle of nowhere with no Jaguars makes no sense.”
Other council members wanted to keep pushing the project forward and to fully trust the project details.
“If I was the Cordish group or the Jaguars, I’d probably walk out of here because you’ve got someone who’s willing to invest in your city,” Council member Reggie Gaffney said.
Council member Matt Carlucci raised the idea that the City Council hire a third party to review the deal. He suggested that RCLCO Real Estate Advisors do the review. Carlucci has submitted a bill to approve the use of the third party for this purpose. That bill will be discussed on Tuesday.
The Lot J project proposed the building of two residential buildings with 400 units, a 150-200 room hotel, two 350-space parking garages, 7,500 square feet of street level retail, a 750-space parking lot, 40,000 square feet of Class A office space, and an entertainment venue.
Curry’s office wants to commit more than $152.7 million in direct public investment and another $65.5 million in interest-free loans towards the plan. The total project is estimated to cost $466.6 million.
The next public hearing on this project will be on Tuesday and the possibility of a final vote on November 19 will happen.