EverBank considers a move to downtown Jacksonville, consolidation and relocation from their Southside location.

The move would add 200 new, full-time jobs and bring more than a 1,000 employees downtown.  The Jacksonville-based bank wants $2.75 million from the city to foot some of the bill for the move.  The move would cost an estimated $26 million.

The announcement was made by Mayor Peyton’s office.  The mayor on his way out introducing three new proposals for city council, those include incentives for EverBank to make their move, a new parking structure adjacent to the SunTrust building and a new Regional Transportation Center for JTA.

In order for the bank to get the money they would have to maintain a minimum of 1,000 employees downtown and an average of 1,350 jobs between the downtown and Riverside Avenue facilities during the initial five years.

Money given to the bank would be in the form of a grant and would be funded primarily by the downtown economic development fund.

The parking downtown, that’s an agreement established between the mayor’s office and Parador Partners, LLC, current owners of the SunTrust building.  That contract would require Parador Partners to construct a 500 parking space facility, minimum.  Those spaces would be for the employees inside the SunTrust building and also for the offices surrounding it.  Of those 500 spaces, 200 need to be short-term parking spaces for the general public; that includes parking for the landing.

In return the city would reimburse construction costs up to $3.5 million.  That funding would come from unspent downtown capital dollars which were meant for renovation of Metropolitan Park, according to the mayor’s office.  A new parking garage wouldn’t affect the current lease between the city and The Jacksonville Landing.  If the landing ever creates a new garage the city would still appropriate the needed funding.

The last proposal would essentially be a donation of land to JTA so they can build a Regional Transportation Center.  This center would link several existing public transit modes.  This is crucial to JTA’s plan to move the Greyhound station out of the downtown core and to the west end of downtown.

The city had committed to $5 million in 5 years for the transportation center, so instead of contributing that cash they would donate the land, which would be valued at less than $5 million.

The mayor’s office says, “This ordinance provides that the bus terminal property will revert to the city if the bus terminal is not constructed within three years and the other parcels will revert to the city if they are not developed with RTC related uses within 10 years. Parcels currently used for Convention Center overflow parking will continue to be used by the city and the city will retain all parking revenues. Replacement parking will be provided by JTA when the parcels are ultimately developed.”