Bank of America Merrill Lynch won city and state incentives recently to create 200 positions in Jacksonville, but the actual total within four years could be 1,000 jobs.
JAXUSA Partnership President Jerry Mallot said Thursday he puts the job creation "in the highly likely category."
"We were one of several markets designated for growth, with expectations for more," Mallot said after a presentation to the NAIOP Northeast Florida Commercial Real Estate trade association.
Mallot said Bank of America Merrill Lynch has 7,500 employees in Jacksonville among several locations, including the Bank of America office campus at 9000 Southside Blvd. and the Merrill Lynch campus in Deerwood Park North.
Both also operate Downtown in the Bank of America Tower.
The financial services giant "designated us as a new growth center," Mallot said.
As the global banking and investment groups develop new business units, Mallot repeated that he considers it "highly likely" Jacksonville could gain 1,000 jobs in three or four years.
The city recently approved one of two pending permits for Bank of America to renovate space to help accommodate the 200 new jobs.
The permit approved Monday calls for a $607,730 project to renovate almost 25,000 square feet of office space for Bank of America at its 9000 Southside Blvd. campus.
As reported, Bank of America filed permit applications to renovate almost 50,000 square feet of space at the financial company's Southside campus at a total construction project cost of $1.3 million.
City Council and the state have approved about $1.04 million in incentives for Bank of America to create the jobs.
On Oct. 31, Gov. Rick Scott confirmed the deal that Bank of America will invest $13 million and create the jobs by December 2015. The city deal specified the investment would be made over three years.
Bank of America plans to expand operations to accommodate Bank of America and Merrill Lynch lines of business. City documents said the project would accommodate global technology and operations, consumer banking, home loans, legacy assets servicing and Merrill Edge.
A council summary of the legislation said the 200 jobs will pay an average wage of $50,694 plus benefits.
Charlotte, N.C.-based Bank of America is one of the world's largest financial institutions, providing banking, investing, asset management and other financial and risk management products and services.
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