City Council has signed off on $1.2 million in city incentives for Florida Mechanical Systems Inc. to help finance a new headquarters for W.W. Gay Mechanical Contractor Inc., an affiliated company, at its current site in Northwest Jacksonville.
Council voted 17-0 on April 26 to approve a $500,000 grant and a property tax refund capped at $700,000 for what the company tells city officials will be a $15.31 million, 49,200-square-foot office and administrative building at 524 Stockton St.
W.W. Gay will lease the structure that will replace its corporate headquarters damaged by fire in August 2020.
Council members Reggie Gaffney and Kevin Carrico were absent for the vote.
Resolution 2022-0277 authorizes the city’s Office of Economic Development to enter into a redevelopment agreement with Florida Mechanical for the cash grant from the Large Scale Economic Development Fund.
The bill also approved the Recapture Enhanced Value Grant property tax break at 50% over 10 years.
The city’s project summary dated March 7 says W.W. Gay would be the primary tenant in the office building, and it does not identify other possible users.
According to the summary, W.W. Gay President and CEO Paul Jones also is president of Florida Mechanical Systems, described as a privately held property and rental management, crane and mechanical equipment rental and fleet management business established in 1968.
It owns the property where W.W. Gay is located.
The Stockton Street property is in a city-designated Level 2 Economically Distressed Area in the Rail Yard District, and the summary says the incentives would keep W.W. Gay based in Jacksonville.
“The costs associated with constructing the building within an urban infill site is designed to meet the current building code and accommodate the needs of W.W. Gay to serve as their corporate headquarters,” the project summary says.
“W.W. Gay desires to remain a tenant within FMS’s 20-acre campus.”
A cost breakdown says it will cost $10.46 million to build the two-story headquarters, $1.44 million for renovations to existing site infrastructure, and $622,700 to develop the site.
W.W. Gay will invest about $2.37 million in furniture and fixtures. The summary shows $420,836 in the development budget as a contingency.
The new headquarters also could allow W.W. Gay to expand.
The contractor told the city it will create 60 jobs with an $83,700 average wage plus benefits by Dec. 31, 2028, in exchange for the incentives deal, adding $5 million to the company’s payroll per year.
The commercial, industrial and engineering contractor was founded in 1962 and has more than 600 employees in Jacksonville.
W.W. Gay said in March 2021 that it has 1,200 full-time employees companywide and had gross revenue in 2020 of $243 million.
The company worked on the Fidelity National Information Systems Inc. headquarters on Riverside Avenue in Brooklyn.
The Stockton Street development has to be a minimum $10 million capital investment to qualify for the REV Grant.
The $500,000 cash grant would come from the Northwest Jacksonville Economic Development Fund.
Economic development office officials estimate the city would receive a $1.34 return for every $1 of public money invested in the project.