Deutsche Bank, the global financial services giant on an expansion track in Jacksonville, continues absorbing space in Southside, this time planning to take over the offices at Butler Plaza vacated by Flytele.
That will boost its Jacksonville presence to an estimated 300,000 square feet of space among seven buildings.
Deutsche Bank declined to comment.
Deutsche Bank plans to move into at least 30,000 square feet in the four-story, 80,000-square-foot Butler Plaza II building at 4887 Belfort Road. Plans show the bank will take space on parts of the first and second floors and the entire third floor.
Flytele, a British Airways call center, closed the operation late last year, laying off more than 250 people. The company decided to exercise an option within its property lease to end the agreement at the end of this month. It had leased 50,000 square feet of space, and another tenant is looking at the additional space.
Gilbane Building Co. is listed as the contractor for an estimated $600,000 build-out for Deutsche Bank offices that includes training and conference rooms, open office space and other uses.
“It didn’t take long to backfill the vacated space,” said Dan Santinga, director of leasing for Lingerfelt CommonWealth Partners, the leasing and management company for Butler Plaza.
“It’s really positive for the market to have little downtime with a big chunk of space like that,” he said.
Deutsche Bank already leases the entire 80,000-square-foot Butler Plaza III building at 4875 Belfort Road as extra space because it ran out of room at Meridian Business Park, where it leases just about all of the 200,000-square-foot, five-building office center at 5022 Gate Parkway in Southside.
Deutsche Bank has a growing operation in Jacksonville across the front office and infrastructure groups, such as technology, strategy and operations.
It opened in Jacksonville in 2008 with 100 jobs, pledging a 1,000-job operations center. It now expects more than 1,600 jobs by the end of 2016.
The company has been the topic of a strong economic-development pursuit.
City leaders called on Deutsche Bank on Oct. 24 during a London visit in conjunction with a Jacksonville Jaguars game.
Earlier that month, on Oct. 9, The Wall Street Journal featured Jacksonville in a report headlined, “Deutsche Bankers Warm Up to Florida.” The report said Deutsche Bank has been outsourcing back-office Wall Street jobs for years and is moving bankers and traders to “near-shore” locations like Jacksonville.
Then in December, the Daily Record reported that Deutsche Bank is seeking to increase its Jacksonville presence by creating an international administrative office that could create up to 200 jobs, according to an application with the Florida Office of Financial Regulation.
The banking giant wants to create the expanded business for its securities-related products and services. Those are in addition to the 1,600 jobs.
All of that has taken place in six years. It has landed city and state incentives along the way.
Last April, City Council approved an incentives package of more than $1.9 million in city and state money to create another 300 jobs — for the 1,600 total — for the expansion of its administrative support and banking functions at Meridian.
The additional Butler Plaza lease continues to pique interest in Deutsche Bank’s potential plans for a consolidated campus or office building – and where.
On Jan. 28, JAX Chamber President Daniel Davis was asked by an International Council of Shopping Centers North Florida Idea Exchange participant whether there was a push to move Deutsche Bank Downtown.
He didn’t say yes or no, but said the chamber’s practice for any company looking at the area is “to show them Downtown first.”
“But if that is not where the market succeeds (for the company), we will help them” where it does,” he said.
There are campus sites available for Deutsche Bank ranging from land near Meridian, which would allow the company to continue using its high-tech space and expand nearby, to other office parks.
Kristen Sell, a spokeswoman for Mayor Alvin Brown, said the Butler Plaza move is a private deal between Deutsche Bank and the office park’s owner.
“We encourage Deutsche Bank’s expansion and continued growth in Jacksonville,” she said.
Water district landed Trader Joe’s project in February
The St. Johns River Water Management District received documents regarding “Project Alpha,” the code name for the proposed Trader Joe’s Southeastern distribution center in Volusia County, on Feb. 13.
A “distribution center final site plan, preliminary/final plat” document doesn’t identify Trader Joe’s, but certainly describes what has been speculated for Northeast Florida for months. Sources said Jacksonville was considered, but the company looked farther south for a more central location to serve its growing chain of popular grocery stores.
The 76-acre Daytona Beach site is along Interstate 95.
Documents also describe in detail what the center will comprise:
• A main building of 523,760 square feet to include a refrigerated warehouse, air-conditioned warehouse, dry warehouse, office, material handling, cheese room and kitchen food prep for salads and sandwiches.
• A second building, described as a freezer building, of 101,760 square feet that includes office and material-handling space.
• A third building of 6,000 square feet for truck maintenance.
That would be the first phase of 631,520 square feet. A later expansion of 178,275 will boost the project to 809,795 square feet of space.
The plans show the center will provide 386 parking spaces.
The owners are listed as Consolidated-Tomoka Land Co. and Indigo Development LLC.
News-JournalOnline.com reported Wednesday, citing confirmation by Volusia County officials, that Trader Joe’s is proposing a 450-job distribution center in Daytona Beach and has been working with the city and county for months. It was code-named Project Alpha.
The news site reported that Volusia County, the city of Daytona Beach and the state are offering about $8 million in economic incentives toward the project.
The distribution center’s estimated 450 direct jobs would pay an average wage of about $28,000, county officials said.
@MathisKb
(904) 356-2466