by Glenn Tschimpke
Staff Writer
Insurance subrogation firm CRAIG/is showed its support for downtown retail recently by giving each of its employees a $100 gift certificate redeemable at any Jacksonville Landing merchant. With 100 employees, the company’s holiday gift represents a $10,000 windfall for the downtown mall.
“It is the holiday season and we want to be good to our employees,” said Paul Mee, chief operating officer at CRAIG/is. “We want to be a good corporate citizen and a role model for others to support downtown retail.”
Mee said his company wanted to include all downtown merchants, but there is currently no gift certificate or other vehicle that can be redeemed throughout downtown. The Landing sufficed instead.
It may be going too far to say Landing General Manager John Kiddy was giddy, but he was enthusiastic nonetheless.
“I thought it was great, not only for the fact that it was going to help merchants, but also to keep business downtown,” said Kiddy adding that the gift certificates could be spent anywhere in the Landing — from compact discs to cigars to coffee. “They’re as good as cash.”
Kiddy said this is the first time any one company has showed this much support for the downtown mall in terms of employee gifts.
CRAIG/is recently opened its office at 225 Water St.
“The Chamber of Commerce went to a lot of effort to try to convince us to come downtown,” said Mee. “We did make a very conscious decision to relocate to downtown as opposed to the suburbs. Maybe this will set an example for others to follow.”