by Bradley Parsons
Staff Writer
The Jacksonville Economic Development Commission’s development incentive policy is still a work in progress, but the commission leadership thinks the finished product will be ready by next month.
Commission Chairman M.C. “Ceree” Harden said he hoped to have the final draft in hand by the end of next month’s general meeting. The policy dictating how, where and for what reason the City spends its incentive dollars was scheduled for presentation at Thursday’s meeting but was shelved for another month to allow for some fine tuning and to clear the meeting agenda for discussion of The Shipyards redevelopment agreement, said Harden.
“They’re both monster deals, and they both deserve enough time for a thorough examination,” he said.
The policy has faced several delays. The former executive director, Kirk Wendland, hoped to unveil it before he left office for the private sector in February. But codifying the City’s reasons for granting incentives hasn’t been easy.
The administrative leadership and commissioners have been faced with a delicate balancing act since Mayor John Peyton first ordered the JEDC to overhaul its policies and organization in February 2004.
On one hand, the JEDC has been instructed by Peyton to bring objectivity to the process. On the other, they’ve heard pleas from corporate recruiters not to set guidelines so rigidly that obviously attractive deals get left out.
For instance, when a deal with PHH Mortgage Corporation appeared before the commission Thursday, the deal looked to Harden like a “slam dunk.” The proposal called for the City to leverage $480,000 of local money with $1.92 million made available through a State incentive program to create 600 high-paying jobs in the finance industry.
“You’re talking about creating job growth, first of all. They’re also high-paying, sustainable jobs and they’re jobs in an attractive industry,” said Harden. “To me that is completely congruent with the mayor’s agenda.”
The commission agreed and the deal passed unanimously, but not before a lengthy discussion among the commissioners about the way the project fared against the new incentive policy. Commissioners and staff are already using the draft criteria to evaluate projects.
A centerpiece of the emerging policy is a scoring system. Projects receive points for how well they match up with the City’s development objectives. Projects with the best scores have the best shot at incentives.
Some commissioners questioned how a deal with PHH, a national firm listed on the New York Stock Exchange, received a perfect score for increasing the growth of small businesses. The questioners were satisfied with the explanation that an expanded PHH would buy more products and services from local small businesses.
Commissioner Charlie Appleby pointedly questioned PHH Vice President Patrick Cummings about the company’s commitment to invest $24.9 million in a new office building. The project received a near-perfect score for investing private capital. Would the deal look as good on the scorecard if PHH forgoes the new building and instead leases existing office space? Appleby asked.
Harden said the thorough examination was exactly what the new policy was designed to create. The fact that the Southside project was even considered shows that flexibility hasn’t been a casualty of the new policy, he said. The old policy restricted incentives to locations north and west of the river.