by Mike Sharkey
Staff Writer
The last Quarterly Cornerstone meeting of the year featured a full ballroom at the Hyatt, the return of a one-time Jacksonville resident who has become one of the country’s top developers, a pop quiz from the mayor and the last Cornerstone Chair Award winner of the year.
It was also the last meeting as Cornerstone Chair for Baptist Health President and CEO Hugh Greene, who will be succeeded by Wachovia President Kelly Madden. Greene joked he was fine with Madden — who is also the current Chair of the Konica-Minolta Gator Bowl — taking over, but he sure wished he could stick around long enough to see some projects in the pipeline come to fruition.
“I want to be present when those projects are announced,” said Greene.
Haskell was the winner of the Quarterly Cornerstone Award. Founded 40 years ago, Haskell is one of the nation’s largest design-build firms. The company has operations in the United States and Latin America. Its local projects include the latest renovations to Jacksonville Municipal Stadium, the AT&T Building, the St. Joe office buildings, the Fidelity National Financial building and several others.
“Today’s recipient is most deserving,” said Greene, adding Haskell also designed and built the Baptist South and Baptist Heart facilities.
Before officially presenting the award, Greene talked about the impact Haskell Chair Preston Haskell has had on the local community.
“I would suggest that few people have had a larger impact on the business and cultural community in Jacksonville than Preston Haskell,” he said.
“This is quite wonderful and a splendid honor,” said Haskell. “I accept this award with great humility. It’s a group effort, not an individual one.”
Armando Codina, the president and CEO of Flagler Development Group, was the guest speaker. Codina is a native of Cuba who came to the United States in 1961. After an interesting childhood, Codina was reunited with his family in Jacksonville and graduated from Bishop Kenny. His first job was with Winn-Dixie and Codina got his first loan from Barnett Bank. Today, his company is a subsidiary of Florida East Coast Industries and leases and manages approximately 8.1 million square feet of Class-A office and industrial space in Florida. The company also has 2.1 million square feet of development in Jacksonville, Orlando and Miami.
“Armando Codina is one of the most influential business executives in America today,” said Steve Wallace, president of Florida Community College at Jacksonville and chair of the Jacksonville Regional Chamber of Commerce.
Codina has retained his ties to Jacksonville and still relishes the fact Barnett Bank treated him so well.
“Years later (after the loan) I joined the board of Barnett Bank in South Florida,” said Codina, who brought several members of his family to the luncheon. “I will continue for some period as CEO of Flagler. We are making significant progress in Jacksonville and would like to expand.”
Mayor John Peyton used his allotted four minutes to urge those in attendance to vote against the property tax referendum Jan. 29. His pop quiz helped illustrate how underfunded Jacksonville is in the areas of parks, crime and fire and rescue and he implored the group to understand that passage of the referendum would be devastating to Jacksonville.
“The minuscule savings might buy you a few happy meals,” said Peyton of the property tax breaks. “I urge you to help save our quality of life by killing the referendum Jan. 29. It is bad policy and ill-conceived. I think it is politically motivated.”