by Max Marbut
Staff Writer
At seven stories tall and approximately 800,000 square feet, it’s the largest public construction project Jacksonville has seen since the expressway system was built a half century ago. The difference is the expressway is miles of concrete ribbon that winds its way through the entire county. The Duval County Unified Courthouse Facility is much more compact, encompassing six square blocks Downtown including the existing parking garage. It carries a City Council-approved price tag of $350 million including the renovation of the former Federal Courthouse.
That makes the project the largest single construction project included in the Better Jacksonville Plan and the largest in terms of manpower and material required to complete the job. New York-based Turner Construction Company will put workers from an estimated 50 subcontractors on the clock representing every building trade. The labor cost on a project of that size generally accounts for half of the entire budget.
The bottom line: starting with the people who are currently digging the holes and building the forms for the foundation piers to electricians, plumbers, painters, flooring and window companies — all the way to the roofers who will eventually “top off” the structure 195 feet above ground level — more than $100 million worth of paychecks will be written to tradespeople between now and June 2012 based on the $224 million budget for the Courthouse building portion of the project.
So who will be cashing those checks?
After the Downtown Development Review Board of the Jacksonville Economic Development Commission voted to approve the final design of the project last December, Dave Schneider, the City’s BJP project manager said, “We’re going to be hiring a lot of local labor.”
According to the City’s latest figures that’s exactly what’s happening.
Schneider said as of this week, 22 of a total of 42 Courthouse project bid packages have been awarded. The rest will be bid out over the next year for things like painting and other elements of the project that won’t be performed until the construction has progressed. But Schneider projected that when all 42 subcontractor packages are complete and on the job, “We estimate just under 1,000 workers will be employed.”
He also said even if a subcontractor with the lowest bid is based someplace other than Jacksonville, the tendency will be to hire local workers, especially union workers.
Jacksonville’s Small and Emerging Business (JSEB) program is also benefiting from the Courthouse construction, said Schneider.
“Our goal is to have 25 percent JSEB participation. We currently have 23 JSEBs included in the work that has already been awarded and that puts us at just under 30 percent (participation),” he said. “JSEBs are all local and a lot of them are landscape and painting contractors, for example and that’s the work that hasn’t been awarded so far. When we bid out the rest of the work, there’s no telling how many JSEBs will be involved.”
Schneider also said while the bid process is “still a work in progress” as of this week, the City can document $109.5 million in local economic impact including materials and labor for that part of the Courthouse project that has been awarded to date.
“The Courthouse project is a huge job. It’s putting a lot of people to work and Turner has been very good about giving locals an opportunity,” said James Banks, business manager of Carpenters Local 627. “I’d love for it to be all union and all local. There will be work on that job for carpenters for the next three years. That means a bright future and this community needs it.”
Projected courthouse construction schedule
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