Managing Editor
Leaving Modis Building Downtown spring 2011
Adecco Group will move from Downtown to a Deerwood Park office building by spring, sources tell the Daily Record.
Zurich-based Adecco bought Jacksonville-based MPS Group Inc. early this year. Adecco North America CEO Tig Gilliam said in published reports that the international staffing company would probably move the Downtown Jacksonville operation when its lease was up in March.
MPS employed about 375 employees in the building when bought by Adecco. Spokeswoman Tyra Tutor, senior vice president of corporate development, had no comment Monday when asked about the move.
Modis occupies 115,000 square feet of space, among about five floors, in the Modis Building Downtown at One Independent Drive.
Modis is a subsidiary of MPS Group and has had its name on the building, which has 35 floors of tenant space.
Sources tell the Daily Record that Adecco will relocate to a Deerwood South office building along Southside Boulevard, near Butler Boulevard.
Sources say Adecco will use about 80,000 square feet at Deerwood South at 10151 Deerwood Park Blvd. The city Property Appraiser’s Office shows the building is owned by Flagler Development Co. The building is about 120,000 square feet.
Flagler Development Group Senior Leasing Director Ross Carrier had no comment.
The move decreases the amount of occupied office space in the market.
It will leave Downtown, where the office vacancy rate in June was 26.1 percent on the Northbank. It will move to the area’s largest suburban office market, the Butler/Baymeadows area, where the office vacancy rate is 23.4 percent, according to Cushman & Wakefield.
Michael Loftin, senior leasing associate with Eola Capital, the agent for the Modis Building’s owner, said a move has been anticipated.
“We’re working with users to back fill the space,” said Loftin. “The opportunity for the signage for this building is very attractive to a lot of companies.”
Loftin said that “knowing we were going to get it back, we’ve been working on a lot of things for awhile.”
Loftin said that Adecco uses five full floors, part of another and various other space.
“We don’t have a done deal yet,” he said of a prospect. “We have been working forward with a couple of groups to try to progress things along,” he said.
Loftin said a tenant of 120,000 to 150,000 square feet could be an anchor tenant and that signage is a negotiated deal.
Loftin said the building is just under 95 percent leased and that Adecco uses 16 to 17 percent of the leasable space. The Property Appraiser’s Office shows the building with about 900,000 total square feet of space.
“By the time they leave, we are hopeful to have it back filled and we are confident we can,” said Loftin.
MPS Group traces its roots back decades in Jacksonville as its predecessor companies grew and merged into MPS.
In a memorandum Oct. 20, 2009, former President and CEO Tim Payne told staff that MPS Group had agreed to be acquired by Adecco Group of Switzerland. Published reports said that in addition to the Downtown employees, MPS also had 8,000 workers in other locations.
Payne said MPS Group was attractive to Adecco because the Jacksonville company was one of the largest professional staffing firms in North America “and has market-leading positions in specialties such as IT, engineering, legal, health care, accounting and workforce solutions.”
He said Adecco, with a strong North America presence through its Adecco Staffing, Ajilon and Lee Hecht Harrison brands, saw MPS as a way to increase its market position.
Adecco Group is a world leader in human resources services. It employs more than 31,000 people among 5,500 offices in more than 60 countries and territories around the world.
Adecco Group’s services include temporary staffing, permanent placement, outsourcing, consulting and outplacement.
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