by Karen Brune Mathis
Managing Editor
Adecco Group North America completes its move from Downtown this weekend to the Southside, taking about 300 employees and a corporate name off a Northbank tower.
Adecco Group North America bought temporary staffing company MPS Group, including its flagship Modis subsidiary, in January 2010. Adecco Group said publicly in July that it would leave the Modis Building this spring.
Sunday, by the way, is the first day of spring.
Adecco Group began moving some of its retail staffing operations from the building earlier this month to the One Deerwood building and its corporate employees also have begun the relocation.
The remainder of the corporate move is planned today. Adecco intends to be up and running at its new offices at Deerwood South on Monday.
“As we announced last year, the decision to move was based on a variety of reasons, including convenience for our employees as well as making room for additional planned hiring, among others,” said Tyra Tutor, senior vice president of corporate development at Adecco Group North America.
“We remain committed to the broader Jacksonville community and will continue to contribute to Downtown initiatives,” she said.
Tutor said Thursday that Adecco Group plans to support several community organizations with financial contributions, “and also provide our colleagues with access to major local, cultural, sporting and entertainment activities so they continue to keep Downtown Jacksonville a part of their lives.”
The Modis name has been almost completely removed from the top of the 37-floor signature building, called Independent Square, that the company has anchored for 13 years. Its lease expires there March 31.
Building owner Eola Capital is working on leasing the space to a new tenant.
“We are excited about the prospect of a good quality name going on the building, so that is what we are working toward,” said Senior Leasing Associate Michael Loftin.
Loftin said he could not comment about potential tenants or a timeline, other than that the Adecco space becomes officially vacant and available April 1.
“We are working very hard to get that space backfilled as soon as possible and we are confident we will be able to,” Loftin said Thursday.
“It’s on the forefront of our priority list,” he said.
Adecco Group will move into 78,292 square feet in a Deerwood South building at Butler and Southside boulevards. The new Southside location, Building 200 at 10151 Deerwood Park Blvd., will display the Adecco Group name.
Adecco Group will lease all of the third and fourth floors and part of the first floor, reported the Flagler company, whose portfolio of seven area buildings includes Deerwood South.
Adecco Group had been leasing about 114,000 square feet at the Downtown tower, consisting of five floors for its corporate offices and parts of the first and other floors for its retail staffing offices that work with clients.
The former Modis building is the tallest Northbank building that offers the opportunity for tower-top signage. While the Bank of America Tower is taller, it does not have signage at the top.
Loftin said Eola is seeking a tenant of about 125,000 square feet for signage rights.
Adecco SA is based in Zurich and its North American operations are primarily headquartered in Melville, N.Y. Adecco Group offers temporary staffing, permanent placement, outsourcing, consulting and outplacement services.
It employs more than 32,000 employees around the world.
Adecco Group plans to grow on the Southside. It intends to add 100 new full-time jobs to support internal company operations there and was granted a $300,000 Qualified Target Industry tax refund by the state and the City. The rebate is $3,000 per job.
Adecco Group said the average wage of the new jobs would be $45,600, plus benefits of $15,960, to generate an annual payroll of $4.6 million.
Of the $300,000, the City would pay $60,000 and the state would pay $240,000. Under the program, the refund would not be paid until the jobs were generated and taxes paid.
The jobs would be created by the end of 2012, with 90 created by the end of 2011, a project summary reported.
“Adecco remains fully committed to the Jacksonville community. The potential to add 100 new jobs in Jacksonville reaffirms that commitment,” said Tutor when requesting the tax refund.
The project summary reported that the average wage exceeds 115 percent of the state average annual wage and the jobs will require skills in marketing, law, accounts receivable, accounts payable, payroll, procurement and other administrative functions.
Adecco Group wants to add the jobs to support internal company operations in various corporate administrative functions.
Adecco Group reported it plans to invest private capital of $300,000 for furniture, fixtures and computer equipment.
The project summary said Adecco currently has a work force of about 236 employees in its Jacksonville operations.
Flagler said Adecco Group North America signed a long-term lease, but did not disclose the length of the lease. Flagler’s Senior Director of Leasing, Gary Cox, represented Flagler in the deal and Jim Sebesta of Grubb & Ellis/Phoenix Realty Group Inc. represented Adecco.
Loftin said Adecco Group occupied 16-17 percent of the former Modis Building’s 651,000 square feet of leasable space. The building was 93 percent occupied and the Adecco departure lowers that to about 76 percent.
He said that in addition to Adecco’s 114,000 square feet, the building has another 40,000 square feet available for lease in various sizes, including one entire floor.
Meanwhile, real estate sources continue to watch for movement Downtown into the former Adecco space to take the tower-top signage.
A long-speculated possibility has been banking giant Wells Fargo, which bought Wachovia and has been planning to change the Wachovia banking office names to Wells Fargo this summer.
Sources have said Wells Fargo was considering whether to remain at Wachovia’s 21-story One Enterprise Center building or move to take the former Modis space and the skyline signage.
Sources said Thursday that there was no news.
Corporate spokeswoman Kathy Harrison for the Wachovia and Wells Fargo Florida Region said Thursday she had no updates.
“We have not made a final decision yet and continue to explore our options. We expect something official within the next 30 days or so,” said Harrison.
Loftin has not confirmed any discussions with Wells Fargo or any specific tenant.
He continues to follow Eola’s procedure that “we don’t discuss prospective tenant activity,” saying only that “we are in discussions to backfill the space.”
“I can’t specify if it’s one or if it’s multiple firms we are talking about,” he said.
Loftin said Eola has been marketing the Adecco Group space for some time. “We found out so long ago that we have been advertising the signage opportunity for a large-block user for a year now. We’ve had discussions all along the way,” he said.
Loftin said even with the Adecco Group departure, the building is “still a very heavily occupied building.”
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