While most of Jacksonville was sleeping early this morning, Mayor Alvin Brown and other Jacksonville delegates in London left by taxi for Deutsche Bank's offices.
No topics are specified on a schedule provided by Brown's office, but the discussions likely involve the Germany-based banking giant's continued growth in Jacksonville.
Brown and other delegates are in London for Sunday's Jacksonville Jaguars game against the San Francisco 49ers, and the trip involves economic development talks as well.
The full delegation was scheduled to meet at Deutsche Bank's London offices from 9:30-11 a.m, which is 4:30-6 a.m. EST. In case one wondered, the calendar specifies "no spouses" at the discussion.
Deutsche Bank spokeswoman Mayura Hooper in New York said Wednesday she could confirm the meeting, but declined to comment further.
Delegates include Brown; Office of Economic Development Executive Director Ted Carter; City Council President Bill Gulliford; JAX Chamber President Daniel Davis; Jerry Mallot, executive vice president of the JAX Chamber and president of the JAXUSA Partnership economic development division; Mike Breen, JAXUSA senior director of international department and logistics; JAX Chamber Chair Greg Smith, who is the Northeast Florida market president for Bank of America Merrill Lynch; Fred Eliasson, CSX Corp. senior vice president and CFO; and Mike Hightower, Florida Blue senior vice president of government and legislative affairs.
Chamber spokesman Dan Dawson said University of North Florida President John Delaney, JAXUSA Partnership chair and the 2015 JAX Chamber chair, will join the trip later.
Dawson said Jaguars owner Shad Khan has been instrumental in arranging meetings for the delegation.
Deutsche Bank continues to expand its significant footprint in Jacksonville.
The city has approved build-out for Deutsche Bank at the Butler Plaza III building in Southside at 4875 Belfort Road. Gilbane Building Co. is renovating the entire 80,000-square-foot building space at a project cost of $764,837, more than the 65,200 square feet and $500,000 indicated on the initial permit application.
Deutsche Bank opened in Jacksonville in 2008 with 100 jobs, pledging a 1,000-job operations center. It now expects more than 1,600 jobs by the end of 2016, and observers expect many more – especially in light of the recent Wall Street Journal report featuring the company's expansion into Northeast Florida.
Deutsche Bank's U.S. operations are based in New York. In Jacksonville, it has leased at least 185,000 square feet of space among the five buildings in the Meridian Business Park at 5022 Gate Parkway in Southside.
The park offers a total of about 200,000 square feet of office space.
With the Butler Plaza III building, Deutsche Bank is using more than 260,000 square feet of office space among six buildings.
Hooper declined to provide the current headcount for the bank's Jacksonville office.
This morning, Davis tweeted a photo of the Jacksonville group at Deutsche Bank, saying the bank's investment in the city "has been substantial and hopefully will be in the future."
On Oct. 9, The Wall Street Journal featured Jacksonville in a report headlined, "Deutsche Bankers Warm Up to Florida." The report said Deutsche Bank has been outsourcing back-office Wall Street jobs for years and is moving bankers and traders to "near-shore" locations like Jacksonville.
"We are moving out, and Jacksonville is the approach we've taken in the U.S.," said Chief Financial Officer Stefan Krause to the Journal.
London meetings
Delegates began arriving Monday in London. Among economic-development meetings on the schedule:
• Solar Power, an Irish company interested in launching a manufacturing facility in the U.S. Southeast, 1-2 p.m. Wednesday. Scheduled to attend: Eliasson, Hightower, Davis, Carter and Breen.
• MarkitSERV, which provides a single gateway for OTC derivatives trade processing, lunch today. Scheduled to attend: Brown, Smith, Mallot, Davis and Eliasson.
• Greencore, a food-preparation company with operations in Jacksonville, 2:30-3:30 p.m. today. Scheduled to attend: Brown, Carter, Eliasson, Mallot and Breen.
• Naked Energy, a solar technology company, 2:30-3:30 p.m. today. Scheduled to attend: Gulliford, Davis, Hightower and Delaney.
• Jumar, a software company that is considering Florida, Georgia and Missouri to open U.S. operations, 4-5 p.m. today. Scheduled to attend: Brown, Gulliford, Eliasson, Hightower and Carter.
• RUMM Limited, an energy monitoring equipment manufacturer, 9:30-10:30 a.m. Friday. Scheduled to attend: Brown, Gulliford, Smith, Eliasson and Hightower.
• Rizenjet, an aviation manufacturing and maintenance, repair and operations company, 10 a.m.-noon Friday. Scheduled to attend: Mallot, Carter and Breen.
• Sweet Group, a property and infrastructure group interested in public-private partnerships, 10:30-11:30 a.m. Friday. Scheduled to attend: Brown, Gulliford, Smith, Eliasson and Hightower.
• PPA Group, an aviation and marine company focused on aircraft interior installations interested in locating at Cecil Airport, 10-11 a.m. Sunday. Scheduled to attend: Mallot, Carter, Breen.
Another meeting on the agenda: Brown was to meet with the president of the London School of Economics on Wednesday.
Work starts for Supervisor of Elections
Work has begun on space at One Imeson Center in North Jacksonville for the move by the Supervisor of Elections warehouse center.
The city approved a permit Oct. 16 for Accelerated Contractors LLC to put in a temporary wall to provide privacy for 30,000 square feet of temporary space for the office at 1 Imeson Park Blvd., No. 100. It is a former Sears catalog distribution center.
The project cost is $11,000.
Duval Supervisor of Elections Jerry Holland has wanted to move the elections warehouse center from the Gateway Shopping Center, where it has been since 2006.
The warehouse and elections center move has been the subject of legal challenges. While City Council approved the relocation in August to One Imeson, Gateway Retail Center LLC soon filed a lawsuit to delay a move, alleging the council's decision discriminated against African-American voters by moving the center.
It also had other allegations.
However, U.S. District Judge Timothy Corrigan denied the Gateway motion for a preliminary injunction.
Gateway has served as an early voting site. Holland said he was "100 percent committed" to having early voting in the Gateway community and that the city was working with Gateway's owners to provide a site.
He also said two other locations within the community would work.
Legal challenges continue, however.
InComm deal confirmed
While it's been reported the past few months, the CBRE commercial real estate company formally announced that InComm, an Atlanta-based global commerce technology company, is relocating its office to Freedom Commerce Centre in Southside.
It said the office is relocating from Deerwood Park. CBRE said it arranged an eight-year lease for the company for 33,323 square feet on the second floor of the Nassau Building at 8935 Freedom Commerce Parkway in the Baymeadows-Deerwood area of Jacksonville.
CBRE represented the landlord, Crocker Partners, and said InComm is the largest tenant lease for the park since Crocker Partners bought the property in 2012. Crocker Partners V Freedom LLC of Boca Raton bought the seven buildings in the Freedom Commerce Centre in late 2012 for $27.8 million.
The Daily Record reported in August that a building permit was under review for the deal and further reported in September that the city approved renovations at Freedom Commerce Centre for InComm for a full floor of office space.
Center Brothers of Florida will renovate 32,000 square feet at a project cost of $450,000.
Leah Gladu, InComm senior marketing communications manager, said then that the call center will employ 200 to 350 people, depending on the time of year, and would move by the end of November or early December.
The company's website, InComm.com, says it is an industry leader in prepaid card and transaction technologies, products and services, including gift, wireless, games, long distance, music and reloadable debit cards.
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