City Council approved two deals Tuesday that combined will create up to 310 jobs and have a capital investment of $4.3 million in exchange for $2.4 million in city and state incentives.
One will bring a headquarters to Jacksonville and the company has already begun hiring for the jobs it pledged as a condition of the $2 million in incentives it received.
Adecco Group North America will move its headquarters from Melville, N.Y., and create 185 corporate jobs with an average salary and benefits package of almost $86,000. It also will spend $3.4 million to renovate space and expand its Jacksonville operations. Adecco’s main Jacksonville location is at 10151 Deerwood Park Blvd., No. 200, where 354 jobs already operate.
Most of the new Jacksonville jobs are in accounting and finance, “from bookkeeping to CPAs,” said Tyra Tutor, Adecco Group North America senior vice president of corporate development. Adecco also will hire lawyers, human resources executives and information technology, procurement and real estate positions. The jobs are posted at adeccocorporatecareers.com.
Council approved the incentives 17-0 with no discussion or public comment.
The Qualified Target Industry Tax Refund program, which is a repayment of taxes, is a large component of the incentives package.
The city incentives comprise $407,000, consisting of $222,000, or 20 percent, of the QTI refund, and a $185,000 Countywide Economic Development Fund
Grant.
The state pays $1.59 million consisting of $888,000, or 80 percent, of the QTI refund; a $370,000 Governor’s Quick Action Closing Fund based on the jobs; $333,000 from the Quick Response Training Program, also based on the jobs.
The city’s funds are equal to $2,200 per job, while the state’s funding works out to $8,600 per job.
Though not required by the incentives deal, another next step for the company is signing a lease for another 30,000 square feet of office space. Adecco Group leases about 80,000 square feet at the Deerwood South office park and will take another 25,000 square feet in that building, Tutor said.
“We hope to sign a lease within a few weeks,” Tutor said of the additional 30,000 square feet of space. She declined to say where the company is looking but confirmed again that Riverplace Tower on the Downtown Southbank was one of the locations in review.
Adecco is considered the world’s leading provider of human resources and staffing solutions. In 2010, Adecco acquired Jacksonville-based MPS Group Inc. for $1.3 billion. It promoted former MPS executive Bob Crouch as CEO of Adecco Group North America two years ago. Crouch continued to be based in Jacksonville and maintained his home here.
Tutor said the area corporate headquarters and division jobs will total more than 660 employees and that the company has more than 300 temporary workers, adding up to more than 1,000 employees in Baker, Clay, Duval, Nassau and St. Johns counties.
Tutor said she and JAXUSA Partnership Vice President of Business Development Cathy Chambers plan to fly to Melville on Thursday to make formal presentations to the employees whose jobs are moving to Jacksonville and she also will be available Thursday afternoon and Friday morning there for one-on-one requests.
Tutor said several of the Melville executives are interested in Jacksonville jobs. Asked if executives there will move, she said the company hopes so.
In a quicker turnaround, council also approved a total of $375,000 for Sunshine Health, a subsidiary of Centene Corp., to expand its local operations and create 125 jobs with average annual salaries of almost $49,000.
Introduced last week as part of its fast-track approval process, the council’s Finance Committee approved the deal Tuesday afternoon before the full council took up the bill several hours later.
The St. Louis-based managed health care solutions company has 107 local employees and offices at 8301 Cypress Plaza Drive.
A pending building permit shows the company wants to renovate space at 5120 Belfort Road, close to its current location, and would be the site of the expansion, a company representative said last week.
The 125 jobs would be created by the end of the year and the company spend $900,000 for renovations and equipment and furniture purchases.
The incentives would be $375,000 through a QTI, with the city covering $75,000 and the state the remaining $300,000.
Centene is a Fortune 500 company and has offices in Jacksonville, Sunrise, Tampa and Orlando.
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