A deal to build the Jacksonville Jaguars a gleaming new stadium, keep them in the city for the next three decades and spare fans from sweating out late-summer game days under the oppressive Northeast Florida heat is one step away from being finalized.
On June 25, Jacksonville City Council members approved an agreement with the team that includes $775 million in public funding for a $1.4 billion makeover of EverBank Stadium and a 30-year lease for the upgraded facility. The 15-1 vote, with two abstentions and one member absent, sends the deal to the NFL owners group toward a final vote in October.
“I’ll never forget that moment when I was on the anchor desk and we announced what I thought to be the impossible, what a lot of us thought to be the impossible: that is that Jacksonville got its team 30 years ago,” said Mayor Donna Deegan, a former First Coast News anchor, recalling the night in 1993 when Jacksonville was awarded its NFL franchise.
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