Jacksonville-based Southeastern Grocers is ready to move its headquarters to its Edgewood Support Center in West Jacksonville if the Duval County Public Schools board votes Sept. 2 to buy the building the supermarket company leases in Baymeadows.
The school board is scheduled to vote on buying the SEG headquarters building at 8928 Prominence Parkway and selling the schools’ administrative offices at 1701 Prudential Drive on the Downtown Southbank.
No costs are included on the board’s agenda for the Sept. 2 vote.
Southeastern Grocers, the parent company of Winn-Dixie and Harveys Supermarket, is positioning itself to leave Prominence Office Park, where it moved in 2016.
“Our lease at the Prominence building will expire at the end of 2025,” said Meredith Hurley, Southeastern Grocers senior director of communications and community, in an emailed statement Aug. 19.
“The Edgewood Support Center has remained our technology center for many years, and it now provides a readily available option for our Store Support Center, at least for the interim, as we thoughtfully shape our long-term plans.”
That Edgewood Support Center is at 5050 Edgewood Court, where Winn-Dixie Stores Inc. was headquartered for decades before it became part of SEG. The property is at southwest Edgewood Avenue South and West Beaver Street.
Hurley said Southeastern Grocers “will share more details as they are finalized to ensure a smooth transition for our associates and continue to best serve our customers and communities.”
Prominence Office Park is at southwest Baymeadows Road and Interstate 95.
The Winn-Dixie offices are in the four-story, 165,000-square-foot Building 200 at Prominence. It renovated the building at a project cost of almost $6.48 million when it moved there in 2016.
Building 200 was built in 1990.
Duval Schools relocation
If approved, the Duval County School Board would allow the district to buy the Baymeadows building from Dream Finders Homes Prominence Limited Partnership, which bought Prominence Office Park in June 2024.
The school board has long expressed its intent to sell its riverfront headquarters and relocate.
Jacksonville Daily Record news partner News4Jax reported Aug. 19 that Duval Schools Superintendent Christopher Bernier cited the ongoing development of the Southbank as an indicator of the land’s value. Bernier said the district can use the money from a sale to support classrooms and reserve funds while also promoting economic development.
The agenda does not say who would buy its building.
Duval Schools has operated at the six-story, 120,822-square-foot riverfront building since 1981. It has 600 employees there.
In 2021, the district launched a search for a buyer for the building and began seeking bids to develop a new headquarters off the riverfront. It offered the building and other surplus properties to help pay for the new central offices.
In 2023, after a group of 16 bids had been reduced to two finalists, members of the Duval County School Board expressed hesitancy about the proposals.
In 2024, the district changed approaches and hired the Trinity Commercial Group real estate firm to sell the building.
Council member Matt Carlucci introduced Resolution 2025-0562 on July 22 urging the board to keep its headquarters in Downtown Jacksonville, but later requested it be withdrawn.
Carlucci said in a text message to the Daily Record that he learned the nonbinding resolution “could complicate the decisions ahead” for the district.
He said that as a supporter of traditional public schools, he wanted “to be sure nothing I do adds difficulty to their process.”
Carlucci said he received assurances from Bernier and Downtown Investment Authority CEO Colin Tarbert that the organizations would collaborate as the district plans to sell its offices at 1701 Prudential Drive.
The nearly $700 million RiversEdge mixed-use development is adjacent to the Duval Schools building.
“In that sense, the resolution served its purpose by opening the door for cooperation, and I’m grateful for that outcome,” Carlucci said.
SEG restructuring
In April, Southeastern Grocers LLC said it was restructuring, reducing staff and reviewing its need for space at Prominence Office as it adjusted with the ownership of the 170 stores it bought from Aldi U.S.
Southeastern Grocers sold about 400 Winn-Dixie and Harveys Supermarket stores to discount grocer Aldi U.S. in March 2024.
Aldi said it would convert 220 of the stores into Aldi supermarkets. At least 13 are being converted in Northeast Florida.
A group of private investors led by Southeastern Grocers Inc. CEO Anthony Hucker and supplier C&S Wholesale Grocers announced Feb. 7 it acquired Southeastern Grocers and 170 remaining Winn-Dixie and Harveys stores in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana and Mississippi.
Hucker said then Southeastern Grocers continued to operate the 220 stores as Winn-Dixie or Harveys stores until they were closed for transition, expected to conclude in 2027.
Southeastern Grocers did not say how many employees will be cut or where it will operate and in how much space.
Hurley issued a statement April 9 about the company’s restructuring and job cuts.
“As our business evolves and we look to the future, we have made the difficult but necessary decision to restructure our Store Support Center in Jacksonville and our Field Support teams across the Southeast,” Hurley said.
“Taking action now is the most prudent thing to do for the long-term health of the business, as we know that we will progressively operate a smaller fleet of stores following previously agreed conversions through 2027,” she said.
Southeastern Grocers has not said how many employees it has had in recent years. Upon its relocation to Prominence Office Park in 2016, Southeastern Grocers said 790 associates moved and more than 330 remained in Westside at 5050 Edgewood Court, which became the Southeastern Grocers Technology Center.
Hucker responded to questions March 14 about Southeastern Grocers’ Jacksonville headquarters and local presence.
“While we remain committed to maintaining the Winn-Dixie name and its historic, iconic legacy deeply rooted in the state of Florida, our leadership team is actively exploring the future of our Store Support Center,” he said.
“We have not made a definitive decision, as we are still evaluating various options.”
Asked whether that indicated a potential decision to leave the Baymeadows headquarters or possibly Jacksonville, the company said “there is no additional information beyond what was already shared.”
Prominence in transition
The future of Prominence Office Park is in transition.
A limited partnership led by Jacksonville-based Dream Finders Homes LLC paid $22 million for 15 parcels, including seven office structures built from 1988 to 1998, in the park in June 2024.
Citing expiration rules, the city denied a permit May 13 that DFH Prominence LP sought in February to demolish Building 300, a three-story, 96,512-square-foot building on 7.01 acres at 8935 Prominence Parkway. It was built in 1998.
Prominence Office Park comprises 754,691 square feet of office space in buildings that range from 21,991 to 160,065 square feet of space.
A site plan had shown that Building 300 would be the first to be demolished, followed by Building 700 and then Building 500.
That leaves Buildings 100, 200, 400 and 600.
Southeastern Grocers is headquartered in Building 200.