A request to provide EverBank with nearly $10 million in public funding to remain in its Downtown Jacksonville headquarters is on its way to Jacksonville City Council after a divided vote by the Downtown Investment Authority board on Feb. 18.
Reflecting a similar difference of opinions on Council about the incentives, the board voted 7-2 against recommending approval of $9.8 million over 10 years to entice EverBank to stay at its offices at 301 W. Bay St.
Board members Sondra Fetner and Micah Heavener voted in favor of the deal, while chair Patrick Krechowski and members Carrie Bailey, Jill Caffey, John Hirabayashi, Cameron Hooper, Trevor Lee and Scott Wohlers voted against the recommendation.
EverBank says it requested the incentives to offset a cost differential in operating Downtown versus in a suburban office location. The bank said it approached Mayor Donna Deegan’s administration during 2025 as it began deciding whether to renew its 10-year lease in the Bay Street building, prompting negotiations that led to the proposed incentives.
Members who voted against the recommendation expressed concern that it would create a precedent that would prompt other Downtown employers and property owners to request public assistance to stay Downtown. Krechowski said the request from EverBank also ran counter to the city’s yearslong strategy for redeveloping Downtown.
“I think what we’ve been told over and over again is we need to create things to do and create places for people to live and people will come work here. And that’s not what we’re hearing today,” he said. “I think it looks bad if it appears we’re paying people to tolerate being Downtown when instead they should want to be here.”
Bailey said she would rather see the city invest its resources into improving Downtown “versus subsidizing what is already there.”
Fetner said she struggled with her vote.
“It’s tricky to evaluate something 10 years out because I think all of us up here think Downtown will look a lot different in 10 years,” she said. “But at the end of the day, we’re facing an office market that is at dangerously high vacancy rates.”
The DIA board vote came on Resolution 2026-02-09, which calls for the city to enter a Conditional Grant Agreement with EverBank to provide $980,000 annually to the financial institution over the 10-year term of the deal.
The funding would not be offered under a DIA redevelopment program, but rather would be drawn from the city general fund. Because of that, several board members said they did not believe the DIA’s recommendation was necessary or appropriate.
Because the funding will come from the general fund, it will require approval from Council.
Terms of the deal include EverBank retaining a minimum of 139,000 square feet of leased and occupied space and investing $7 million in its space for tenant improvements. In addition, the building owner would be required to invest $7 million in EverBank’s space and an additional $5 million in the remainder of the building for security, systems, amenities and site improvements.
Miami-based Amkin West LLC owns the building. It purchased the property in 2014 for $47.4 million.
The two sides of the debate
Supporters of EverBank’s request say the retention grant is needed to maintain the momentum of Downtown redevelopment.
DIA CEO Colin Tarbert said losing the bank’s roughly 800-member workforce based Downtown would be a setback amid completion of such projects as riverfront parks and substantial progress on private developments such as the Four Seasons Hotel and Private Residences, the Whole Foods-anchored One Riverside mixed-use project in Brooklyn and Gateway Jax’s $750 million-plus Pearl Square district in the NorthCore area north and west of City Hall.
During a discussion of the incentives at a Feb. 9 meeting of the Council Special Committee on the Future of Downtown, committee members voiced opposing views on the incentives, with some saying they feared it would set a precedent in which other employers would seek public assistance not to relocate from Downtown.
Council Vice President Nick Howland said he was concerned that city-funded improvements that were designed partly to attract Downtown employers and keep them in place hadn’t persuaded EverBank to stay Downtown. Listing projects in close proximity or within view of EverBank’s office, he mentioned Riverfront Plaza park, the proposed Music Heritage Park near the Performing Arts Center, the renovated Friendship Fountain and the University of Florida graduate campus planned in LaVilla.
Council member Matt Carlucci suggested reviewing the deal after five years. He said he expected Downtown’s economic condition to improve considerably by then, which could diminish or eliminate the need for further incentives.
But he encouraged Council to approve the incentive.
“This city has got really great momentum going, and we don’t want this hiccup to trip us up,” he said.
Office vacancy runs high
The issue arises amid planned moves out of Downtown by Citizens Property Insurance Corp. and Regency Centers amid Jacksonville industry market reports showing Downtown office vacancy rates at 28.1% to 28.8% in the third quarter of 2025. Those rates were higher than in the suburbs.
DIA board members questioned whether the property owner offered a competitive lease rate to EverBank, considering the high vacancy overall, the difference between rates Downtown and in the suburbs, and that a relocation by EverBank would leave the building more than 90% vacant.
Oliver Barakat, a former DIA board member who is senior vice president of CBRE, said the property owner factored in the higher cost of building operations in Downtown compared to the suburbs, costs of the agreement and contributions for building improvements. The negotiated amount, he said, was competitive with other Downtown buildings.
Citizens, which moved about 1,000 employees into the EverBank Center in 2015, planned to start relocating its offices in January to the former Florida Coastal School of Law building at 8787 Baypine Road in Baymeadows.
Regency, which employs about 250 people Downtown, announced in 2025 it would relocate its headquarters to The Villages at Seven Pines, its retail development at southeast Butler Boulevard and Interstate 295. A statement from the city indicated the move will be in 2028.
On the Downtown Southbank, a deal for Duval County Public Schools to sell its headquarters on the Southbank to a private developer and relocate to the Southside fell through on Feb. 12, leaving about 600 district employees based Downtown in place.
Downtown also gained an employer in February when JWB Real Estate Capital moved its headquarters into The Greenleaf Building at Laura and Adams streets, which the company revived through a $7 million adaptive reuse. The company’s 120 employees were previously headquartered at 7563 Philips Highway in Deerwood Center in the Southside.
City administration’s view
Mike Weinstein, Deegan’s chief administrative officer, said Deegan and the administration “really wish we didn’t have to do this,” but felt offering the incentive was necessary.
“When I look at the vacancy rate, and I look at the protection of the hundred of millions of dollars we’re putting into Downtown, I come across, and mayor has come across, that we need to do what we can to keep the momentum going,” he said.
Tarbert said he believed that in as little as two years, progress in Downtown development will have reached a point when Downtown has become a “destination and a choice for office users and people will see the value that has been created.”
Weinstein offered a similar view.
“I think it’s a very different picture five years from now,” he said. “The parks will be done, the stadium will be done, some of the projects that you’re wanting to do will be done.”
But for now, he said, the incentives are appropriate “at this time and for this particular employer.”
A DIA analysis projected that EverBank’s 800 employees would spend $1.66 million per year Downtown, based on an assumption that employees would work at least four days per week Downtown and would spend an average of $40 on goods and services there. Over 10 years, the annual spending would amount to $16.64 million.
EverBank’s stance
During the Feb. 9 meeting of the Council Special Committee on the Future of Downtown, an EverBank representative said the bank determined that the annual cost of operating Downtown is $1.4 million higher than in a suburban commercial property.
Steve Diebenow, of Driver, McAfee, Hawthorne & Diebenow, said the proposed $9.8 million incentive was the product of negotiations between the bank and Deegan’s office.
He said parking and security costs contributed to the differential.
Diebenow said EverBank employs seven security personnel Downtown. With a move to the suburbs, he said, the bank would likely only need to split the costs for one security guard with other tenants.
During the Feb. 18 DIA board meeting, EverBank executive Mark Gordon said the bank’s “strong preference” would be to remain Downtown. He said factors in that preference included EverBank’s ties to the community, its proximity to the majority of its employees’ homes and its connection to EverBank Stadium, the Jacksonville Jaguars’ home stadium.
“Downtown makes the most sense to us,” he said.
Responding to a question from DIA board member Sondra Fetner, Gordon said EverBank explored other offices Downtown but found them insufficient. Some fell short because of older infrastructure that would increase the bank’s build-out costs, he said, and some had layouts that would require the bank to spread its staff across more floors when it wants to consolidate into a more contiguous stack.
EverBank moved its headquarters to 501 Riverside Ave. in 2006.
Six years later, EverBank Financial Corp. became the Bay Street building’s anchor tenant and put its name at the top of what became EverBank Center.
After being acquired by TIAA Bank and then sold to a group of investment funds in 2022, EverBank’s signage returned to the building in 2023.
In August of that year, the Jacksonville Jaguars stadium was named EverBank Stadium.