JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — The City of Jacksonville’s efforts to keep one of Downtown’s largest employers from moving out of the heart of the city may be in trouble.
The city has been fighting to keep Citizens Insurance from leaving Downtown for nearly a year.
Now, a recommendation that was scheduled for Friday to decide the company’s next move was delayed by one week.
Action News Jax also obtained internal documents detailing 41 employee safety complaints dating back to 2023.
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They range from a naked man entering a nearby building, a man being stabbed Downtown, a bullet going through one of the EverBank building’s windows, and a homeless man exposing himself and then urinating on himself in front of a Citizens employee.
“People should have the perception of being safe and we believe Jacksonville’s Downtown is. I followed up with the sheriff’s office and they don’t have any incidences reported,” JAX Chamber President & CEO Daniel Davis on Friday said.
Davis has been pushing the company to stay in the EverBank building and worked to negotiate incentives to keep the company from picking up and moving elsewhere.
We asked him whether additional incentives could be on the table given the latest developments.
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“Well, we’ve made several convincing offers to Citizens and hopefully they make the right decision,” Davis said.
But in a statement, Citizens Governor and Audit Committee Chair Jamie Shelton argued the incentives offered so far aren’t enough.
“Citizens is not anti-Downtown Jacksonville, but the present conditions are not acceptable, and recent public offers of certain incentives of reduced parking are not addressing the core issue of safety,” Shelton said.
“We’re doing a lot to try and combat that. Not only with the state law, the anti-public camping. Everything that JFRD is doing now to kind of be the first responder,” Jacksonville City Council Vice President Kevin Carrico (R-District 4) said.
Carrico, who chairs the Special Committee on the Future of Downtown, argued losing Citizens and its 1,000 Downtown employees would be a step in the wrong direction for Downtown.
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“We’re fearful if they do leave that would maybe set a trend and others would follow. And it’s a shame because of the good things that are coming downtown soon,” Carrico said.
So, if Citizens does decide to pick up and move, where would it go?
The answer to that question will have to wait until next Friday, but the top-scored bid would currently have the company relocating to an office space off of Baypine Road in the Deerwood Center.
Here is Shelton’s full statement:
“The safety and security of our employees is first and foremost, and at present, the location to which our employees work today, the west end of Downtown, clearly does not foster such an environment. Just in the past year alone, our employees have been harassed, and even physically assaulted, in and around the areas to which they come and go to work each and every day, all to which is well documented in multiple incident reports. It is important to point out that management of Citizens is not anti-downtown Jacksonville, but the present conditions are not acceptable, and recent public offers of certain incentives of reduced parking are not addressing the core issue of safety to which we as a community are well aware.”
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