TUESDAY September 21, 2021
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Daily Record JACKSONVILLE
THE FORD ON BAY
Jacksonville jobless rate falls to 4.3%
Daily Record JACKSONVILLE
DIA delays timeline on bids for old courthouse site
Area business payrolls added 29,300 jobs since August 2020, nearing the pre-pandemic level of 732,000.
Daily Record Daily Record JACKSONVILLE
BY MARK BASCH CONTRIBUTING WRITER
St. and 3.1 acres of submerged land in the St. Johns River. The board voted in August to end an 18-month negotiation with New York City-based Spandrel Development Partners LLC for a $136 million, mixed-use multifamily retail project at the site. Boyer told board members the DIA’s contracted real estate consultant on the project, CBRE, agreed to the timeline extension. The deferral would push CBRE’s site premarketing to mid-October, ending in mid-November. DIA staff wanted it to be from Sept. 15-Oct. 21, Boyer said. The board would have voted on a legally required notice of disposition to put the property on the real estate market in midNovember and close before Christmas.
Jacksonville’s unemployment rate fell in August as payrolls of Northeast Florida businesses inched closer to pre-pandemic levels. The jobless rate in the Jacksonville metropolitan area of Duval, Baker, Clay, Nassau and St. Johns counties fell from 4.5% in July to 4.3% in August, the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity reported Sept. 17. The number of jobs on nonfarm business payrolls rose by 1,400 in August and was up 29,300, or 4.2%, since August 2020 as the economy continues its recovery from last year’s COVID-19 pandemic-related shutdowns. With business payrolls at 729,200 in August, the Northeast Florida economy was near its pre-pandemic level of 732,000 in February 2020. However, the unemployment rate was well above the February 2020 level of 3.2%. Although the number of jobs increased in the 18-month period, the size of the labor force grew by about 35,000, with 829,406 people saying they had jobs or were actively looking for work in August 2021. So, the unemployment rate was significantly higher. Duval County’s unemployment rate fell by 0.2 percentage points last month to 4.7% but the other four counties in the metro area were lower, with two counties reporting some of the lowest rates in the state. St. Johns County’s unemployment rate of 3.4% in August was the second-lowest among Flori-
SEE DIA, PAGE 2
SEE JOBS, PAGE 2
JACKSONVILLE
Photo by Mike Mendenhall
The site of the former Duval County Courthouse and the City Hall Annex in front of the Hyatt Regency Jacksonville Riverfront hotel. The view is from the Blackstone Building along Bay Street. The DIA plans to remarket the former courthouse site left of the Hyatt.
The Downtown Investment Authority defers until October its vote to finalize bid terms for the riverfront property along Bay Street. BY MIKE MENDENHALL STAFF WRITER
The Downtown Investment Authority deferred a resolution for a month to approve terms to remarket and rebid the former Duval County Courthouse site on Bay Street. DIA CEO Lori Boyer said Sept. 17 that Mayor Lenny Curry’s administration requested the vote be delayed. She added that several DIA board
member’s wanted more time to determine if the city’s next request for proposals for the site should require retail on the Bay Street side of the Boyer development. The delay will push back the DIA’s timeline to award a development contract for the vacant city-owned riverfront land at 330 E. Bay St. into 2022. The DIA board was scheduled to vote Sept. 15 on updated development terms and bid scoring, but staff requested at the beginning of the meeting that action be deferred until October. The 2.89-acre property is part of what the DIA branded in 2019 as The Ford on Bay. It included the adjacent 2.39-acre former City Hall Annex site at 220 E. Bay
Dawkins to succeed the retiring Keith at Truist Truist Financial Corp. named Emily Dawkins regional president for its North Florida region. Dawkins was capital markets originator. She assumed her new role as regional president on Sept. 7, succeeding Scott Keith, who will retire Sept. 30 after a 34-year banking career. “Emily has built her career serving Jacksonville and the North Florida region by delivering solutions that help her business clients achieve their goals, making her well-suited to lead our team in the region,” said David Weaver, Truist chief commercial community banking officer.
VOLUME 108, NO. 216 • ONE SECTION