Daily Record Financial News &
Wednesday, July 15, 2015
Vol. 102, No. 173 • Two Sections
35¢ www.jaxdailyrecord.com
$932,000 for loans sat unused for years
City program for small and minority firms suspended
Should this cost more?
A city program geared to help small and minority businesses has been suspended after a report showed $932,000 sat on the shelf for years because of government mismanagement. The report, released Tuesday by the city Office of Inspector General, was a review of the “Access to Capital” program created a decade ago. The city, independent authorities and lending institutions contributed money to the program’s loan pool, which was then underwritten and managed by the nonprofit leg of Essential Capital. In all, the program has provided more than $2.7 million in capital since 2005. Of those loans, less than $139,000 defaulted. However, the program hasn’t made any loans since July 2012 because there haven’t been any requests, according to statements made by an Essential Capital employee. Additionally, city responsibility and oversight for the program shifted several times since 2005 — from the ombudsman to the Equal Business Opportunity Office to the Office of Economic Development — during reorganizations. It was the Office of Economic Development’s responsibility the past several years, but officials within that department said they were unaware of that duty. Instead, they believed it was still the responsibility of the city ombudsman. According to the report, there’s been no oversight for the program since November 2012. That led to further complications when Essential Capital in March 2013 informed the city it wanted to terminate its involvement. Its principal, Cleve Warren, was taking a job at Florida State College at Jacksonville and his company was getting out of the loan business. It wasn’t until June when the economic development office sent him a termination letter requiring signature. Loan Program cont inued on Page A-3
Photo by Max Marbut
By David Chapman Staff Writer
Hourly meter rates by city
Jacksonville parking rates haven’t increased for decades
By Max Marbut, Staff Writer While the cost to park a vehicle in a metered space Downtown can sometimes be a contentious issue, a survey reveals Jacksonville’s fee of 50 cents per hour is among the lowest of major cities in the country. The subject came up during budget discussions between the new mayoral administration and Public Parking Officer Jack Shad. While it wasn’t presented as a proposal, or even a suggestion, Shad cites a survey published in 2013 by the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency that
$7.00 $6.50 $6.00 $5.50 $5.00 $4.50 $4.00 $3.50 $3.00 $2.50
compared hourly metered rates in 46 cities. The most costly parking among cities surveyed is in Chicago, where as much as $6.50 and as little as $2 per hour is charged for metered spaces. At the low end of the range is Redwood City, Calif., which like Jacksonville, charges 25-50 cents per hour. Two cities in Florida were surveyed. In Miami Beach, an hour in a metered space costs $1-$1.75. In Tampa, motorists drop 25 cents-$1.50 in a meter for an hour of parking. Shad said parking rates haven’t increased in Jacksonville for about 30 years. He presented during the budget discussion a calculation of increased revenue if the city Parking continued on Page A-3
Hourly meter rates
$2.00 $1.50
Jacksonville is 25-50 cents per hour.
$1.00 $0.50 $-
Highest rate
Lowest rate (if applicable)
Sub-Zero consolidating SE distribution in Jacksonville Sub-Zero Group Inc., which makes luxury kitchen appliances, will consolidate its Atlanta and Orlando distribution functions in North Jacksonville. Sub-Zero and its Wolf Appliance Co. will ship their kitchen and cooking appliances, along with a line of cleaning products and ventilation hoods, out of leased warehouse space at 2855 Faye Road. “We just made a decision to consolidate to one larger warehouse. Jacksonville was logistically the center of that territory,”
Public
said John Bergquist, president of Sub-Zero Group Southeast Inc. The Southeast distribution territory covers Florida, Georgia, Alabama, North and South Carolina, the Bahamas and the Caribbean. Bergquist said the two smaller warehouses in Atlanta and Orlando total about 90,000 square feet. The city is reviewing a building-permit application for The Conlan Co. to renovate almost 120,000 square feet of office and warehouse space for Sub-Zero at a project cost of $1.5 million.
legal notices begin on page
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The project would take almost a third of a 365,000-square-foot mega-warehouse, near JaxPort shipping terminals. The majority of the space for Sub-Zero is for storage, with about 2,000 square feet for offices, a trucker waiting area and other uses. Thomas Duke Architects is
the architect. The property is owned by Clarion Partners. Bergquist said the warehouse should open by mid-September and employ seven people. A warehouse manager has been hired from Jacksonville and a warehouse superintendent will move from Orlando. Along with Sub-Zero and Wolf appliances, the warehouse distributes the ASKO line of cleaning products, produced in Sweden, and the BEST line of ventilation hoods. It also distributes
Published
for
26,700
small appliances made by Wolf OVERVIEW RATE & POLICY PRESENTATION SURVEY / 8 Gourmet. METER Bergquist said the products are shipped in by tractor-trailer. Most of the products come directly from manufacturing plants in Madison, Wis., where Sub-Zero is based, or from Phoenix. Products are shipped out by tractor-trailers in the Southeast, and typically are shipped out of Miami to the Bahamas and Caribbean. He said it might make sense to ship them out of Jacksonville’s Mathis continued on Page A-2
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