Daily Record Financial News &
Friday, July 15, 2016
Vol. 103, No. 175 • One Section
35¢ www.jaxdailyrecord.com
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Chuy’s Mexican Food became the first restaurant to file construction plans for The Strand at Town Center when it submitted an application and architectural drawings Thursday to the city. The Austin, Texas-based company wants to build a 312-seat, 7,692-squarefoot restaurant at 4914 Town Center Parkway. That site is across from The Markets at Town Center near St. Johns Town Center. Parkway Construction & Associates LP of Lewisville, Texas, is the contractor for the $1.8 million project. Chuy’s did not return a call or emails Thursday. The Strand and neighboring The Crossing at Town Center are under development at Gate and Town Center parkways by PGP Jacksonville TC LLC, the real estate subsidiary of Books-A-Million Inc. PGP Jacksonville TC LLC is listed on the permit as the property owner, indicating Chuy’s will lease the land on which to build and own its restaurant. PGP Jacksonville TC LLC bought 45 developable acres in March and has been preparing the site. Chuy’s operates 76 restaurants in 15 states, including Florida. The nearest to Jacksonville is in Gainesville. The restaurant’s menu includes appetizers, soups, salads, burritos, tacos, enchiladas and fajitas. The bar’s signature drinks include margaritas, martinis and sangria. Chuy’s is one of several restaurants planned at The Strand and The Crossing, including Cheddar’s Scratch Kitchen, Firebirds Wood Fired Grill, PDQ and Moe’s Southwest Grill. Chuy’s, Cheddar’s and Firebirds are new to the market. Among other retailers, PGA Tour Superstore, 2nd & Charles, Goo-Goo 3 Minute Express Wash and Wawa are among the newcomers to town at the centers. No opening dates have been announced,
Photos by Max Marbut
Chuy’s going up at Strand center
The building is a magnet for people. It makes me understand the importance of this building to people who grew up here. It seems everyone has a story. Sherry Magill, Jessie Ball duPont Fund president
The meeting space at the Jessie Ball duPont Center has attracted more than 70 rental events since January.
Nearly perfect first-year grade Jessie Ball duPont Center Downtown exceeds expectations
more of their budgets to programs and services. Before the building opened, it was estimated as many as 12 organizations When the Jessie Ball duPont Fund would move in during the first year. announced in March 2013 it was buying There are 19 tenants, including the the former Haydon Burns Public Library duPont Fund, which relocated from a and planned to convert it into office suite at Wells Fargo Center. space for nonprofits, the trustees were And tenants came knocking on the confident it was a good idea. door. The center, Downtown at Adams and The fund didn’t do traditional marketOcean streets, opened June 25, 2015, and ing to lease all but about 2,700 square the first-year report card shows it made The lawn on the roof of the center is irrigated feet of the 75,000 in the building. the honor roll. It was strictly word of mouth and “It has exceeded our expectations,” with captured rain water, one of the features that word spread quickly when local organisaid Sherry Magill, president of the fund. helped earn an “Energy Star” certification. zations learned there would be an opporThe fund purchased the building for tunity to move Downtown and save some money on rent. $2 million and invested about $23 million for the conversion from “People who work in the nonprofit community talk to each an abandoned library to Class-A office space. other,” Magill said. The space is leased exclusively to nonprofits at a per-squarefoot rate below market cost to allow the organizations to devote duPont continued on Page A-4
By Max Marbut Staff Writer
Ward not discouraged by tough quarter for CSX
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I think I feel very good about the results we produced in a tough economy.
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Michael Ward CSX Corp. chairman and CEO
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Lower net income and revenue were expected for Jacksonville company By Mark Basch Contributing Writer CSX Corp.’s second-quarter net income dropped 20 percent and revenue fell 12 percent, but Chairman and CEO Michael Ward isn’t discouraged. “I think I feel very good about the results we produced in a tough economy,” Ward said Thursday after CSX released its earnings Wednesday afternoon. CSX’s earnings per share fell by 9 cents in the quarter to 47 cents, but that was 3 cents higher than the average analysts’
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forecast, according to Thomson Financial. Shipments of coal, which had historically been the railroad company’s biggest business, plunged by 34 percent in the quarter but CSX reported volume declines across the board in almost every business segment. “I think the industrial economy is having difficult times,” Ward said. “A lot of our business is impacted by industrial business.” The strong U.S. dollar is impacting CSX’s freight volumes, as it reduces demand for exports. Ward does not expect last month’s
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Brexit vote, in which the United Kingdom decided to leave the European Union, to have a major impact on CSX. “There is a lot of uncertainty in the U.S. and global markets about what it means,” he said. But “we do very little business directly with the U.K.” While freight volumes are dropping, CSX continues to make progress on operational improvements. The company’s operating ratio — operating expenses divided by revenue — actually rose from 66.8 percent in the second quarter of 2015 to 68.9 percent CSX continued on Page A-4
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