Florida’s Citizens Property Insurance Corp. is planning to move its Jacksonville office, due in part to security concerns at its current downtown location where more than 800 employees have worked for the last 10 years.
The Citizens Board of Governors is scheduled to meet Wednesday, with a new lease for some 215,000 square feet of suburban office space in south Jacksonville on the agenda. Safety and security were listed as the top items in the insurer’s solicitation for bids on a new office site, and local news reports have noted that some workers have grown increasingly uncomfortable about the homeless population in downtown Jacksonville, with some reporting that they have been threatened and harassed.
A Citizens spokesman did not confirm those reports, but board actions in recent years show a heightened concern over security around the Everbank Center, a 30-story skyscraper three blocks from the St. Johns River. In 2019, the state-created insurer solicited bids for additional armed security services around the site, a cost of $120,000.
The new office, if approved by the Citizens board and the Florida Department of Management Services, will be on Baypine Road, near Interstate 95, about 9 miles south of downtown, according to the notice of intent to award the bid. It’s a leafy office complex previously utilized by the Florida Coastal School of Law, the Florida Times-Union reported.
The winning bid was submitted by Jacksonville FL IV FGF. Florida Secretary of State records show the company has offices in Chicago and is managed by C T Corporation System and Boyd Watterson Asset Management.
The lease would be for $25 a square foot, bringing the annual total to $5.5 million, including some nearby warehouse space. That amount is something Citizens has budgeted for, documents show. The 10-year lease total would be about $8 million more than Citizens paid at its current site in the Everbank Center, according to news reports.
Jacksonville Mayor Donna Deegan told the Jacksonville newspaper that she will ask the Citizens Board of Governors to reconsider and stay downtown. Downtown restaurants said they would lose significant business if Citizens workers left the Everbank Center. Some said they have felt safe downtown and security guards and police regularly patrol the area, local TV news reported.
Homeless populations have remained a concern around the country, especially in larger cities.
Photo: Jacksonville and the St. Johns River. (Adobe Stock images)
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Florida
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