Market Spotlight: JACKSONVILLE
REAPING BENEFITS
The one-time financial center shifts its emphasis
to diversification as an international shipping hub
By Carl Cronan
Efforts to diversify Jacksonville’s economy are now starting to pay off, providing the type of stability other major
metropolitan areas enjoyed before the current downturn. An ongoing expansion of the city’s port that will allow it to
receive supercargo ships should add greater momentum for all
commercial sectors in years to come.
The metropolitan area actually went through an economic
shakeout a decade ago similar to what other cities are going
through now, when locally based Barnett Bank, the largest in
Florida, merged with Bank of America. While Jacksonville
isn’t entirely avoiding turmoil from the financial sector, it is
being buffered by a broader business base than before, say
local executives.
As other large Florida markets posted job losses in recent
months, Jacksonville showed an actual gain of 1,900 positions
in September, according to the Florida Agency for Workforce
Innovation. The metro area’s unemployment rate was 6.3%
that month, a half-point below the state average.
“We’ve got job creation where other cities do not,” remarks
Hobart Joost III, senior vice president of Colliers Dickinson.
“We’re not sheltered from the economic downturn by any
means, but we do sleep a little better.”
Delivery of two new suburban buildings totaling 145,000 sf
created a vacancy spike in the third quarter, yet year-to-date
absorption throughout the metropolitan area is near the
break-even point. Apart from a 50,000-sf building under way
in Downtown Jacksonville, no new construction is on the horizon for the first time in several years.
Downtown Jacksonville, with 6. 8 million sf of office inventory, is home to three of the state’s largest office buildings.
