Duval County’s School Board is set to vote Oct. 7 on selling its Southbank headquarters and leaving downtown for a Baymeadows office building that now houses Winn-Dixie’s parent company.
The move, if it’s approved, would allow Atlantic Beach-based retirement community operator Fleet Landing to redevelop the 4.87-acre Southbank site at 1701 Prudential Drive envisioned as becoming a 30-story residential tower with amenities including a gym, restaurants and fitness studios.
That’s the sort of development a generation of civic activists argued for years should be on downtown tax rolls instead of tax-exempt government offices that they wanted off the river. But school district employees leaving the city’s center has concerned downtown advocates, including Mayor Donna Deegan’s office, as well as some school district families and workers concerned about regularly traveling another 10 miles south to an area long associated with commuter traffic challenges.
School Board meetings and some employees with public-facing jobs would move to the Schultz Center for Teaching and Leadership, 4019 Boulevard Center Drive, about three miles east of downtown off Beach Boulevard, to remain more accessible.
The contracts up for votes Oct. 7 are “the best offer for our building and the best offer we have available at this time for relocation,” Superintendent Christopher Bernier told the board in a September workshop.
The board had explored moving since 2020 and shelved the idea shortly before Bernier was hired in 2024. But in September 2024, Bernier told members he wanted to revisit the subject, saying it mattered “to the greater good of the Jacksonville community.”
Fleet Landing, which is also developing another community in Nocatee, has offered to pay $20 million in two instalments: $12.5 million at a closing projected for the third quarter of 2026, with another $7.5 million three years after that.
Alternatively, the company also offered a single payment of $17 million at closing, but a real estate business hired by the School Board negotiated around the higher sum, which is equivalent to getting about 17% interest to make up for the delay.
Either arrangement would happen months after the Dec. 31 closing date when the plan before the School Board calls for the board to pay $13 million for a replacement headquarters at 8928 Prominence Parkway, near Baymeadows Road and Interstate 95.
The idea of buying one building before selling the other is part of a series of drawbacks that have drawn criticism from skeptics including at least one School Board member.
“I appreciate the work of staff in negotiating both the sale and purchase contracts, but I am concerned that these are not good deals for DCPS,” member Cindy Pearson wrote on Facebook in a message to constituents.
“I support DCPS moving the administration building to make way for development on the Southbank WHEN THE DEAL MAKES SENSE FOR DCPS,” Pearson wrote. “I have concerns that the proposed transactions are BAD DEALS for DCPS (and taxpayers).”
A second board member, Darryl Willie, has faulted the Baymeadows site as too removed from the Northside and Westside neighborhoods he represents. Will cast the sole “no” vote during a preliminary step in September authorizing Bernier to negotiate terms for the contract up for board approval.
Jacksonville’s NAACP also came out against the Baymeadows move in August, saying on Facebook that the new site “disproportionately favors affluent neighborhoods and undermines equitable access to public education governance.”
The school district had talks with Jacksonville Transportation Authority officials about making transit changes to improve accessibility at both the Schultz Center and Prominence Parkway, but hadn’t locked in guarantees of any changes, district Chief of Staff Michael Ramirez told board members in the September workshop.
Prominence emerged as the school district’s top choice for a new home through an open-ended search process that spught information about any comercial real estate whose size and condition would fit the school system’s needs, board members were told at the same workshop.
The property is controlled by the company behind Dream Finders Homes and had been leased to Southeastern Grocers, the business that owns Winn-Dixie and other grocery chains, but the lease was ending Dec. 31 and the real estate firm hired by the school district asked about buying it.
“We came to them. They weren’t putting it on the market,” said Dan O’Berski, a partner in Trinity Commercial Group, which the school district contracted at the start of 2025 to work on replacing the school system’s headquarters, which was built about 45 years ago.
This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Duval School Board voting Tuesday on leaving downtown for Winn-Dixie owner’s Baymeadows digs
Reporting by Steve Patterson, Jacksonville Florida Times-Union / Florida Times-Union
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