Jacksonville-based CSX debuts new LED signage on downtown headquarters
Jacksonville-based CSX debuted a unique addition to the city’s skyline on Thursday: a new LED sign atop the company’s headquarters. Here’s a look.
- Citizens Property Insurance Corp. will relocate its Jacksonville office from downtown to the Southside in 2026.
- The move will impact roughly 1,000 employees and comes despite appeals from city leaders to keep the company downtown.
- The new office will be located in a building formerly occupied by Florida Coastal School of Law.
Citizens Property Insurance Corp. intends to move its Jacksonville office with roughly 1,000 employees from EverBank Center in downtown to the Southside suburbs in 2026.
Citizens announced Friday it has chosen an office building at 8787 Baypine Road as the future home of its Jacksonville operations. The five-story building was previously used by Florida Coastal School of Law until the college shut down.
Citizens moved more than 1,000 employees into EverBank Center in 2015 in a decision that city officials hailed at the time as a big win for downtown. The prospect of it leaving downtown spurred appeals by Jacksonville Mayor Donna Deegan, JAX Chamber and business leaders for it to stay.
Deegan said Friday she will keep pushing for Citizens to remain downtown by asking its Board of Governors to take a second look when the board votes on the proposed lease agreement.
“There is a window still open for Citizens Insurance to remain downtown,” she said.
She said the city “remains committed to making every reasonable effort to retain this anchor tenant” and she has spoken with Sheriff T.K. Waters about working with the Sheriff’s Office to put a stop station in EverBank Center “for extra security.”
Jacksonville has a high vacancy rate for office space throughout the city, which has intensified competition among landlords for tenants. The loss of a large employer like Citizens will be a setback for downtown revitalization that hinges on boosting foot traffic so more people are stepping into street-level stores and restaurants.
When Citizens initially sought proposals for office space in July, the solicitation focused on a portion of the Southside and didn’t include downtown. But Citizens later decided to reboot the search by giving building owners in downtown an opportunity to make proposals as well.
Citizen posted a notice Friday that it intends to award the contract to the owner of the Baypine Road office building. Citizens still must finalize and sign the lease agreement, which also must get approval by the Citizens Property Insurance Board of Governors at its meeting Wednesday and the state Department of Management Services.
If Citizens cannot get a final lease agreement for that office building — owned by Boyd Watterson Asset Management — it could enter into a lease with the second-ranked proposal for office space at 14000 Citicards Way, according to the notice of decision.
Citizens has said it’s looking for a place that would give more access during bad local weather conditions, enhance its emergency response capability by housing those assets at a single site, and put the office in a central location in terms of where its employees live in the Jacksonville area.
Citizens Property Insurance Corporation Board of Governors member Jamie Shelton has said a top priority for Citizens is being in an area of Jacksonville that is safe for employees when they come to work.
“The safety and security of Citizens’ employees should be priority one and the current environment does not provide such,” Shelton said last month.
Deegan said this week the city’s Providing Assistance to the Homeless program, known as PATH, that’s directed by the Jacksonville Fire and Rescue Department has made strides in downtown on improving the homeless situation.
She said Friday she hopes Citizen’s board of governors will reevaluate the decision to move out of downtown “given the progress that’s been made” in safety and “the many exciting projects that are coming out of the ground.”
The state created Citizens Property Insurance Corp. in 2004 as a non-profit government entity that acts as an insurer of last resort for property-owners unable to get insurance in the private market. Jacksonville has the largest number of its workers.
Clinton Mora is a reporter for Trending Insurance News. He has previously worked for the Forbes. As a contributor to Trending Insurance News, Clinton covers emerging a wide range of property and casualty insurance related stories.