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Students walk outside the Board of Governors meeting on Jan. 30, 2025, at the University of North Florida | Michelle Corum, Jacksonville Today

UNF, interstate corridor projects top new state funding for the Jacksonville area

By Mike Mendenhall
Published on July 13, 2025 at 10:44 am
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Nearly $15 million for the University of North Florida to expand its honors college and $6 million for a “regional corridor” to connect Interstate 295 to US Highway 1 top the list of new state funding for local projects that survived Gov. Ron DeSantis’ veto pen in the new Florida budget.

Local lawmakers secured millions for local road and highway projects, museums, water treatment, resiliency efforts and more. 

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That’s after the governor used his line-item veto authority to cut about $19.5 million slated to go to First Coast counties in the state’s $117.4 billion 2025-26 fiscal year budget that went into effect July 1. 

State Sen. Clay Yarborough, R-Jacksonville, and Rep. Wyman Duggan, R-Jacksonville, sponsored the $14.84 million in funding to expand UNF’s Hicks Honors College, to include classrooms, offices, labs and study spaces. 

Yarborough’s funding request says the new college will promote partnerships with organizations like MedNexus and ArtsUNF and include labs for AI and innovation and maker spaces. The college will be built adjacent to the new 520-bed honors residence hall expected to open this fall.

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Roads, bridges and public facilities

The $6 million in funding for design, permitting and construction of the first segment of an I-295-to-US-1 corridor is meant to improve traffic circulation and pedestrian safety from the highway in Northeast St. Johns County to the interstate and Butler Boulevard on Jacksonville’s Southside. 

Funding request documents filed by Sen. Tom Leek, R-Ormond Beach, say the project “will include multi-use paths for pedestrians, bikes and alternative modes of transportation” and “will provide parallel routes for local and regional traffic using US-1, State Road 9B, and I-295.” 

Duggan sponsored the project on the House side.

In Jacksonville, several roadway and street improvement projects also received state funding in the budget. A $5 million line-item will help fund a new vehicle overpass on Wigmore Street in Tallyrand to address traffic disruptions and pedestrian safety at recently expanded railroad crossings. 

The final budget also has:

Phase II of the new Jacksonville Fair Grounds on the city’s Westside got $3.25 million through a request from Sen. Tracie Davis, D-Jacksonville, which will help build infrastructure, as well an exhibit hall, meeting spaces, administration offices and an entertainment area. 

Work is underway on the new fair grounds, which will replace the current grounds in Downtown’s Sports and Entertainment District that was purchased in February by Iguana Investments Florida LLC, the real estate arm of Jaguars owner Shad Khan.

In Clay County, $2 million in state funds will help pay for the site plan and first-stage construction of a new public safety complex. 

Museums, colleges and hospitals 

The state will be chipping in $2.5 million for Jacksonville Museum of Science and History‘s proposed new $100 million facility on the Downtown Northbank.

In St. Johns County, the Legislature appropriated $1 million for phase I of the planned Florida Museum of Black History. After a state task force selected St. Johns County at the site of the new state museum, the bill codifying the site didn’t make it through the House. But DeSantis did veto a $750,000 appropriation for a Black history museum in Opa-locka.

A firefighter “burn building” training facility at the Florida State College at Jacksonville Fire Academy received $2 million from the state to support design, engineering, and construction. 

Jacksonville University’s GROW program, which stands for Graduate, Retain and Optimize a Workforce of Florida Nurses, received $1.34 million of a $4 million total request. The governor vetoed the remaining $2.66 million.

The public Pre-K-12 charter school Jacksonville Classical Academy, led by former U.S. Ambassador to the Bahamas John Rood, will receive $3 million for an expansion.

The Baptist Medical Center Jacksonville High-Risk Pregnancy Labor & Delivery Expansion received $4.5 million in the budget.

$1 million or more

Here are other Northeast Florida projects to receive $1 million or more in the state budget:

author image Associate Editor email Jacksonville Today Associate Editor Mike Mendenhall focuses on Jacksonville City Hall and the Florida Legislature. A native Iowan, he previously led the Des Moines Business Record newsroom and served as associate editor of government affairs at the Jacksonville Daily Record, where he twice won Florida Press Association TaxWatch Awards for his in-depth coverage of Jacksonville’s city budget. Mike’s work at the Daily Record also included reporting on Downtown development, JEA and the city’s independent authorities, and he was a frequent contributor to WJCT News 89.9 and News4Jax.

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