Published on August 20, 2025 at 2:01 pm
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Done right, moving the Duval County Public Schools headquarters off the Southbank waterfront could be a boon for both the district and Jacksonville taxpayers. However, the School Board may abandon Downtown entirely for expensive digs in Baymeadows — which would deal a blow to taxpayers and to Downtown’s vibrancy. Is the move putting politics above fiscal responsibility?
The background
Duval County Public Schools has had its headquarters in the six-story, 120,000-square-foot administrative building rising above the Downtown Southbank waterfront since 1981. The building gave the district space for its employees and community meetings, and its centralized location made it easily accessible to Duval families. At the same time, the waterfront building and its sprawling surface parking lot became viewed as prime for redevelopment. The School Board has looked at selling the property and relocating several times, most recently in 2021.
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As The Jaxson wrote at the time, that push raised several serious issues. In particular, if DCPS were to leave Downtown for a suburban location, it would deal a blow to Downtown’s vibrancy while also making accessibility difficult for Jacksonville families and failing to make the most of the windfall from the sale. Such concerns contributed to the School Board’s decision not to move forward with the prospect at the time. Unfortunately, all those concerns remain present in the current push.
A step backward for Downtown — at exactly the wrong time
Losing Duval Schools’ roughly 900 employees would be a major setback for Downtown, especially at a time when many businesses have already shuttered or reduced their office presence due to the COVID-19 pandemic and shifting workplace technologies.
The trend of employers leaving the city core is already clear. In March, the taxpayer-financed Citizens Property Insurance Corp. announced plans to relocate 1,038 jobs from Downtown to Baymeadows. Just two weeks ago, Regency Centers revealed it would move its headquarters, and 250 jobs, from Downtown to Seven Pines.
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A decision by DCPS to leave would directly contradict the city’s own effort to revitalize Downtown. Local leaders have made it clear: Bringing and keeping employers in the urban core is essential to reviving Jacksonville’s struggling center. The city recently donated 22 acres in LaVilla to pave the way for the University of Florida’s new graduate campus. It also approved nearly $100 million in incentives for the first phase of Gateway Jax’s $2 billion Pearl Street District and committed an additional $4.35 million to secure Haskell’s headquarters relocation and 650 employees to the Southbank.
These moves are part of a broader strategy to strengthen Downtown’s workforce and spark new growth. For a local government entity like DCPS to then pull hundreds of employees out of Downtown would undermine that momentum. At the end of the day, the loss of all these jobs from the city core, especially by an agency funded with taxpayer dollars, represents a serious blow to revitalization efforts.
The School Board now faces a pivotal choice: strengthen Downtown’s resurgence or contribute to its decline. Staying put offers a once-in-a-generation opportunity to be a cornerstone of the city’s long-awaited regrowth. Leaving would reinforce a troubling pattern of public institutions making decisions that run directly counter to Jacksonville’s stated priority of Downtown revitalization.
A bad deal for Duval County taxpayers?
It’s bad enough that a government entity is even considering abandoning the city’s center to relocate closer to northern St. Johns County than the center of the very community it’s supposed to serve. The move also raises red flags about fiscal responsibility to Duval County taxpayers.
DCPS expects to sell its 1701 Prudential Drive for $20 million and buy 8928 Prominence Parkway for $14 million. However, the School Board would only receive $12.5 million for its sale at closing, with the remaining $7.5 million not coming for another three years. That means that rather than receiving a windfall for the sale out the gate, DCPS would be $1.5 million short of the price of the new building for years.
The current building was built in 1981 and is 122,822 square feet, with meeting space and facilities for School Board business. On the other hand, 8928 Prominence Parkway 163,245 square feet and has no such facilities — it may have been retrofitted in 2015 for Southeastern Grocers’ corporate needs, but it is far from ready for a public school district headquarters. There’s no permanent auditorium for meetings, only a cafeteria, and the lobby would require reconfiguration to meet basic security standards. The millions of dollars in work it would take just to open its doors comes on top of the purchase price. But here’s the glaring question: why pay $14 million for a building that’s much larger than necessary, and one that still isn’t fit for public use?
The deal is not just shortsighted, it’s potentially costly. It would strip nearly $200,000 a year from the tax rolls.
A common-sense alternative
It’s time to take a broader, less siloed approach to this decision, one where public entities move in the same direction, making the most of every tax dollar.
One alternative is simple: bank the sale proceeds or reinvest them into modernizing existing facilities. Leasing space, instead of buying another oversized building miles from the core, would preserve property tax revenue and keep the district’s resources aligned with its mission.
Another option is even more promising: DCPS could remain in its current location as a tenant in a new development, occupying a smaller, more efficient footprint while still selling the majority of its property and getting it back on the tax rolls. This strategy would keep the district centrally located and accessible to families, while potentially generating more revenue for the district. At the same time, it would strengthen the Southbank’s ongoing revitalization by anchoring new investment.
At a moment when Jacksonville is fighting to restore life to its urban core, it would be indefensible for DCPS, funded by the public, to undermine that momentum while also creating burdens for taxpayers. The board’s choice is clear: help drive the city forward, or fall back into the same short-sighted thinking that has drained vitality from Downtown for decades.
