JaxUSA Partnership President Aundra Wallace speaks at a Southside Business Men's Club in 2022. | Jacksonville Daily Record
Published on October 31, 2025 at 5:27 pm
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After putting the city’s annual contribution to the JaxUSA Partnership on hold during the budget process, the Jacksonville City Council voted almost unanimously this week to approve the $750,000 to help pay to market the city to domestic and global companies.
The 18-1 vote to provide funding to the Jacksonville Chamber of Commerce’s economic development division is not unusual historically. But council’s move to ask JaxUSA for additional documentation in the form of receipts to show more precisely how it spends the money before greenlighting the appropriation is a new precedent.
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The council’s OK came about a week after a delegation of chamber and city officials returned from London on an economic development trip where, among other talks, they held meetings on the Jax Hub financial technology partnership with the global corporate innovation firm LMarks.
The budget discussion
The city’s contribution to JaxUSA was set aside, or “put below the line,” when council approved the $2 billion operating budget in September.
The decision to consider the funding in legislation separate from the budget was led in part by council member Ron Salem, who said he had questions about how and on what policy issues the chamber decided to take public positions.
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During a Neighborhoods, Community Services, Public Health and Safety Committee meeting on Oct. 20, the council member said he was “frustrated” that the chamber came out in support of a controversial land swap deal early this year between the city and developer Gateway Jax that provided a commercial office building for the University of Florida’s future graduate campus in LaVilla.
Salem said the decision had split council support, but he questioned why the chamber stayed on the sideline for other hotly debated policies like the property tax millage reduction council approved or the Duval County School Board’s push to hire its own attorney separate from the city.
“I think we have the right to understand the positions and how the chamber takes positions. It impacts the council,” Salem said.
JaxUSA’s economic development activities and marketing of the city operate separately from the chamber’s policy advocacy. Those decisions come from recommendations made by chamber members to its government affairs committee and then are approved by the chamber’s executive board, Chamber Policy and Advocacy Director Ryan Murphy told council members Oct. 20.
Ultimately, Salem supported the funding. Council member Rory Diamond was the only no vote Tuesday night.
Aundra Wallace, president of JaxUSA, told Jacksonville Today that he’s “appreciative” that council approving the funding. He said the city’s contribution helps JaxUSA generate leads on companies that are looking for cities in which to relocate or expand, and has led to the creation of 2,200 to 2,300 jobs annually in Jacksonville and nearly $3 billion in capital investment over the last three years.
“That money is used to broadcast why you should do business here, why you should bring your business here, the talent that we have,” Wallace said. “It also is used to market to talented individuals about why they should bring their careers here to Jacksonville or start their careers here in Jacksonville.”
According to Wallace, the additional documentation will supplement the quarterly reports JaxUSA already sends the city to show how the organization is marketing Jacksonville domestically and globally.
JaxHub + JaxUSA
In London, Wallace said, the chamber delegation held a public forum on Jax Hub, which local officials hope can use Jacksonville’s established financial technology industry to draw more startups and employee talent to Jacksonville.
Jax Hub is a partnership between L Marks, the city of Jacksonville and Jax Chamber and endorsed by the United Kingdom. It’s built off a trade and economic memorandum of understanding between the UK and state of Florida signed in 2023 in Jacksonville, Wallace said.
The joint announcement released in April from the Global Fintech Forum in London said “JAX Hub will establish L Marks’ operations in Jacksonville and connect leading financial firms with top-tier global scale-ups and entrepreneurs to solve critical industry challenges, unlock future opportunities, and position the region at the forefront of financial innovation.”
Wallace said the project is still in its infancy, but L Marks has established relationships with payments platform provider PaySafe Holdings Corp., which has its U.S. headquarters in Jacksonville. The two are generating private funding for the initiative. The University of North Florida is also a partner, Wallace said.
“They’re (LMarks) doing this in the state of Maryland; they’re doing this in the state of Connecticut, but it all centered around various different industries,” Wallace said. “If you’re in Maryland they’re probably taking a health care, health tech perspective given that Johns Hopkins (Hospital) is in that area. If you’re in Connecticut, it’s probably taking from an insurance tech perspective, given that Aetna is headquartered there.”
Wallace said, to date, Jax Hub is completely privately funded. The City Council Finance Committee cut $100,000 from Mayor Donna Deegan’s city budget proposal in August that would have provided public money to the project.
Wallace told Jacksonville Today that any future city funding would involve conversations between the mayor and council.
”That’s an initiative that will come to bear between the mayor and City Council. I’m not part of that conversation,” he said.
Deegan, who supports Jax Hub, told Jacksonville Today in July that the initiative could grow into “a big win” for Jacksonville economically.
“The whole idea is to create an incubator for these companies that would allow them to create some success here in Jacksonville,” Deegan said. “So that’s obviously still a work in progress, but that’s the goal. And the end game is to continue to make Jacksonville a hub for financial technology.”
