Duval Schools' headquarters building, pictured here in March 2026, was going to be sold to Chase Properties, but the deal collapsed. | Megan Mallicoat, Jacksonville Today
Published on March 26, 2026 at 6:40 pm
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Duval Schools Superintendent Christopher Bernier is telling the School Board the district’s recently collapsed deal to sell its headquarters building is now a “legal matter” and so can’t be discussed in detail. He says the threat of a lawsuit explains why he isn’t being more “transparent” about the headquarters sale with members of the board and the public.
District 5 School Board member Reggie Blount, who voted last fall in favor of the HQ sale to Chase Properties, questioned Bernier at a board workshop on Tuesday.
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“I don’t think we have ever really explained to the public what happened with the collapse of the sale of this building,” he said, before suggesting the district talk about “what happened, what was supposed to happen, what did happen, what went right and wrong, and what policies are we putting in place to make sure that something like that doesn’t happen again.”
“We are currently in a legal matter,” Bernier replied. “We’ve been served notice regarding the sale of the property from the people who wanted to purchase. We have responded to their accusations, and it’s a legal matter.”
Chase Properties CEO Mike Balanky tells Jacksonville Today his company is “not interested in litigation and we hope to resolve the issue.”
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District spokesperson Laureen Ricks says the district has not been sued over the sale.
“To clarify, we are not aware of any active litigation regarding this matter. We can confirm that we did receive correspondence from the purchaser,” Ricks said.
Failed sale fallout
The district has been working for more than a year on its most recent effort to sell its HQ, which sits on on Jacksonville’s Southbank riverfront. The School Board approved a $17.2 million sale to local developer Chase Properties in November after voting against selling to retirement community Fleet Landing the month prior.
Chase backed out of the deal last month, saying Duval Schools didn’t disclose the extent of outstanding community development district bond debt that must be repaid on part of the property. The district says it did disclose the bond.
Through a public records request, Jacksonville Today received from Duval Schools a letter dated Feb. 10, which Balanky says was his company’s most recent correspondence with the district. The letter notified the district of Chase’s decision to cancel the purchase agreement and says Chase would reconsider buying the property if the impact of the bond were eliminated. A few weeks ago, Duval Schools relisted the headquarters property for sale and announced it would receive new offers through April 1.
Since the deal fell through, questions have lingered around what happened to sour it — and also force the district to cancel its purchase of a new headquarters in Baymeadows. Bernier’s comments Tuesday came during a presentation to the school board about the process the district and its real estate consultant, Trinity Commercial Group, are using to offload surplus properties.
When Blount asked about the HQ sale, Bernier said, “We really can’t go out and talk about it yet. Happy to do it, but I also have to protect the legal argument, and make sure that we’re not seen as using the public to impact what is now a legal matter.”
“But have we told that to the public?” Blount asked. “Have we said, ‘Well, we’re in legal —’”
“We have,” Bernier said. “I have.”
“I believe the news has reported on it — that it’s being litigated right now,” board chair Charlotte Joyce said. “That’s what I’ve seen.”
The cost of backing out
Spokesperson Arwen FitzGerald tells Jacksonville Today the district lost the $250,000 deposit it paid to Dream Finders Homes for the intended purchase of a new headquarters on Prominence Parkway. According to the contract, which the district canceled after Chase halted its purchase of the Prudential Drive building, the district’s deposit became non-refundable after 30 days.
And it spent about $31,000 on due diligence for that building: an inspection, property survey, Phase I environmental review, a title search and two appraisals.
“Overall, the financial impact was limited, with most funds preserved and only routine transaction-related costs incurred,” FitzGerald says. “The district sought to minimize exposure, determining that the risk of owning two buildings far exceeded the unfortunate loss of the deposit.”
Chase Properties paid a $1 million deposit toward the purchase of the Prudential Drive property, but the terms of that contract kept the money refundable for 90 days, and the deposit was refunded to Chase.
Transparency for whom?
The last time Duval Schools tried to sell the Prudential Drive property, in 2022, it issued an invitation to negotiate, and then unsealed 16 bids at a publicly noticed meeting. The district spent time evaluating and ranking the bids but ultimately chose to stay put.
Several board members have expressed concern in recent months over the process the district is using this time to sell the headquarters and surplus properties.
Notably, school board members did not receive information about each of the bids received last year.
“I will remind you that the sale of commercial property is a fairly competitive market,” Bernier said. “So the amount of transparency with all of you is really incredibly important. But our transparency when the deals are being made — we need to be cognizant of that, because too much information can create a less competitive atmosphere. So I want us to try to balance those two.”
Michael Barfield is the executive director of the Florida Center for Government Accountability. He tells Jacksonville Today Florida’s laws requiring government agencies to be transparent are designed to protect competition.
“Under the guise of competition — this is where the citizens of Florida have decided that transparency in their government is more paramount,” Barfield says. “It’s not making it less competitive — it’s actually the opposite.”
Barfield says the process Duval Schools and its broker used — where some offers were weeded out and other bidders were seemingly able to submit counter offers — invited a violation of Florida’s Sunshine Law and could cause members of the public to suspect it’s an inside deal.
“A private real estate deal is like a poker game behind closed doors. Players keep their cards hidden to maximize their advantage,” Barfield says. “But a public real estate deal is more like an auction held in a town square, where people can see who the bidders are…they’re entitled to know who showed up, what was offered and how the winner was chosen.”
