Jacksonville-based Fanatics Inc. wants to add 80 IT and marketing jobs, and seeks $1.4 million in city and state incentives to add those positions and expand in its headquarters city.
Those incentives would consist of $348,000 million in city grants and $1.07 million in state funds, including a $3,000 tax refund and a Quick Response Training Grant of $1,800 for each new employee and $1,000 each for 200 retained employees.
Fanatics, an online retailer of officially licensed sports merchandise and collectibles, wants to determine where it’s best to establish its headquarters and fulfillment center, according to a city project summary.
Even though the 20-year-old company considers Jacksonville a “legacy location,” it foresees a challenge to recruit the needed IT and digital marketing talent from the Jacksonville labor pool.
Fanatics recently opened a mobile applications office in California as a result of the “dearth of IT talent” in the Jacksonville metropolitan statistical area, said the summary.
The summary says the expansion project would help preserve Fanatics’ 900 existing jobs, which include IT professionals, call center representatives, product designers and manufacturers, and warehouse workers.
The new jobs would pay an average wage of $85,800. Fanatics also would invest $10 million in two leased Southside office locations — its existing operations at 6800 Southpoint Parkway, where it operates a call center, and a new location at 8100 Nations Way.
Fanatics has two other locations in West Jacksonville.
Fanatics would move its headquarters to Nations Way from the current corporate base at its main 5245 Commonwealth Ave. warehouse in West Jacksonville.
The $10 million investment would include the renovation and installation of IT equipment, data center, furniture, fixtures and other items and be made by year-end 2019 in the Southside offices.
Construction would start by May 31. The city is reviewing a permit application for Fanatics to build-out a two-story, 57,000-square-foot building at the Nations Way address in Cypress Point Business Park near Baymeadows. Auld & White Constructors LLC is the contractor for $1.34 million renovation project.
Fanatics Inc. would be required to hire 20 jobs by year-end 2016, followed by 20 in 2017, 15 in 2018 and 25 in 2019.
The $10 million investment would start with a minimum $2 million this year, followed by $2 million by year-end 2016, $3 million in 2018 and the remaining $3 million by the end of 2019.
While Fanatics has 900 employees, the development agreement requires it to retain at least 400 permanent jobs and create the 80 jobs in order to fully qualify for the Qualified Target Industry tax refund incentives.
The agreement defines permanent jobs as full-time equivalent jobs created by the company at the Southside locations to be maintained for at least two years.
The legislation, Ordinance 2015-267, was filed Wednesday for introduction to City Council on April 28. The Finance Committee would consider it May 5 and the full council would take action May 12.
City incentives comprise a $300,000 Recapture Enhanced Value Grant and up to $48,000 in Qualified Target Industry tax refunds, which is a 20 percent match to the state’s 80 percent QTI portion.
The REV grant is equal to 50 percent of the increase in the county’s portion of the additional ad valorem taxes generated from the $10 million investment. The grant would be paid for seven years after the expansion is complete and on the tax rolls.
The REV grant also would satisfy the city’s obligation to match 50 percent of the state’s Quick Action Closing Fund grant.
The city’s QTI grant share would refund up to $600 for each full-time job created up to the $48,000 maximum and would be payable after the wages and jobs are verified by the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity. The six-year payout would start in 2016.
State incentives total up to $1.066 million and comprise the QTI match, the training grant and the closing fund.
The state’s QTI share would rebate $2,400 for each new job over six years, totaling $192,000.
The state also would provide a training grant totaling up to $344,000 to be spent on $1,800 for each new employee and $1,000 each for 200 of the existing tech/apparel design employees.
The Governor’s Quick Action Closing Fund would pay $530,000 dispersed in three lump sons tied to job creation.
JAXUSA Partnership President Jerry Mallot said in the news release that Fanatics transformed from a retail company into a technology company, becoming a leader it its field.
“Their decision to continue to invest and expand in Jacksonville is significant for our region and will add more high-paying, high-tech jobs to our local economy,” he said.
Founders Alan and Mitch Trager opened Fanatics in 1995 as a brick-and-mortar storefront in Jacksonville after the Jacksonville Jaguars franchise was announced in 1993. In 1997, the company went digital.
Fanatics is a Top 50 Internet Retailer Company, offering hundreds of thousands of officially licensed sports merchandise items. It employs more than 1,500 people in multiple states.
Fanatics says it offers the broadest online assortment of officially licensed items through both fanatics.com and fansedge.com, as well as the largest selection of sports collectibles and memorabilia through fanaticsauthentic.com.
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