In addition to operating one of the largest grocery store chains in the Southeast and maintaining its headquarters in Jacksonville, the Davis family, controlling shareholders of Winn-Dixie until 2006, contributed to improving health care and education as well as real estate development in Northeast Florida.
J.E. Davis, one of Winn-Dixie’s founders, established a relationship with Jacksonville University in the 1950s.
In 1984, the Davis family gave JU $3 million for construction of a home for the university’s business education programs.
Fourteen years later, the Davises donated another $20 million to the university, earmarking $10 million to construct the Davis College of Business & Technology building on the Arlington campus.
The Davis family donated almost 400 acres of land along San Pablo Road to bring Mayo Clinic, the Rochester, Minnesota-based research hospital, to Jacksonville.
It opened in 1986 and has since treated more than 600,000 patients from all 50 states and more than 140 countries.
An entity of the Davis family conveyed an additional 210 acres to Mayo Clinic Jacksonville in October 2022 for a North Campus at the San Pablo Road property.
That expands its 392-acre medical center property to 602 acres.
In the late 1990s, the Davis family began working with The PARC Group to develop about 25 square miles - 14,000 acres - of land the family owned in south Duval and north St. Johns counties.
Up to 9,000 acres remain preserved.
The vision for the project – named Nocatee when the first residents arrived in 2006 – was a master-planned community comprising multiple neighborhoods with homes and apartments, schools, churches, recreation facilities and professional and retail space.
In March 2019, another master-planned community by The PARC Group on land owned by the Davis family was announced for South Jacksonville.
Called eTown, it includes 1,500 acres for single-family homes, apartments, retail and commercial space and amenities such as paths and parks.
In late 2022 the Davis family sold $109 million worth of property in Northeast Florida for future development.
On Dec. 27, the Davises sold 3,000 acres of Governors Park in Green Cove Springs for $85 million to BTI Partners of Fort Lauderdale.
The developer plans 4,000 homes as well as apartments, commercial and industrial space, hotel rooms and a golf course.
On Dec. 28, the family sold three parcels in St. Johns County for $24.2 million comprising 213 lots in Seabrook Village Phase 1 in Nocatee.
In a Dec. 19 news release, the Davises said they sold the property to developers who have immediate plans for the property.
“Our focus will remain on our current land holdings while we continue to pursue other land opportunities in Northeast Florida,” Jed Davis, president and CEO of DDI, Inc., a Davis family company, said in the release.
And in March 2023, the Jacksonville City Council approved legislation for the Davis family’s plans for a 6,174.21-acre residential and commercial development in Southeast Jacksonville.
The property is north of Nocatee and east of eTown, Sweetwater, Wells Creek, Hampton Park, Florida 9B and U.S. 1.
It is next to the Davis family’s 25,000-acre Dee Dot Ranch.