Citizens Property Insurance Corp. is exploring moving its offices out of Downtown Jacksonville.
In 2015, the state insurer leased space in the 30-story high-rise at 301 W. Bay St. The Daily Record reported then it was consolidating offices and moving 1,038 jobs into about 232,000 square feet of space. The 10-year lease term was valued at $41.7 million.
With that lease coming to an end, Citizens issued an invitation to negotiate July 26 to lease 225,000 square feet of office space away from Downtown, targeting South Jacksonville.
According to a boundary map included with the invitation to negotiate, Citizens wants its offices in an area that starts along the Butler Boulevard corridor from Philips Highway east to Kernan Blvd. and south, roughly between the Interstate 95, I-295 and Florida 9B corridor to the Bartram Springs area.
Citizens, represented by CBRE Inc., is seeking an initial 10-year base rate lease with five two-year renewal options. The deadline to respond is Sept. 10 and Citizens says it anticipates making its decision Nov. 4.
“Citizens is seeking to negotiate with vendors for Jacksonville office space that provides greater access in bad local weather conditions and enhances its emergency response capabilities by housing equipment and other response assets at a single site,” Citizens said in a statement to Action News Jax. “Citizens is also seeking a more centralized location for its employees living in the Jacksonville area.”
Action News Jax also reported a statement from Jacksonville Mayor Donna Deegan:
“The Mayor’s Office is in discussions with Citizens Property Insurance on potential opportunities for city support that will keep their office in downtown Jacksonville.”
What Citizens wants
Among the features sought in the invitation to negotiate:
• Office space in an existing single building or multibuilding professional campus.
• Space that can be used without extensive or only light modifications and renovations.
• A lease that can begin June 1, 2026, with the ability to relocate its staff from other cities and buildings as early as Jan. 1, 2026. The new facility must be operational by March 1, 2026.
• A required 1,040 nonexclusive parking spaces and 60 exclusive parking spaces on lots it will fully control. There will be no additional cost for parking, which must be available 24/7.
• Proposals should include a $35 per square foot tenant improvement allowance for modifications. It says the landlord will be responsible for hiring the architect, general contractor and all project management services.
301 West Bay
Miami-based Amkin West LLC owns the 301 W. Bay St. building. It acquired it in 2014 for $47.4 million. The building was then called EverBank Center. EverBank was later acquired by TIAA Bank, who changed the building signage. It would change again in 2023 when TIAA Bank was sold and the name changed back to EverBank.
A marketing brochure for the high-rise by Ciminelli Real Estate Services calls the building 301 West Bay.
The brochure says more than 360,000 square feet of space is available for new tenants in the 962,000-square-foot building. It shows eight complete floors as available, each between 34,000 and 35,000 square feet of space.
The Citizens space in 301 West Bay comprises eight floors and part of the first.
In 2015, Citizens consolidated its office and IT center Downtown from four Baymeadows-area locations along with IT workers from Tallahassee and Tampa.
Tallahassee-based Citizens was created by the Legislature in 2002 as a not-for-profit tax-exempt government entity to provide property insurance to Florida policyholders unable to find coverage in the private market.