With council sign-off, here’s what’s next for massive Boeing project at Cecil Field (Courtesy of the Jacksonville Business Journal) — With the City Council’s approval of a $425,000 infrastructure grant for the Boeing Co., work can begin later this year on what has been called one of the most significant projects in Jacksonville industrial aviation history.
The grant is designed to pay for utilities and drainage facilities on the 57-acre site owned by the Jacksonville Aviation Authority.
A groundbreaking ceremony for the facility, estimated to cost $150 million, is slated for the fall, the authority said Tuesday, with earlier reporting saying it could be as soon as October.
Council signed off on the grant Tuesday night, after the failure of an amendment proposed by Council member Brenda Priestly Jackson that would require a fifth of the job to be filled by people who lived in Duval County for at least two years.
The project will feature a 270,000-square-foot hangar as well as more than 100,000 square feet of office and support shop space on the northeast portion of Cecil Airport — and bring with it about 400 jobs.
It’s a deal that JAA CEO Mark VanLoh called “one of the most significant in the JAA’s history.”
The new facility for Boeing, which has been a tenant at Cecil Airport for 21 years, would be located on the northeast portion of the Cecil Airport property that buttresses 103rd Street. The company’s current facility is on the west side of the property.
The new jobs coming with the hangar would more than double the 350-person workforce Boeing now has at Cecil.
The Aviation Authority will build the facility for Boeing and then lease it to the company for 25 years, more than doubling all of the rent that the public agency collects from Cecil tenants.
JAA now collects $8.8 million annually in total rent, with Boeing paying $1.9 million. With the new hangar, the company will pay $8.96 million in total rent during the first year, with rent increasing 2% annually over the life of the 25-year lease.
Getting the deal signed with Boeing was a project that took years of work, VanLoh said earlier, and was based on the defense contractor winning a major government project.
“We knew there was a big project coming – so developing those relationships, saying ‘you know, when you’re ready to expand, you should think Florida,’” the airport CEO said. “We’ve got the second largest Navy facility here (on the East Coast), and all those mechanics, when they retire, they’ve got to work somewhere. You keep those relationships, and when Boeing goes out and wins a big award from the Defense Department, we’ve got to put it here in Jacksonville.”
As this project progresses, the airport focus is now on what other tenants it can bring to the massive site.
All of the existing hangar space at Cecil Field — the area around the runway at the formal naval air station turned industrial park on the Westside — is filled, but there are several hundred acres of green grass where new facilities can be constructed, VanLoh said.
“I think the activity is incredible right now,” he said. “I would hope to have an announcement within the next year on another major project.”
Photo courtesy of JIA Public Relations