A tenant is coming to Southside that pledges to hire 300 employees by year-end 2021.
WJCT News partner the Jacksonville Daily Record reports that SoFi, the California-based personal loan products company that matches the 300-job Project Quail, executed a lease this week to sublease in the Town Center Two building at 5335 Gate Parkway.
SoFi will lease the 37,000-square-foot fifth floor of the six-story building, which is across Butler Boulevard from St. Johns Town Center.
SoFi has not responded to requests for comment.
“This is a great coup for Jacksonville as they looked at several other cities and obviously it’s a good win for the building as we competed against several other options in the area,” said a statement Thursday from Newmark Phoenix Realty Group, the company representing the sublease space.
The building was developed for lease to Jacksonville-based Web.com. The statement said Web.com downsized to the first three floors and made the top three available for sublease.
The SoFi floor is the first to be subleased.
SoFi will share signage on the building with Web.com, Newmark Phoenix Realty said.
Web.com said in 2017 it would take the entire building for its 1,000 Jacksonville employees. It now says it only needs half of the building.
“It’s a significant win,” Newmark Phoenix Realty Group said of SoFi. “It’s several hundred jobs and a nice growing IT company right here in Jacksonville.”
Newmark Phoenix Realty Group referred to SoFi as Project Quail.
In a 19-0 vote, City Council members adopted Resolution 2019-0491-A on Tuesday to support tax incentives and authorize an economic development agreement with Project Quail, whose identity was not disclosed in the legislation or the agreement.
Mayor Lenny Curry signed the legislation.
SoFi matches the description of Project Quail, “an international web-based financial services company” that offers “various personal loan products,” according to a city legislative fact sheet.
An expanded version of this story that includes a look at the salaries and the incentives that are outlined in Project Quail is at JaxDailyRecord.com.
