TMCnet News
The Florida Times-Union, Jacksonville, Karen Brune Mathis column(Florida Times-Union, The (Jacksonville) (KRT) Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) May 10--Despite its abrupt closing, America Online was a road well taken in Jacksonville. It was a winding, sometimes bumpy road, but worth it. The 820 people who lost their jobs Tuesday might not agree, but let me explain. Here's how it unfolded. The Virginia-based company, recently renamed AOL LLC, brought a call center to town in June 1995. It was an exciting company at an exciting time. AOL, which quickly grew to become the nation's largest provider of computer online services, didn't demand economic incentives and it chose to lease a vacant distribution center in North Jacksonville's Imeson International Industrial Park to employ people it would train for the technical and call-center jobs. It fulfilled city economic targets by offering those jobs while renovating aging office space in an area that city leaders were trying to boost, and, unlike some other large employers moving to town, did so without taxpayer money. Before long, some AOL employees showed up driving shiny new cars and trucks, thanks to stock options that the center's general manager said created millionaires. AOL's path changed within four years. With about 1,500 employees, it was operating on a seven-year lease at Imeson, but wanted its own state-of-the-art building and asked for city help to move. At the time, all growth roads were leading to heavily traveled Southside, but that posed problems. North Jacksonville council members opposed using city incentives to move jobs from their area to Southside, and Mayor John Delaney had already halted the use of incentives south and east of the river, with some exceptions. Meanwhile, AOL claimed that other cities were courting the center. Council members generally agreed that it would be better to keep AOL in Southside rather than lose it entirely, and the city found a way to assist AOL without breaking its incentives ban. AOL chose a site at the University of North Florida First Coast Technology Park, and the park's authority asked the state to pay for a $2 million road that turned out to benefit AOL, although it was requested in the name of another company that was opening there. It worked, and Times-Union records show that AOL paid $2.73 million in February 2001 for about 18 acres along Kernan Boulevard, north of Butler Boulevard. It bought the land from the research authority, which was a good deal for AOL and a key move in sparking potential development at the tech park. AOL built a 124,500-square-foot center at a cost of $16 million and moved there in June 2002. Last year alone, AOL paid $461,230 in real estate and tangible property taxes. Its real estate was assessed at almost $16.9 million and its tangible property at almost $8.5 million. AOL was a good deal for Jacksonville. It bought land, developed a center and paid taxes. It provided a payroll to more than 1,700 employees near its peak. Not only that, it trained a lot of people for call center and customer service jobs. Those jobs aren't always high paying, but there seems to be an ongoing demand for employees. I'm hoping the employees can find comparable positions. Rumors circulated for the past few years that AOL would close the center because of market changes, so the shutdown was not unexpected. That doesn't lessen the pain. But AOL was good for Jacksonville. It grew and expanded without demanding city taxpayer dollars. And the road is still there. |