Jacksonville City Council to vote on Winn-Dixie incentives that keep Harveys store

The company reversed its decision to close the West 48th Street store, which residents said would create a food desert.

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — An incentive agreement for The Winn-Dixie Company is back on track for a May 12 vote by Jacksonville City Council after the company agreed to reverse course on closing a Harveys Supermarket on West 48th Street that instead would stay open at least three more years.

The council’s Finance Committee deferred a vote last week on the economic development agreement geared toward keeping The Winn-Dixie Company’s headquarters in Jacksonville after residents said the closure of the Harveys store would create a food desert for residents who live in that area.

The deferral spurred a new round of negotiations with Winn-Dixie. City Council President Kevin Carrico said he plans to discharge the revised legislation for a vote by the full council at its May 12 meeting.

Carrico said JAX Chamber Daniel Davis told him about Winn-Dixie’s agreement to keep the store open at 201 W. 48th St. for three years as part of the proposed economic incentive package.

City Council member Nick Howland said Winn-Dixie would give City Council an update 18 months before the lease for 48th Street store ends in 2029 about the company’s plans for the store.

The agreement does not contain a guarantee the store will be open after the current lease expires. Winn-Dixie officials have said from a business standpoint, the store has had a “reasonably strong performance” and a key issue is being able to negotiate a lease rate that makes financial sense in the competitive supermarket industry.

Winn-Dixie would use “commercially reasonable efforts” to get an extension of the lease for the West 48th Street store, an attorney representing the company said during a meeting convened by City Council member Ju’Coby Pittman on May 8.

“Our lease expires in 2029 so so we’re limited by the contract we have in place and all we can do is put forth our best efforts to extend it,” Josh Ehrenfeld told council members.

He said in addition to working “as much as possible” with the shopping center owner, the company also could look for a new location in that area or try to find a a new tenant that would put a grocery store in the space occupied now by Harveys.

Ehrenfeld said Winn-Dixie has begun to restock the store whose shelves and coolers had been largely emptied by a clearance sale in advance of the planned closing.

“So we’re practically turning on a dime to reverse what we’ve done,” he told council members on May 8.

Howland said he had talks with Winn-Dixie’s leadership team by phone on May 8 and in person on May 9 about the Harveys store and the proposed incentives for the headquarters retention and expansion.

“I’m grateful for my council partners in this effort — in particular Will Lahnen for keeping a sharp focus on protecting taxpayers and most notably Ju’Coby Pittman for fiercely advocating for the neighborhood and its residents,” Howland said. “I’m also grateful for the community whose comments have been heard and who made the bill better, and to Winn-Dixie’s leadership team.”

Howland said Winn-Dixie told employees who previously got notice of their jobs ending at that store that it won’t close if the economic incentives get council approval.

He said the City Council meeting on May 12 will have a public hearing on the economic development agreement for residents to speak about it.

Incentives aimed at keeping Winn-Dixie headquarters

The proposed incentives for The Winn-Dixie Company are a $6.5 million headquarters retention grant paid out over five years and city property tax rebates worth up to $5.5 million over 20 years.

Winn-Dixie would keep 500 existing jobs at its Edgewood Court headquarters and add 200 jobs at that campus by the end of 2031. The retained and new jobs would have an average salary of at least $100,000.

Winn-Dixie would spend at least $65 million on improvements at the headquarters and its stores in Jacksonville. The breakdown is anticipated to be $17 million at the headquarters and $48 million at its grocery stores.

The proposed agreement originally covered 11 stores operated in Jacksonville under the Winn-Dixie banner plus two Harveys being converted to Winn-Dixie stores on Moncrief Road and University Boulevard West.

The company announced in March it would be closing its two other Harveys stores in Jacksonville on Arlington Road in Arlington and on West 48th Street across from the Andrew Jackson High School sports complex off Main Street.

After residents said closing the West 48th Street store would create another food desert in a part of town that already has too many of them, Pittman and several other council members said they couldn’t reconcile providing taxpayer incentives to Winn-Dixie for its headquarters while the company also closed the store.

Winn-Dixie has noted its other stores in Jacksonville include one on Norwood Avenue in Gateway Town Center less than a mile from the Harveys at West 48th Street.

The economic development agreement says that if Winn-Dixie were to close that store in Gateway Town Center, the company would have to open a new store in the same area within 18 months.

That provision aimed at guarding against food deserts in economically distressed areas would also apply to stores at three other locations in the College Park shopping center off University Boulevard near Arlington Expressway, Normandy Marketplace at 5207 Normandy Blvd., and Brown Plaza at 5250 Moncrief Road.

This story was originally published by our news partners at the Florida Times-Union