This Week in Jacksonville – Business Edition: VyStar pitches solutions to combat financial stress<\/a><\/p>\nDugan joined This Week in Jacksonville Business Edition to discuss how SwiftBuild\u2019s AI infrastructure is supporting the City of Jacksonville\u2019s Express Lane permitting initiative, an online system designed to streamline submissions and feedback.<\/p>\n
From accessibility project to city-scale tool<\/p>\n
Dugan said SwiftBuild began as a University of Florida project after she noticed accessibility barriers affecting a friend\u2019s route to class.<\/p>\n
\u201cPermitting, it comes back to compliance,\u201d she said, describing accessibility as one part of a broader code review process that also touches resilience\u2014like how structures perform in floods, hurricanes, and other disasters.<\/p>\n
Why permitting speed matters for everyone<\/p>\n
Even residents who never file a permit feel the impact, Dugan argued, because delays add costs across the construction chain.<\/p>\n
\u201cRight now, holding costs are insane for developers, which are then passed along to the consumer,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Dugan pointed to an example shared with Hernando County\u2014where one developer estimated losing 132 days and $16.9 million in holding costs due to delays. Reducing that time, she said, can mean meaningful savings for builders, trades, and ultimately families moving into homes.<\/p>\n
Faster reviews\u2014with people still in charge<\/p>\n
Dugan described Jacksonville\u2019s effort as a combination of standardized operating procedures, clearer applicant checklists, and AI tools that can surface code-related comments quickly\u2014while staff members remain the final decision makers.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was a lot of fear of AI and we\u2019re really seeing this as a force multiplier,\u201d Dugan said.<\/p>\n
SwiftBuild says it is also expanding into Texas and California, but Dugan emphasized her company\u2019s focus on helping Florida lead on permitting speed.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe wanna make Florida the fastest state in the U.S.,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 by WJXT News4JAX – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2013 Jacksonville\u2019s building boom is forcing City Hall\u2014and the development community\u2014to rethink a critical step in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":197953,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[7364,116,118,117,7363],"class_list":["post-197952","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-business-edition","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news","tag-this-week-in-jacksonville"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197952","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=197952"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197952\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/197953"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=197952"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=197952"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=197952"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}