JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – As the city is getting ready to negotiate plans to spend $2 billion on upgrading the football stadium and surrounding areas of the sports complex downtown, Mayor Donna Deegan offered some insight Thursday during her first of 14 community conversations.
Deegan’s comments had many people talking Friday about the city’s negotiations with the Jaguars on how much public money will be spent on the renovations.
“Eighty percent of the people in Jacksonville say they don’t want to spend public money on the stadium, and 80% of the people in Jacksonville say they don’t want to lose the Jaguars,” Deegan said. “And those two things are mutually exclusive, guys. They are. So we will come up with a deal that is the best deal we can come up with for the taxpayers.”
News4JAX spoke with the Mayor’s Office on Friday, which said Deegan was speaking off the cuff during the community meeting about numbers that she remembered.
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They referred us to a UNF poll in August of 2022 that found 80% of respondents would not want taxpayer money to go toward a new stadium.
In February of 2023, after the Jaguars made an unexpected playoff run, another UNF poll found that 60% were in opposition to spending taxpayer money for renovations on the current stadium.
The negotiations on the stadium deal will begin later this month. The mayor is still putting together a negotiating team, but in the past, Deegan has said she will focus on three areas:
- A financial team made up of her top staff
- A team of city lawyers to look over the deal
- Outside negotiators who know how to deal with the NFL
The Jaguars have said they want to know what direction this is going in by the end of October and hope to have a signed deal by mid-2024.
The city council is also ready to tackle the plan. Members will have to give final approval once the mayor and Jags iron out an agreement. The council has hired its own NFL expert to look over the lease plan before they take a final vote to accept or reject.
News4JAX reached out to the Jaguars for comment on what the mayor said Thursday. They have not responded.
But we really want to know what you, the taxpayer, think about what the mayor had to say. Let us know in the form below what you think of the mayor’s statement and the city’s plans for stadium negotiations: