Jacksonville approves 800 job deal that means more than $53 million in incentives

Jacksonville, FL — 800 jobs are on track to come to Jacksonville in the next two years.

The City Council has approved an Economic Development Agreement known as "Project Volt". The City has still not confirmed what company is behind "Project Volt", but the EDA describes them as a "leading manufacturer of solar panels and modules" that deals with commercial and residential customer needs worldwide. The Agreement would establish the company's first production facility in the US.

In exchange for the jobs and $410 million investment in two facilities in Jacksonville, the company will get some large incentives.

The Agreement approved by the City Council binds the City and State for an initial $53 million, with some of those dollars being recurring and some of the other sums unspecified- meaning the total will climb with time. There were actually some changes in the incentives from what was initially filed under the Agreement to what was passed Tuesday night.

The City’s share is capped at $24.2 million, between a Qualified Targeted Industry Tax Refund that pays out per job, and a Recaptured Enhanced Value Grant that represents the increase in property taxes from the company’s operation. This is actually $400,000 lower than what was initially offered, with the REV Grant payment going down. The State is in for $29.3 million, plus the recurring and unspecified funds in the EDA. The State’s incentives come from several sources, including a share of the QTI refund, a High Impact Performance Inventive grant based on performance, an Urban Tax Credit per employee at one of the facilities, a Veterans Florida Business Training Grant for each veteran employee trained, a Capital Investment Tax Credit to offset the company’s state corporate income tax liability, a Florida Flex Training grant per new job created, and an exemption of sales and use tax dealing with the purchase of their new manufacturing machinery and equipment. One change here is that, initially, the Project Summary said the State would provide FFT grants for up to 800 jobs, but that has been bumped to 1,000 jobs now.

The initial agreement also said Jacksonville would be the company’s national headquarters in the US, but the revised Project Summary no longer says that. The average wage has also changed from $46,346 to $45,562 in the revised agreement.

Project Volt expects to have an indirect positive impact on the economy as well, saying they will be moving a large volume through import and export at JAXPORT.

Tuesday night’s Council vote was a unanimous 19-0, with no debate taking place.