The Duval County School Board could, just maybe, decide to leave its downtown headquarters for new Southside offices by the time new members start their terms in November.
That doesn’t have to happen, but board members have scheduled time at a September 8 workshop to continue discussions started in August about new headquarters sites
and the developers most likely to buy the school district’s longtime Southbank home.No votes have been scheduled on either selling or buying a site.
But in August, board-contracted real estate broker Dan O’Berski briefly mentioned “anticipated October board approval” for an agreement to sell the Southbank site to one of two developers, starting a clock on a period of about 120 days for due diligence and building inspections
before finalizing a sale.
For choosing a new headquarters, “the hope would be somewhere in proximity to that 120 days, during that 120 days, we'd really lock in and have approval on our relocation,” O’Berski, an owner of Trinity Commercial Group, said then.
O’Berski and district officials focused on offers from the Bainbridge Companies in Palm Beach County and the Jacksonville-based Ashco Centers, whose $15.6 million offer was $100,000 more than Bainbridge. Bainbridge's offer allows 18 months for moving from the date of sale while Ashco allows the district to give 180 days' notice on moving inside a three-year period.
A summary of the two offers estimated a 75% chance of successfully closing the sale at the terms set out in August, describing both companies as experienced developers with the resources to honor their agreements.
The district signed deals in November 2025 to sell its headquarters at 1701 Prudential Drive and move to Baymeadows, but buyer Chase Properties canceled the agreement in February, saying it had discovered “a significant Community Development District (CDD) encumbrance that was not disclosed” before the agreement was reached.
Chase had offered $17.2 million for the Southbank site, the school district’s headquarters for about 45 years.
O’Berski told the board Bainbridge is a top-tier apartment developer expected to build 350 units in buildings standing four to six stories tall with a possible parking garage and some retail.
That would represent “a minimum investment somewhere in the area of $100 million,” O’Berski said.
He said Ashco, which also pursued a deal with the school district a year ago, plans a more mixed-use development that could include two towers up to 30 stories tall and a combination of residential, retail and hotel space.
Ashco’s plan “appeals to the image and vision the city has spoken to in the past with true mixed use,” said the summary from the August workshop, which said either deal would meaningfully help the city’s tax base.
If a sale goes through this time, the school district’s next headquarters could be a choice between the Baymeadows office building the board picked a year ago and refurbished buildings in the Midtown Centre office park off Beach Boulevard where the district’s Schultz Center teacher training site is located.
The Baymeadows property that Dream Finders Homes owns at 8928 Prominence Parkway is still for sale for $13.65 million. Two buildings at Midtown Centre could be bought for about $6.8 million but would need a combined $9.5 million in renovations to properly accommodate 400 district employees, the number at the Southbank offices, a summary prepared for board members said.
The district has other employees in scattered buildings across the county. O'Berski said two additional Midtown buildings could also be bought and renovated as a campus for district offices but that could raise the total cost at Midtown as high as $34.3 million. Property that district employees would leave if that happened might be sold for as much as $10 million to defray some costs, the board was told.
Outlining options for the new headquarters, O'Berski also told the board about possibilities at the Jacksonville Transportation Authority's new LaVilla office development and in a remade part of Regency Square mall, but board members seemed most interested in the two Southside options.
Vice Chair April Carney said experience in traffic near Regency led her to think bringing hundreds of district employees there would create real challenges while O'Berski conceded the cost of the space needed in LaVilla (he estimated $40-45 million) would make it unfeasible.
Westside member Reginald Blount said the Baymeadows building, which O'Berski said could hold up to 1,000 people, is a good property in a bad spot to be accessible to people countywide.
"Baymeadows, as far as my constituency is concerned, is a synonym for Beaches. A long way," he said, while the Midtown offices around the Schultz Center could be "a good option. It gets everything in one place." Midtown, on Boulevard Center Drive, is about three miles from the Southbank while the Baymeadows site is about nine miles.
The Baymeadows building doesn't have an auditorium like the board uses for its meetings. District officials plan to make a part of the Schultz Center the board's permanent meeting chamber even if the board buys the Baymeadows site, Superintendent Christopher Bernier said.
This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Duval School Board again mulls selling downtown HQ. What's new?
