JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Sitting Jacksonville Mayor Lenny Curry sparked a new question for mayoral candidates Thursday: will they negotiate to keep the Jaguars in the city while the stadium undergoes renovations?
Curry said the hometown team could have to play elsewhere for up to two years while renovating the TIAA Bank Stadium during an interview with 1010XL radio Wednesday. The candidates eyeing to replace him, however, said the time away would not suffice.
“These are going to be tough negotiations, but the @Jaguars playing out of town for two years is a non-starter for me,” Daniel Davis, the Republican candidate, said in a Tweet Thursday afternoon.
“During construction, I expect our team to play in Jacksonville as they have for nearly thirty years,” Donna Deegan, the Democratic candidate, said in a statement. “Terms of a deal will be decided thoughtfully and responsibly with input from all stakeholders, not at the height of a campaign.”
The goal would be to play somewhere else in Jacksonville during the 2025-2026 seasons, Curry said, but no other Jacksonville venue has the same capacity.
The cost of potential upgrades – as well as the time necessary to complete them – is still unknown. The Times-Union sports columnist Gene Frenette reported in October the cost could be between $600 million to $1 billion.
"I really believe it's going to be a major renovation but when it's done, you'll think you're in a brand-new stadium," he said.
At previous forums, Deegan and Davis have clashed over their negotiation tactics and how they best believed they could strike a stadium deal for the city.
Both said they would not increase taxes to offset city cost of stadium renovations, but Deegan said she wanted to bring in a seasoned NFL negotiator to aid the city. Davis, however, said he would handle the negotiations himself.
“So I would much rather have somebody come in here that's used to dealing with the NFL than to turn my fortunes over to the guy that wanted to commit us to Lot J,” Deegan said of Davis, who wrote a Times-Union op-ed in 2020 in support of the development.
“I don't really mind if Donna Deegan doesn't want me to negotiate that deal,” Davis said in his rebuttal. “Frankly, I'm going to win, and I don't want her to negotiate that deal.”