Jacksonville Mayor Donna Deegan says negotiators representing the city and the Jacksonville Jaguars have met just twice regarding a massive renovation of EverBank Stadium, but she’s hopeful their next session will begin the process of drawing up details for a potential agreement.
“The third meeting will happen sometime before Thanksgiving and hopefully start to set a framework for the agreement,” Deegan told Jim Piggott of News4Jax this week. “We’re still months away from this, Jim. Hopefully, after the next meeting we’ll start to get a framework and, hopefully by early spring, we’ll be having a better idea of what we’ve got.”
Earlier this year, the Jaguars laid out their vision for a huge project to reconstruct their home stadium with an expected price tag of about $2 billion. The team also said that it planned to ask the City of Jacksonville to pick up half that bill.
While Deegan has acknowledged that many voters aren’t interested in public money being used to fund the project, she’s also said that Jacksonville doesn’t have much of a choice if the city doesn’t want to lose the Jaguars.
Jaguars president Mark Lamping said in the summer that the team would ideally have a stadium deal in place next spring to present at league meetings. There are meetings scheduled for March 24-27 in Orlando, Fla. and May 20-22 in Nashville, Tenn.
