Featured image credit: Jaguars
Jacksonville City Council has voted 14-1 to approve an agreement with the city’s Jaguars American football team on a $1.4bn (£1.1bn/€1.3bn) renovation of EverBank Stadium.
The franchise now just needs approval from 24 of the National Football League’s 32 owners at the organisation’s next meetings in Atlanta in October.
If it is accepted, construction is due to begin following the conclusion of the 2025 season and aimed for completion before the 2028 campaign starts.
“This is a historic day for our city,” said Jacksonville Mayor Donna Deegan.
“As I said to the Council, this is what we can do when we all row together and we focus on a goal together.
“Monumental. I think it’s generational progress.”
The Jaguars and the City have agreed to each contribute $625m to the renovation, but the latter has also stated it will pay $150m over the next two seasons on maintenance and repairs to prepare the stadium for construction.
The agreement also states that Jaguars owner Shahid Khan is responsible for cost overruns of the renovation as well as 80.4% of matchday expenses.
A 30-year lease is included that is set to begin once the stadium reopens and a non-relocation agreement is also in place.
This has ended relocation rumours that have surrounded the Jacksonville franchise. The team started the process of securing a new or renovated stadium in 2016.
“The reason we started on it so early is that we studied those cities that had problems with their teams,” said Jaguars president Lamping, as reported by ESPN.
“Unfortunately there have been cities that have lost their NFL teams and they generally all have the same thing in common. It’s a smaller market. The team doesn’t have a lease tying them to the city and they have an unresolved stadium problem. And Shad’s commitment from the very beginning was to do everything that we could to ensure that doesn’t happen to Jacksonville.”
The renovated stadium is planned to have a 63,000-capacity for Jaguars games, but seating could be expanded to more than 70,000 to accommodate the annual Florida Gators versus Georgia Bulldogs college football game.
It is planned for the Jaguars to continue to play in EverBank Stadium with a reduced capacity in 2026 and then play the 2027 season in a different venue while renovations take place.
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