JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Jacksonville City Council has signed off on changes to Shad Khan's Shipyard's development, including more taxpayer dollars going to the project.
Due to inflation and supply chain issues Shad Khan's Iguana Investments says costs have gone up and the city's portion will increase by $130 million or about 13 percent.
Jacksonville City Councilmember Al Ferraro voted in favor of the bill. He says the Shipyards will activate Jacksonville's waterfront and bring life to Downtown Jacksonville.
However, Ferraro said he also wanted assurances from the developer that the highlight of the project, A Four Seasons hotel, would indeed be coming to the development.
"We said, hey look is this a Four Seasons or is it something else. They committed that it would be The Four Seasons the reason that they put equivalent that was explained to us is that if the Four Seasons chain changed their name to something else it was still going to be the same type of high-end hotel under a different management." Ferraro said.
As an additional guarantee, the deal says the city can clawback it's $26 million completion grant if the hotel is not a Four Seasons or is equivalent.
City council also unanimously passed close to $700,000 in "emergency funding" for the Jaguars playoff game against the Chargers.
The money is coming out of the city's general fund and is being used for police, fire, rescue, utilities and other maintenance and repair.
Ferraro said the city didn't anticipate hosting a home playoff game and didn't allot for the money in its budget.
He said allotting for money in the future was discussed.
"It depends on what you think our team is going to do and what our costs are going to be it looks like they're going to be doing well and who knows what the future will be here for our city." Ferraro said.
