JACKSONVILLE, FLA. — The NFL’s Jacksonville Jaguars have opened the Miller Electric Center, a $120 million practice facility in downtown Jacksonville. The 125,000-square-foot facility comprises an indoor practice field, offices, locker rooms, a draft room, shaded viewing area, concessions, team retail store and medical facilities.
The Miller Electric Center is a public-private partnership between the Jaguars and the City of Jacksonville. The city also owns TIAA Bank Field, the Jaguars’ home stadium that is in the planning stages for a roughly $1 billion overhaul. The city and Jaguars owner Shad Khan would share the expense if they can reach an agreement on the stadium and accompanying extension of the team’s lease, according to The Florida Times-Union.
The Jaguars organization plans to begin its training camp at the new practice facility Wednesday, July 26. The team hosted a ribbon-cutting ceremony for Miller Electric Center yesterday that featured Khan, along with newly inaugurated Jacksonville Mayor Donna Deegan, Jaguars president Mark Lamping and Jaguars head coach Doug Pederson, among others.
Stadium of the Future
In June, the Jaguars unveiled conceptual designs for its “Stadium of the Future,” a design project nearly three years in the making intended to spark a transformation of the city’s downtown. The Jaguars and the city completed an engineering assessment of TIAA Bank Field and concluded that it was possible to solve stadium challenges via a renovation versus new construction.
HOK’s sports, recreation and entertainment practice was selected as the architect. The project team also includes Impact Development and Management as the owner’s representative, and AECOM Hunt and Barton Malow, which are serving in the role of preconstruction manager.
The new stadium design is said to meet the evolving needs of all stadium stakeholders, including the Jaguars, the annual Florida-Georgia football game, the TaxSlayer.com Gator Bowl, international sporting events, major music festivals/tours and the thousands of fans and guests.
The design draws inspiration from Jacksonville’s landscapes — biking and walking trails, parklands, greenways, beaches and marshes. Fans will enter through “a subtropical Floridian park,” leading them to the main concourse, which will be elevated 30 feet above the ground and offer views of downtown Jacksonville and the St. Johns River.
The seating bowl flexibility will provide for a base capacity of 62,000 with expansion capabilities up to 71,500 for a college football game and more for a concert. The open-air venue will feature a large shade canopy that reduces heat retention by more than 70 percent, lowers temperatures 10 to 15 degrees and protects fans from the weather.
The new design addresses fan requests, including large increases in both the main concourse and upper concourse surface areas, 13 new elevators, 32 new escalators, 220 new food and beverage points of sale and 14 new restrooms.
Founded in 1993, the Jaguars won the AFC South division championship in 2017 and 2022.
TIAA Bank is in the process of becoming EverBank. Therefore, TIAA Bank Field will be renamed EverBank Stadium prior to the Jaguars’ first home game this season on Sept. 17.
— Kristin Harlow