UNF Poll: Most Jacksonville Voters Oppose Proposed Lot J Deal

Hear the story airing on WJCT News 89.9

As a proposed $457 million development next to TIAA Bank Field that includes more than $230 million in city investments goes before City Council Thursday, a new poll out the same day finds a majority of Jacksonville voters oppose it.

When asked whether they support or oppose the city of Jacksonville’s spending $233 million to fund the project, 54% of respondents said they strongly or somewhat oppose it, with 43% supporting it strongly or somewhat, according to the University of North Florida Public Opinion Research Lab’s poll.

“I think part of this problem is the fact that there hasn’t been a great greatly managed PR campaign for it. It feels a little bit kind of forced and rushed and I think a lot of folks aren’t really up to speed on all the details, even though people on the inside have been working on this for close to two years, people on the outside really just got exposed to this a couple of weeks ago,” said Mike Binder on First Coast Connect with Melissa Ross Thursday. Binder heads UNF’s Public Opinion Research Lab.

Respondents were also asked whether they support or oppose the city’s splitting the cost of major improvements to TIAA Bank Field with the Jaguars, assuming it could cost the city up to $250 million. A majority, 62%, were opposed to this idea, with 37% supporting the concept.

A greater majority opposed the idea of building a new stadium at a theoretical cost of $700 million, at 77%, while 21% of respondents supported splitting the costs of a new stadium.

When asked about the importance of Jacksonville’s having an NFL franchise, 33% said it is very important, 48% indicated some level of importance (moderately or slightly), and 20% said it was not important at all.

The poll also asked a range of other questions, including approval of Mayor Lenny Curry – whose team negotiated the proposed Lot J deal – and approval of City Council.

UNF said the poll’s margin of error is +/- 3.9% with 644 registered voters taking part in the survey. The full poll and its methodology is at the bottom of this story.

The full First Coast Connect with Melissa Ross interview with Binder will be posted Thursday afternoon and encore Thursday night at 8 on WJCT News 89.9.

Poll Findings

Poll Methodology

The Jax Speaks December poll was conducted and sponsored by the Public Opinion Research Lab at the University of North Florida from November 30 through December 2, 2020.

The survey was administered via email through Qualtrics, an online survey platform. The sample frame was comprised of 644 registered voters in Duval County, 18 years of age or older.

The email addresses used for this survey were sourced from the Florida’s Division of Elections October 2020 update and selected through the use of probability sampling among registered voters in the Florida voter file. The margin of sampling error for this survey is +/- 3.9 percentage points.

Data were weighted by partisan registration, age, race, sex, education and city council district. Education weights were created from the Census’ 2019 American Community Survey (ACS) estimate for the percent of college-educated individuals in Duval County. Partisan registration, sex, race, geographic and age weights were created from the October update of the Florida voter file to match the registered voters in Duval County.

There were no statistical adjustments made due to design effects. This study had a 2.2% response rate. This survey was directed by Michael Binder, UNF associate professor of political science.

Bill Bortzfield can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter at @BortzInJax.