The facility will have two full-size grass practice fields and one indoor field, along with around 2,300 shaded bleacher seats, concession areas and a team store. (Rendering courtesy of Jacksonville Jaguars)
A year after construction began, work is well under way on Miller Electric Center, the new sports performance center for the Jacksonville Jaguars of the NFL.
The new training facility is located at 1270 E. Beaver St., next to TIAA Bank Field, where the team plays its home games. In addition, the center is named for Jacksonville, Fla.-based Miller Electric Company as part of a 10-year naming rights agreement with the Jags.
The team expects to begin using the facility this summer in time for Jaguars fans to watch open 2023 training camp practices in late July from the new grandstands, a Jags spokesperson said.
Three Entities Share a Commitment to Facility
The partnership between Miller Electric and the Jags is one that makes sense. The local team and local company made their shared commitment to the facility last June, along with the city.
"We all want to move downtown Jacksonville forward," said Jags' owner Shad Khan when announcing the partnership between his team and Miller Electric. "Today's announcement is proof that that's happening."
The new sports performance center will be the Jags' headquarters for football operations, and is set to open before the 2023 season.
The $120 million Miller Electric Center — a public-private partnership between the Jaguars and the city of Jacksonville — will allow the Jags to move its entire football operations out of TIAA Bank Field to the ultramodern 127,087-sq.-ft. facility that will include locker rooms, training and medical facilities, office space and a college draft room.
In addition, the facility will have two full-size grass practice fields and one indoor field, along with around 2,300 shaded bleacher seats, concession areas and a team store.
The football operations building itself will be a two-level structure that has locker, meeting, training and weight rooms.
Miller Electric Has Worked With Jags Since 1993
After the building of the facility itself, Jaguars President Mark Lamping called finding a local naming rights partner a top priority.
"We couldn't be more pleased," Lamping said of Miller Electric, a national company headquartered in Jacksonville since its founding in 1928, and which currently has more than 3,000 employees. "Having local companies involved in the construction was a priority for us from the beginning. Every opportunity we had was to keep the work local so that local trades had the [chance] to benefit from the construction.
"No one has deeper roots here in Jacksonville than Miller Electric," he added. "The fact that they believe in this project and believe in downtown speaks volumes."
Miller has contributed to every major construction effort since the team was announced as the NFL's 29th franchise in 1993 — projects that include the original stadium construction that same year, the Jaguars' locker-room renovation in 2012, the stadium's north-deck expansion two years later, and the 2017 Daily's Place construction.
Miller Electric CEO Henry Brown last summer recalled attending the Jags' first preseason home game in franchise history in 1995 and thinking, "Wow, our city has made it. It's clear we have moved to the next level."
Khan noted that Miller Electric "has been doing business in Jacksonville for nearly a century. When a company with roots this deep agrees to a long-term commitment to the Jaguars and the future of downtown, that means that downtown Jacksonville is moving forward."
Facility Built for a Young Team On the Rise
Jaguars Head Coach Doug Pederson thanked Miller Electric, and all involved for "what's going to be a state-of-the-art facility."
"We're looking forward to it as coaches next summer [when the keys are handed] over to us so we can get in and get to work," Pederson said. "It just goes to show the partnership the Jaguars and the city of Jacksonville have."
Behind second-year quarterback Trevor Lawrence, the Jaguars finished the 2022 season with a 9-8 regular season record, but reached the NFL playoffs where the team stunned the Los Angeles Chargers 31-30 after falling behind 27-0, marking the third-largest comeback in NFL history. The team's season ended the next week when it lost to the eventual AFC Champion Kansas City Chiefs.
But with the team's young talent and the addition of the sparkling new Miller Electric Center, the Jags are already looking ahead to a bright future in 2023.
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