Regional Expansion in First Coast Energy’s Game Plan
By Greg Lindenberg on Sep. 26, 2016JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- The groundbreaking of a new amphitheater at EverBank Field, the home of the Jacksonville Jaguars football team, was also an opportunity for First Coast Energy LLP to crow about its new fast-casual convenience-store cafe concept.
First Coast Energy is sponsoring the amphitheater and covered flex field at EverBank Field. In a Q&A with the Jacksonville Daily Record (excerpted below), Daily’s president and CEO Aubrey Edge offered details about the project and the convenience-store chain.
Daily’s multiyear partnership with the Jaguars and City of Jacksonville includes the naming rights sponsorship for both the amphitheater and covered flex field, which will be called Daily's Place.
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The construction of Daily’s Place represents a $90 million investment in EverBank Field that the City of Jacksonville and the Jaguars announced in January. They expect the facility to be completed in May 2017. Jaguars owner Shad Khan and Jacksonville Mayor Lenny Curry joined Edge of Daily's in mid-August to break ground on the facility, (above L-R: Edge, Khan and Curry).
“I am very excited to introduce Daily’s Place, a multiuse complex that will provide Jaguars fans with the best game-day experience and offer our city the finest in entertainment in a state-of-the-art amphitheater,” said Edge. “We couldn’t be more enthusiastic about expanding our longstanding relationship with the Jaguars. Daily’s is proud to call Jacksonville home.’”
Daily’s Place will house the new 5,500-person capacity amphitheater and 94,000-square foot covered flex field, as well as a back-of-house artist building. The superstructure will reside underneath a roof that covers both venues. Fabric and steel make up more than 80% of the design materials for the project. Polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) fabric will be suspended from a series of steel trusses, each spanning 430 feet from the south end zone of the stadium to the southern facade of the flex field.
Daily’s Place will be fully integrated into EverBank Field, creating a cohesive environment that will allow events and festivals to use the entire stadium premises. At the ground level, the new south-end-zone field supertunnel will lead to a new central bar connected to the amphitheater entrance. The existing Bud Light Party Zone and Terrace Suite areas will now be linked to the amphitheater’s elevated seating decks via access bridges at each level.
Click here to view Daily's Place official video renderings.
Q: What sparked the partnership with the Jaguars?
Edge: [The Jaguars] did a lot of market research in trying to determine who gives great customer service in Jacksonville, and the company they kept hearing about was Daily’s. They called me, and one thing leads to another and we became a sponsor.
More importantly, we put the first convenience store inside an NFL stadium (in 2013) and we’re very proud of that.
Q: How did the Daily’s and the Daily’s Dash fast-casual cafe concept come about?
Edge: We knew that we wanted to do something special in the convenience-store industry, and we wanted to develop our own prototype for a convenience store.
In 2004, we introduced Daily’s and part of what we had as our underlying premise was to always default to what the customer wants and to have an abiding commitment to quality. We started doing things that were a little different, a little special from what other people were doing at the time.
We introduced high-end wines before some others were doing it in the marketplace. We did things like a gluten-free section before it became very popular to do that.
We’ve always tried to look and see what would appeal to our customers and try to introduce those products before they asked for them, so that we’re constantly trying to deliver a level of customer service and meeting a level of expectation that our customers have come to expect from us.
Q: Daily’s has been expanding and growing. Can you talk about your plans?
Edge: We’re in a pretty high growth mode right now. Not only are we building sites in Jacksonville—we have one under construction now, we have two more planned immediately following that—but we’re also bringing the Daily’s brand into South Florida, where we have large a portfolio of sites in Broward and Palm Beach counties.
Q: Do you see a nationwide expansion?
Edge: I’m not sure how far we’ll go, but I will tell you that we are looking to expand within the Southeast.
Click here to read the full Daily Record Q&A.