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Northwest Florida Roundup
Money in the bank: Navy Federal keeps growing
Navy Federal enters the second phase of its expansion.
Weeks after breaking ground on a $200-million, 400,000-sq.- ft. Expansion in Pensacola, Navy Federal CEO Cutler Dawson announced even bigger plans.
The Virginia-based credit union, which boasts assets of $62.5 billion, approved a $350-million second phase of the expansion and the creation of 5,000 more jobs.
"Pensacola is a great place to grow your business and a wellspring of talented people to employ," said Dawson in making the announcement.
Dawson, a retired Navy vice admiral, says construction of phase two likely will overlap with phase one construction, scheduled for completion in mid-2016.
Together, the credit union's two expansions will push the company's Pensacola workforce — now 3,850 — to just below 10,000 and its annual payroll in the range of $450 million.
Dawson says the credit union's board is also considering a third expansion.
When fully built out on the sprawling 300-acre campus in Beulah, an unincorporated community about eight miles west of Pensacola, Navy Federal's investment will exceed $1 billion.
"Navy Federal's commitment of 5,000 new jobs and $350 million in capital improvements in its phase two expansion is huge by any standard," says Scott Luth, CEO of the newly formed Pensacola- based Community Economic Development Association. "Their average annual salary and benefits for these jobs is $49,000."
The company will get state and local cash and tax abatement incentives totaling some $30 million.
