Johnson & Johnson has committed more than $1 billion to expand its Vision operations in Jacksonville, Florida, one of the largest healthcare manufacturing investments announced in the region this year. Led by Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Joaquin Duato, the company is scaling up the manufacturing, packaging and distribution capacity behind its ACUVUE brand contact lenses, which already supply roughly 90 percent of the lenses sold across the United States and reach more than 40 million patients worldwide. The expansion touches two sites across the city. At the existing ACUVUE plant on Centurion Parkway in Deerwood Park, new advanced manufacturing and packaging technology will lift output for the company’s contact lens business. Northwest of downtown, near Jacksonville International Airport, Johnson & Johnson Vision Care is preparing to lease close to one million square feet of new distribution space inside Airport Commerce Center, an industrial park being developed by The Suddath Companies. Construction on the new facility is already underway, with the company targeting full operational readiness in 2028, all forming part of its broader $55 billion commitment to American manufacturing, research and technology through early 2029.

Jacksonville’s Industrial Momentum Keeps Building

The announcement lands at a moment when Jacksonville has become one of the busiest manufacturing and logistics corridors in the southeastern United States. City officials project a return of $4.86 for every dollar of public incentive tied to the project, a figure that helps explain why Florida’s First Coast competes so aggressively for large scale industrial investment. Johnson & Johnson is far from the only global manufacturer drawn to the city. A few years earlier, Spanish surfaces producer Cosentino Group chose the same metro area for its own $270 million production plant near the Port of Jacksonville, pointing to similar advantages in available talent and freight access. Suddath, the developer behind Airport Commerce Center, is simultaneously building space for its own NXTPoint Logistics subsidiary on the same site, part of a broader wave of warehouse and supply chain construction stretching from the airport corridor down to the marine terminals. For a city built on shipping, healthcare and logistics, the Johnson & Johnson expansion reads less like an isolated announcement and more like confirmation that Jacksonville’s industrial base keeps compounding, pulling in new capital even as it absorbs it.

Project Fact Sheet

• Project Name: Johnson & Johnson Vision Jacksonville Expansion
• Location: Jacksonville, Florida, United States, spanning the Deerwood Park manufacturing campus and Airport Commerce Center in Northwest Jacksonville
• Project Value: More than $1 billion as announced by Johnson & Johnson, anchored locally by a $550 million private investment of $50 million for construction and $500 million for equipment, recorded in the city incentive agreement
• Client/Owner: Johnson & Johnson Vision Care, a unit of Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ)
• Site Developer: The Suddath Companies, through its Airport Commerce Center LLC entity
• Key Components: A new packaging and distribution building of close to one million square feet at Airport Commerce Center, plus advanced manufacturing and packaging equipment upgrades at the existing ACUVUE contact lens plant on Centurion Parkway
• Procurement Model: Leased occupancy of a developer built distribution facility, paired with direct capital investment in equipment at the company owned campus
• Construction Status: Already underway following site infrastructure works that began in 2025
• Expected Completion: Full operational readiness targeted for 2028
• Employment Impact: Supports the company’s existing 3,500 Jacksonville jobs, with a requirement to sustain at least 1,964 positions through the incentive term and about 10 new roles tied to the distribution facility
• Public Incentives: $12 million in city incentives approved through two Recapture Enhanced Value Grants
• Strategic Impact: Reinforces Jacksonville as the source of about 90 percent of the United States supply of ACUVUE contact lenses and supports Johnson & Johnson’s $6 billion annual economic footprint in Florida

Project Team

• Client/Owner: Johnson & Johnson Vision Care, part of Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ)
• Site Developer: The Suddath Companies, developing Airport Commerce Center
• Civil Engineer: England Thims and Miller Inc, engineer of record for Airport Commerce Center’s site infrastructure
• Site Contractor: Evans General Contractors, contractor for horizontal site works at Airport Commerce Center
• Local Government and Incentive Authority: City of Jacksonville, through its Office of Economic Development and City Council, which approved the project’s incentive package