More than 800 Raymond James employees will occupy new Memphis locations once moves are completed, the financial services company told The Daily Memphian on Thursday.

The statement from the Tampa, Florida-based company partially confirms what unofficial sources and court documents have suggested for months: That Raymond James intends to make a big move within Memphis.

Sources and court records this year have suggested Raymond James plans to vacate Downtown’s namesake, 21-story Raymond James Tower, moving those workers 12 miles east to the suburban Memphis business park called Ridgeway Center.

But the company has not commented on news stories that have cited unnamed sources and documents in a lawsuit between Raymond James and its landlord at the 50 N. Front tower.

The Daily Memphian this week asked a Raymond James media spokeswoman how many employees work at Raymond James offices spread across Memphis. The workforce now is divided at least among the tower at 50 N. Front, the six-story 1100 Ridgeway Loop building in Ridgeway Center, and the Crescent Center at Poplar and Ridgeway.

“While we can’t confirm employee numbers for specific locations at this time,” Raymond James spokeswoman Sarah Daly responded by email, “we can confirm that more than 800 employees will be occupying the new locations upon completion of the move.”

Her response is the company’s first public acknowledgement that it plans to move within Memphis.

Raymond James is expected to consolidate most if not all its employees in two Ridgeway Center buildings.

One – 1100 Ridgeway Loop – already has the “Raymond James” name in big, shiny letters on the building. The company now occupies two of six floors there. The other four floors were recently vacated by Sedgwick Claims Management, which moved to the Southwind office park.

Raymond James also is expected to eventually fill the three-story building at 889 Ridge Lake. ServiceMaster will continue vacating that building as part of its move to Downtown.

The brick-and-glass building is just north of the round Hilton Hotel tower, and like 1100 Ridgeway Loop is surrounded on all sides by leafy parking lots. The 889 Building overlooks Interstate 240.

Boyle Investment Co., which developed the 204-acre Ridgeway Center decades ago, still owns about half the buildings in the office park, including the ones at 889 Ridge Lake and 1100 Ridgeway Loop.

It’s unknown if Raymond James will apply for tax incentives with the Economic Development Growth Engine (EDGE) board.

Downtown supporters could see the move as a blow to Downtown’s recent momentum in drawing companies like ServiceMaster, Indigo Ag, FedEx Logistics and Wunderlich Securities (now B. Riley Wealth Management).

But Raymond James could possibly make two arguments if it seeks public incentives for a move within Memphis.

The company might say that without incentives it would consider moving its Memphis operations to another city.

And Raymond James could say that in return for incentives it will add more jobs to its Memphis workforce.

However, Daly, the company spokeswoman, said Thursday that Raymond James' workforce in Memphis now totals over 800 people, the same number she said would be moved to new locations in the city. 

 While it won’t be good for Downtown if Raymond James moves to the suburbs, Downtown still has the strong “cool factor” that some companies seek to help their recruiting, Pat Gamble said. He is senior vice president for CBRE and specializes in corporate and brokerage services.

“I don’t think it necessarily stops the momentum,” said Gamble, who over the years has helped steer several companies, including Wunderlich Securities and Total Quality Logistics (TQL), to Downtown offices.

 “I put Wunderlich down there, and I know intimately why they went there,” he said, adding the financial services firm “wanted a really cool place to recruit people. “In the case of TQL, it was about millennials and younger people…

“FedEx (Logistics) and Indigo Ag were open about why they went down there… In both cases it was related to recruitment.

The main question for Memphis as a whole is whether Raymond James will add more jobs in the city, Gamble said.