Daxko, the Shelby County-founded software company that manages membership systems for YMCAs and Jewish Community Centers nationwide, is preparing to move its headquarters out of Homewood and into the Gray Construction building on Third Avenue North in downtown Birmingham. The relocation would consolidate Daxko's current Homewood offices and its remote work-from-home staff under one downtown roof, and it comes with a proposed incentive package from Jefferson County that is up for a vote this week.
According to BirminghamWatch, Daxko was founded in 1998 in Shelby County and currently has a presence in Homewood, but the company plans to move into the Gray Construction building and bring its scattered workforce into that single location. As part of the project, Daxko says it will create 88 jobs with an average wage of $34.96 an hour and make a capital investment of $1.7 million, and it has asked Jefferson County for assistance.
County officials are responding with what Jefferson County's economic development adviser, Jeff Traywick, described as the county's typical jobs grant package, capped at $256,000. Traywick told the commission that payments would be tied to the company's performance in creating new jobs and high-wage positions, the outlet reported. The Jefferson County Commission is scheduled to consider the resolution at its meeting Thursday at the Bessemer Justice Center.
Why Daxko Is Centering Its Future in Birmingham
Daxko's new chief executive, Jeff VanDixhorn, wants to make the company's Birmingham presence more visible, and Traywick told the commission that VanDixhorn wanted Daxko's corporate headquarters based in Birmingham. VanDixhorn reportedly chose Birmingham as the location for Daxko's planned global headquarters over Chicago, where the company previously acquired a company VanDixhorn himself had founded, and has decided to recommit Daxko to the Birmingham area as it continues hiring, per the same report.
Daxko's general counsel, Blake Goodsell, said the company and Homewood Mayor Jennifer Andress were unable to find space in Homewood large enough to accommodate the consolidated operation, according to the outlet's account. Daxko has said it plans to fill positions in Birmingham where possible as it grows.
The company's footprint reaches far beyond Birmingham. Daxko develops and manages membership systems for organizations including the YMCA, and about 70% of YMCAs and Jewish Community Centers nationwide run on its software, the company told the commission. Daxko also provides ancillary services like mobile apps and runs roughly $10 billion in payment processing every year on behalf of its customers, and the company has grown in part by acquiring major businesses in Denver and Chicago to enter new markets.
A No-Poaching Pledge Comes Under Scrutiny
Not everyone on the commission is enthusiastic about subsidizing an intra-metro move. Commission President Jimmie Stephens raised concern that Daxko's shift from Homewood to Birmingham could run up against the metro area's 2019 no-poaching pledge, an agreement among local governments intended to discourage cities in the region from luring employers away from one another with incentives.
The proposed county grant would fit within a broader incentive framework the state offers to employers. Alabama's Jobs Credit, a discretionary incentive granted by the Alabama Secretary of Commerce and approved by the governor, can provide a rebate of up to 3% of a company's previous year's payroll for projects that create at least 50 new jobs, according to the Birmingham Business Alliance, with that rebate available for up to 10 years.
Part of a Broader Pattern of County Incentives
Jefferson County has been active on the incentive front recently. The county reported more than $401 million in economic development projects during 2025, tied to 886 jobs and an average hourly wage of $30.60, spanning manufacturing, automotive, logistics, IT and health care, per the Birmingham Times. Average annual wages per worker in the region rose 5.4% over the four quarters ending in the second quarter of 2025, the paper also reported.
Those 2025 projects included the Alabama Farm Center's $150 million tourism investment in Warrior and CMC Steel's $135 million manufacturing expansion in Birmingham. Earlier this year, the commission unanimously approved ACIPCO's anticipated $793.1 million investment in its North Birmingham facility, a deal that came with up to $320,000 in county incentives structured as a jobs grant paid in three installments and expected to support about 80 jobs paying $114,000 annually, according to Alabama NewsCenter. Daxko's proposed package is considerably smaller in scale, but it follows the same formula of tying county money to job creation and wage performance.
