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1/01/07 Business Recruitment and Expansion Projects - 2006
With another record-breaking year in construction value,
the city of St. Petersburg was once again a significant contributor to the
metropolitan area’s success in 2006, and the future looks bright for
continued business growth. While much attention is paid to the burgeoning
residential market, the city’s business community is steadfastly growing
our economic base. In 2005, significant project announcements included
Progress Energy Florida, Euro-Bake, Halkey-Roberts, First Advantage, Pilot
Mall, Midtown St. Petersburg’s Sweetbay Supermarket, and new retail at Twin Brooks Commons. The following are some of the business recruitment and expansion
success stories of 2006:
SRI-St. Petersburg, a branch of SRI International, will accelerate
research and development of technologies related to ocean science, the
maritime industry and port security. SRI International is one of the
world's leading independent research and technology development
organizations. Founded as Stanford Research Institute in 1946, SRI has been
meeting the strategic needs of clients for 60 years. The nonprofit research
institute performs client-sponsored research and development for government
agencies, commercial businesses and private foundations. In addition to
conducting contract R&D, SRI licenses its technologies, forms strategic
partnerships and creates spin-off companies. SRI's expansion into Florida is a collaboration with the University of South Florida's College of Marine Science and its Center for Ocean Technology and is supported by the City of St. Petersburg, Pinellas County and the State.
The
new facility will be jump-started by transitioning up to 40 staff members
from the Center for Ocean Technology. SRI-St. Petersburg plans to grow to
100 jobs over the next five years, bringing as much as $172 million to the
local economy, and anticipates reaching a total of 200 jobs in the next 10
years. Operations will begin January 2, 2007.
SRI
will receive a $20 million Innovation Incentive Fund grant from the State
of Florida. The City of St. Petersburg will provide a site for SRI's new
30,000- to 35,000-square foot facility, and will design and construct the
facility to accommodate 100 employees at the Port of St. Petersburg within
the Bayboro area, a designated State Enterprise Zone. The city will lease
the new facility directly to SRI. Funding for the design and construction
of the new facility will be provided by the State of Florida and Pinellas County, which will each provide $5 million for the R&D facility.
Tower Cloud provides fiber and wireless transport services to
wireless carriers, enabling connection of cellular towers to the carrier’s
mobile switching centers with higher quality and reliability. The
company, formed by a team of executives and investors who worked together
while running Progress Energy’s jointly owned telecommunications subsidiary,
Progress Telecom, LLC, expanded operations in St. Petersburg. A
leader in wireless access infrastructure solutions, Tower Cloud will create
50 new jobs, with an average wage twice the County average and 96 percent higher
than the state’s average. The city of St. Petersburg worked with the
Governor’s Office of Tourism, Trade and Economic Development, Pinellas
County Economic Development, the Pinellas County Board of County Commissioners, and Enterprise Florida on the project. Florida competed with California and Illinois to become the company’s expansion location.
Newport International of Tierra Verde, Inc. has a long-established
history as a seafood importer and wholesale distributor of its nationally
recognized Jack’s Catch® brand. Newport supplies crabmeat, fish,
shrimp, lobster, and other value added items to restaurants, retail chains,
manufacturing and foodservice customers. The company relocated its
corporate headquarters to the Historic Henry Dupont Building, at 155 Eighth Street N. This renovation project, undertaken by Jack McGeough, CEO of Newport
International, and his wife, Jeanne McGeough, transformed what once was a
forgotten building into a buzzing corporate headquarters.
Terra Construction (TCG) consolidated its Largo and Plant City administrative and service operations to the former PSTA facility at I-275 and 28th St. S., in Midtown St. Petersburg. With more than 600 employees, 300 are based
at the St. Petersburg facility. TCG, the largest regional, full-service civil
site company in the state, has grown from a company with $12 million in
revenue in 1999 to over $100 million in 2005/2006. Serving more than 15
counties in Florida, TCG specializes in heavy construction, including
excavation, demolition, civil site development, underground utilities, highway
construction and mining.
New Advantage, a worldwide
franchised & independent stocking distributor of electronics components,
received Qualified Targeted Industry (QTI) incentives to expand employment
and make capital improvements to their St. Petersburg international
headquarters. New Advantage plans to add 320 jobs within five years at an
average annual salary of $50,547 and build a new 70,000 SF, $8.5-million
office and warehouse.
The Sunshine City’s vast array of amenities for business
and pleasure were further enhanced in 2006. A new 227-room Hilton Hotel
opened in the Carillon office park in St. Petersburg’s Gateway area, and
downtown’s historic Pennsylvania Hotel underwent a renovation and addition,
resulting in a 128-room Courtyard by Marriott. Renovations to the tune of
$20-million were completed at the waterfront Mahaffey Theater at the Progress Energy Center for the Arts, which in the near future will become home to the
Florida Orchestra and an expanded and relocated Dalí Museum.
St. Petersburg’s highly skilled workforce, exceptional
infrastructure, excellent regional access, and existing strong industry
clusters are all factors cited by the above companies for making their
business decisions. However, dwindling Class A office space, scarce vacant
land, obsolete or undersized commercial buildings, and higher real estate
costs will continue to make future business growth more complex. St. Petersburg will continue to work with the private sector to meet these challenges, and
will continue to shine as a premier business location in 2007.
For more information about St. Petersburg's business environment, you can visit www.StPeteShines.com, call (727) 893-7100,
or email a member of the City of St. Petersburg's Economic Development
Department:
Dave Goodwin, Economic
Development Director, Dave.Goodwin@stpete.org
Sophia Sorolis,
Economic Development Manager, Sophia.Sorolis@stpete.org
Gary Jones, Planner
III, Gary.Jones@stpete.org
Ken Jones, Economic
Development Coordinator, Ken.Jones@stpete.org
Charles Ray,
Economic Development Coordinator, Charles.Ray@stpete.org
Rick Smith, Economic
Development Coordinator, Rick.Smith@stpete.org
Dave Sobush,
Economic Development Coordinator, Dave.Sobush@stpete.org
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