No Shortage of Jobs

Several high-profile job losses grabbed headlines last year in Tampa Bay, but business leaders say the region continues to generate jobs at a heady clip. Even as JPMorgan Chase announced it was closing its Tampa credit card division, laying off 1,900, Greater Tampa Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Kim Scheeler says he started getting calls from executives at other companies that "wanted to hire the people who are going to be laid off."

The data bear out Scheeler's anecdotal evidence. In the past year, unemployment rates in Hillsborough and Pinellas counties fell to 3.1% and 3.5% respectively. The Tampa-St. Petersburg metropolitan area led the state in job creation, posting 26,200 new positions. Most of those gains (more than 16,200) were in the professional and business services category, including legal services, accounting, architectural, engineering, computer systems design and management, scientific and technical jobs.

Myron Hughes, vice president for economic development at the Greater Tampa Chamber of Commerce, says the region is beginning to see more diversity in its job growth -- beyond the volatile call-center jobs that once dominated the area's job growth.

The chamber hopes to entice more headquarters operations to the area. Quadrant Software, which recently announced plans to relocate from Taunton, Mass., to Tampa, is an example of the kind of business the chamber is interested in attracting.

Business leaders say they're worried about whether skills training -- particularly in high-demand fields like construction work -- will keep up with the demand for workers. "The market is extremely tight," says Joseph A. Narkiewicz, executive vice president of the Tampa Bay Builders Association. "And the competition is fierce (among builders) to hire the best workers."

NEW COMPANIESDepository Trust & Clearing Corp., the largest clearinghouse for transactions in stocks, bonds and government-backed and mortgage-backed securities, is bringing 500 jobs to New Tampa by the end of 2007 with an average annual salary of about $72,000. DTCC handles trillions of dollars in trades for the securities industry.
Fibertech Inc. of Salt Lake City is planning to start manufacturing fiberglass insulation this year, hiring 100 to 200 workers to start and as many as 400 when the plant reaches full production. Fibertech is moving into the former Owens-Brockway plant on I-4 in Lakeland.
Topline Hylift, a Michigan-based automotive parts manufacturer, is building a 200,000-sq.-ft. plant in the Hernando County Airport Railpark. The company, which will make valve lifters for gasoline and diesel engines, has promised to hire 150 people with hourly wages of at least $12.99.
Emery Thompson Machine and Supply Co., a 100-year-old manufacturer of ice cream-making machinery, plans to relocate from the Bronx, N.Y., to the Hernando County Airport Industrial Park. The company plans to build a 20,000-sq.-ft. building at a cost of $750,000 and hire 16 new employees within a year.
Manning & Napier Advisors, an employee-owned investment adviser, moved its New York-based research and development division to downtown St. Petersburg last year. The original staff of five employees, with average wages of $100,000, is expected to grow to 20 by June.

EXPANSIONSOpinicus, a Clearwater-based maker of flight-simulators, is planning to build and move into a $2.5-million complex in Pasco County's new North Pointe at Suncoast Crossings office/industrial park east of the Suncoast Parkway at State Road 54. The 32-employee company has told the county it will add 225 jobs with an average salary of $67,000 in the next three years.
Mercury Insurance, one of the fastest-growing automobile insurers in the nation, recently bought the Tides of Feather Sound building in St. Petersburg, where it is leasing space. The company plans to add more than 500 employees in the next year.
WellCare Health Plans, the state's biggest Medicaid HMO provider, has been rapidly expanding in the wake of issuing its first public stock offering last year. The Tampa company expects membership in its Medicaid and Medicare HMOs to grow by more than 25% this year. WellCare provides health insurance products and related administrative services to 734,000 members.
Coca-Cola Enterprises Bottling is in an expansion zone, with plans to generate about 700 jobs in Hillsborough County by May. In September, Coca-Cola opened a customer development center, hiring 210 employees to work in accounts payable, payroll and customer services for its North American operations. The remaining 500 new jobs are moving into another 58,000-sq.-ft. space in the same center this year.
Commercial Bedding Co., a 26-year-old company that specializes in fireproof mattresses for commercial clients such as universities, hotels and assisted-living companies, has relocated from Clearwater to St. Petersburg's Midtown area. The company, which had run out of space to expand at its old site, has already hired 10 new employees, boosting its workforce to 53 full-time workers.

TAMPA
On the heels of losing 3,000 financial service industry jobs with the closings of JPMorgan Chase's and Capital One's credit card call centers, Tampa economic development specialists are talking about encouraging diversity when recruiting new companies...

Tampa's population is getting younger, and the Greater Tampa Chamber of Commerce is tapping into that youth market with its new "Emerge Tampa," a networking and leadership development program for people ages 21 to 35. The initiative grew to 550 members in less than a year...

Richard Wainio, former director at the Port of Palm Beach, takes over at the Port of Tampa after a year of controversy in which interim director Zelko Kirincich was replaced with another interim director, William Starkey, a retired GTE executive...

The condo boom has landed at the port. Plans call for luxury condominiums, a five-star hotel and a conference and convention center on port land...

The price for a new Tampa Museum of Art has climbed $10 million in two years even as backers struggle to put together a business plan and raise donations to supplement the $30 million the city has pledged toward construction. The construction company agreed to extend a pricing deadline and freeze the price at $54 million until April 9.

Notable Names: University of South Florida President Judy Genshaft is in her second term as head of the Tampa Committee of 100. Her goal is to make the Tampa Bay area a center for biotech business...

Sam Ellison, head of The Beck Group's construction division in Florida and chairman of the Greater Tampa Chamber of Commerce, wants to better train the workforce to meet the needs of businesses interested in relocating to the area...

Donald Trump, the real estate mogul and reality TV star, announced that he and his partners have reservations on all 190 condominiums ranging from $700,000 to $6 million in a proposed 52-story downtown development that would be Tampa's tallest building.

ST. PETERSBURG
Economic development officials are turning their attentions to the last large vacant parcel left in the city limits -- the 130-acre "sod farm" site, bought in 2003 by developer Grady Pridgen. He plans to build condominiums, retail space, a restaurant and a hotel on the site. The development got a commitment from its first big tenant last year when Valpak decided to stay in town and expand rather than move to Atlanta...

Certegy Inc., which provides credit, debit and merchandise card processing, e-banking, check risk management and check cashing services around the world, decided to move its corporate headquarters, with 70 corporate officers, from Atlanta to downtown St. Petersburg. The company already employs more than 2,000 workers in the Gateway area...

Science Applications International more than doubled its space in the First Central Tower downtown to more than 14,000 square feet. The company focuses on communications systems for commercial and military applications...

The city recorded some job losses, including 240 positions after BB&T bought Republic Bank; 80 when William R. Hough & Co. was bought by RBC Dain Rauscher; and 121 when the Westminster Shores nursing facility was closed to redevelop its campus.

Notable Names: J. Michael Cheezem, CEO of JMC Communities, is building condominiums on Tampa's Bayshore Boulevard and on Clearwater Beach. Construction on a new Clearwater project on the site of the Clearwater Beach Hotel, a combination hotel, condominium and retail development called the Sandpearl Resort, is scheduled to begin this year and finish in 2007...

H. William "Bill" Habermeyer, CEO of Progress Energy Florida, recently completed a term as vice chairman of Enterprise Florida and now heads the group's governance committee.

CLEARWATER
Clearwater is on the brink of a makeover. Plans call for replacing the Clearwater Beach Hotel with the Sandpearl Resort, a 251-room hotel with an adjacent 117 condominiums...

A 250-room Hyatt with 18 condos and another 350-room resort with 75 condos are in the works for South Gulfview...

Rogers Beach Development, led by Roland Rogers, is tearing down a series of mom and pop motels he began buying on the beach several years ago to build a dozen small condominium developments...

The city is planning to spend more than $16 million to build a meandering "Beach Walk" along the Gulf on the beach's south side...

The new Memorial Causeway Bridge is scheduled to open to traffic late this year, after some delays...

Clearwater's government- and business-centric downtown is slated to get more residential development. More than 1,000 condominium units are planned.

Pinellas County
The county has received $400,000 in federal grant money to investigate brownfields sites for potential developers...

Pinellas also is seeking citizen input into its new redevelopment plan for the county's buildings and land...

County movers and shakers are still looking for a site for a $30-million Jobs Corps center the U.S. Department of Labor would like to build in Pinellas. The center would provide vocational training for people ages 16 to 22...

The county's new EpiCenter, a hub for business development, offers collaborative labs to help businesses survive and thrive...

There is talk of redeveloping Clearwater's Crossroads Mall and 29 vacant county-owned acres adjacent to it into a mix of shops, offices and residential units.

LAKELAND & Polk County
Polk County gained 6,000 jobs last year in a variety of sectors...

Two major mixed-use developments are planned that will bring in the area's first upscale retail stores as well as movie theaters and homes...

Lakeland's downtown is becoming a destination with the addition of a series of parks around Lake Mirror and some in-town residential in a renovated 1920s-era hotel...

The old Baseball City site at I-4 and U.S. 27 is giving way to a development called Posner Park. Plans for the 365-acre parcel include a pedestrian-friendly, neo-urbanist-influenced development that would include retail shops, offices, restaurants, hotels, multi-family homes and pedestrian parks...

Casto Lifestyle Properties, a Sarasota-based company, is developing Lakeside Village, a 610,000-sq.-ft. open-air shopping plaza, with Drummond Co. in south Lakeland. The development, scheduled to open in November, will have theaters and restaurants as well as retail stores...

There are plans to build a University of South Florida campus off I-4 at the Polk Parkway. To make way for the new development, both I-4 and U.S. 27 are being widened.

Notable Names: Kent Buescher, who turned a petting farm near Valdosta, Ga., into Wild Adventures theme park in less than 10 years, is beefing up Cypress Gardens. He is adding thrill rides and a water park as a complement to the park's historic pastoral gardens and water ski show...

January Dennison, president and CEO of Technology Research Consultants, moved her company's manufacturing division to Haines City in 2003 and has been quickly growing the company, which makes Black Hawk helicopter gyroscopes as well as other products.

Pasco County
Voters have agreed to increase the sales tax by a penny to help build roads and schools...

The county issued a record 6,399 single-family home permits last year...

There are 119,000 new homes on the drawing board...

Cypress Creek Town Center, a 1.3-million-sq.-ft. open-air mall, is planned for I-75 and State Road 56. Pasco County rezoned land for the mall last fall, but a group of residents is challenging the zoning change in court. Despite the challenge, developers plan to open in 2007...

Eastern Ribbon & Roll, which provides imaging supplies, ink cartridges, labels, tickets, tags and other products to major retailers, moved from Clearwater to Odessa and is expecting to grow from 65 to more than 100 employees in two years...

The number of business parks in the county increased from 11 to 23 in three years.

Hernando County
New homes continue to be Hernando County's biggest manufactured product, with single-family permits reaching a 17-year high at 2,719 issued last year...

"We now really have very little vacant (manufacturing) space left," says Michael McHugh, director of the county's Office of Business Development...

Universal Microwave Corp., which makes wireless computer chips for cellular communications, global positioning systems and high-speed internet technology, plans to build a 20,000-sq.-ft. building on three acres at the Cortez Crossings at State Road 50 and I-75. The company grew from 35 to 60 employees last year and is expected to continue to expand...

The county's medical facilities continue to multiply and expand along the State Road 50 corridor between Brooksville and Spring Hill. Brooksville Regional Hospital's new building on State Road 50 three miles east of downtown is nearing completion. Oak Hill Hospital has been expanding its emergency room and has plans for an open-heart program.

Citrus County
The Suncoast Parkway may stop at the edge of Citrus County, but the new home buyers aren't. Last year the county issued 2,457 building permits -- a 43% increase over 2003...

American Coin Merchandising, one of the country's largest vendors of plush toys and a manufacturer of arcade crane machines, is adding 50 employees...

Technology Conservation Group, a homegrown company that dismantles old computers and recycles their parts, has developed an international market for its products. The company has more than 60 employees and has plans to grow to 300 by the end of the decade...

Progress Energy will be adding new technology to make its two coal-fired electricity generating plants cleaner. And in the wake of the Bush administration's push toward adding more nuclear-generated power to the nation's grid, Progress is planning to overhaul some of its major nuclear power station components as well, says Brett Wattles, executive director of the Citrus County Economic Development Council...

The state is continuing to study extending the Suncoast Parkway through the county in the next year, in the face of objections from environmentalists.

2.4% or
higher1.1% -
2.3%1% or
lessPOPULATION TOTALSCounty???2005Average Annual Growth
????2001-2005??????TrendCitrus131,0501.95%Hernando150,0572.77%Hillsborough1,114,7782.06%Pasco390,8192.17%Pinellas944,4890.53%Polk519,2721.37%FLORIDA17,612,5841.84%

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