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Around the State

BRADENTON

The Bradenton Pier and Yacht Basin plans to add 175 slips to its existing 50. The two-phase development project began in March with a $3.2 million expansion that added a fuel dock, a swimming pool and spa, floating docks, laundry and shower facilities, and a store. By May, 91 new slips should be in place, with the amenities ready in July.

CLEARWATER

Corporate Investment International, the state's largest business brokerage, is opening a Clearwater office. The 12-year-old Altamonte Springs-based company, with $23 million in business transactions and 48 companies sold in 1997, plans to open an office in the West Palm Beach/Fort Lauderdale area later this year.

Checkers Drive-In Restaurants (Nasdaq-CHKR) will move its headquarters to the Airport Business Center, where it will be the largest commercial tenant. Checkers has 120 employees at its home office and, together with its franchisees, operates about 480 drive-through hamburger restaurants in the Southeast.

FORT MYERS

Balair-CTA, Swissair's charter airline, is beginning weekly nonstop flights between Zurich and Southwest Florida International Airport, which in the last few years extended its runway to accommodate international flights and added a currency exchange service and an arrivals building that can clear 400 passengers an hour through customs. The airport recorded a 20% increase in international passengers and a 22% increase in international cargo in January 1998, compared with January 1997.

PALMETTO

Sysco Food Services-West Coast Florida is expanding its 2-year-old, 180,000-square-foot distribution center. The company, based in Houston, Texas, will add about 100,000 square feet for freezer, cooler, warehouse and office space for its 400 employees.

SARASOTA

FCCI Insurance Group will build a new headquarters in northern Sarasota County's Lakewood Ranch Corporate Park. The company bought 42 acres and has plans for a three-story building with 200,000 square feet of office space, a 15,000-square-foot archive facility and a 9,000-square-foot energy plant. Ranked among the top workers' comp carriers in the U.S., FCCI has expanded into property and casualty insurance lines.

ST. PETERSBURG

Gateway Mall is undergoing a $20 million redevelopment project that includes demolition of most of the existing buildings and construction of about 350,000 square feet of retail space and a 2,000-vehicle parking lot.

TAMPA

Physicians Healthcare Plans (PHP) has an agreement with the Florida Department of Insurance and the Agency for Health Care Administration to buy UltraMedix's Medicaid membership and provider network. PHP currently serves over 100,000 Florida residents.

Master-planned community Westchase will have a 27,000-square-foot Morton Plant Mease Outpatient Center by the spring of 1999. Plans call for eight full-time and four or five part-time physicians as well as after-hours walk-in care. Morton Plant Mease is a community-owned, not-for-profit health system formed in 1994.