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Excell Agent Services will add 200 to 300 directory assistance jobs, paying $6.00 to $7.50 an hour, to its Rockledge-based call center staff of 1,000.
Heathrow
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First USA, one of the nation's largest credit card companies, will open a customer service and support facility in September in Heathrow and create approximately 700 customer service jobs.
Lake Mary
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Recoton will expand its electronics assembly and distribution facility by 318,000 square feet, the second expansion in three years.
New Port Richey
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ThermaCell Technologies (Nasdaq Small Cap-VCLL) agreed to acquire the assets of privately held paint maker Atlas Chemical of Miami. ThermaCell, which develops specialty coatings, recently completed a $6.4 million initial public offering.
Orange County
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Planet Hollywood announced it will locate its corporate headquarters south of Orlando. The company will hire 100, at an average annual salary of $45,000 to $50,000, by the end of 1998 and expects to create another 500 jobs by the year 2000. The international chain of 57 movie memorabilia theme restaurants previously operated without a headquarters.
Orlando
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In a nationwide job elimination of more than 7,000 positions, Electronic Data Systems laid off 16 of its nearly 280 Orlando employees. Plano, Texas-based EDS, which employs nearly 100,000 worldwide, is restructuring.
Orlando's domestic visitor count topped 37 million last year, an 11.7% increase over 1995, according to D.K. Shifflet & Assoc. The number of in-state business travelers to Orlando increased by 19.8% over the previous year, and out-of-state visitors increased by 14%.
Enterprise Florida and the Florida Development Finance Corp., an Enterprise affiliate, issued more than $3 million in bonds to three Florida companies as part of the new Enterprise Bond Program, which provides tax-free fixed rate financing for small to mid-size manufacturers and is the first of its kind in Florida. Standard & Poor's rated the bonds AAA. Companies receiving the bonds: Action Screen Printing, silk screen printer, Longwood; Miller-Leaman, water filtration systems manufacturer, Daytona Beach; Vista Products, vertical blind maker, Jacksonville.
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Seminole County
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Invacare Corp. will expand its medical equipment and furniture manufacturing facility by 100,000 square feet and add 150 jobs, paying an average of $40,000 a year.
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COMMERCIAL REAL ESTATE
Industrial Warehouse Space...
... In Polk County is at its lowest vacancy rate in 10 years. Two companies, Kidron Inc. and Cutler Manufacturing, both undergoing major expansions, recently leased the remaining 256,000 square feet in Lakeland's massive 700,000-square-foot Lakeland Airside Center. The industrial warehouse, once an aircraft assembly plant, is full for the first time since it opened for business in 1995. The center's growth "has had a tremendous impact as far as the employee base is concerned," says facilities manager Charles Gunter, referring to the 415 jobs created at the center since it opened less than two years ago. All but 85 of those jobs are from company expansions, he says, adding, "Our (Lakeland's) key to growth is not in attracting new businesses but in helping the ones we do have to grow." While the industrial warehouse vacancy rate of 7.1% is a 10-year low, there's little speculative building in the works. But Steve Scruggs, executive director of the Lakeland Economic Development Council, sees little reason to worry. "It's a matter of looking at the glass half empty or half full," he says. "The county absorbs about one million to one-and-a-half million square feet a year and there are about a million square feet available right now".
-Brian Hires