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Southwest Florida Roundup
Bucket List: Eckerd College stresses lifelong learning early in retirement
ST. PETERSBURG —
- Due to open this summer, Lucky’s Market food store in the Tyrone neighborhood will employ 150.
- After efforts to move it failed, an historic 1905 Victorian-style house, once home to one of the city’s first African- American leaders, was torn down to make way for an eight-unit housing complex.
- The value of new construction in St. Petersburg totaled a record $671 million in 2017.
- An anonymous $2.5-million donation will allow Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital to boost services to newborns exposed to drugs during pregnancy.
TAMPA —
- HomeBancorp, based in Tampa, has merged with North Carolina-based First Citizens Bank & Trust. Entertainmentfocused weekly newspaper Creative Loafing Tampa has a new owner, Euclid Media Group of Ohio.
- Jeff Vinik, who owns the Tampa Bay Lightning and is working to redevelop downtown Tampa, has invested $12 million in Dreamit, an early-stage startup accelerator.
- Ironman, which oversees more than 250 endurance-sports events in 53 countries, is adding 70 jobs at its Tampa headquarters, where it already employs 160.
TAMPA BAY — The University of South Florida system has created a task force to study how to consolidate USF-Tampa, USFSt. Petersburg and USF-Sarasota-Manatee.
INNOVATION: Back to School
With the unemployment rate in Lee and Collier counties at about 3.5%, Fort Myers- based Crystal Clean cleaning service — growing at between 20% and 25% a year — has come up with some new ideas to attract employees.
Most of its 90 workers speak Spanish primarily so the company now offers free Englishlanguage classes, taught by a 15-year veteran teacher. The classes started in January. CEO Dave Harting says he is happy with the response so far. Besides helping recruit employees, he says the classes are helping existing employees communicate better with clients.
“Our team members feel empowered when we remove the language barrier,” he says.
PLAYERS
- Justin Day will head Capital City Consulting’s Tampa office. Previously, he managed the Tampa office of the Advocacy Group, a lobbying firm.
- JLL, a real estate brokerage, named Paul Rutledge its Tampa senior vice president. Rutledge previously worked for CBRE. He replaces Andy Carlson, who will focus on Puerto Rico’s retail and real estate market.
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