BRADENTON —?First America Bank and Manatee River Community Bank have merged under the First America Bank name, with five branches and $285 million in assets.
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FORT MYERS —?JRL Ventures/Marine Concepts will get $225,000 in incentives from the state and Lee County to expand its headquarters and add 75 jobs. The company, which supplies and designs plugs, patterns and molds for composite materials, employs 40.
» Lee County’s school district has approved plans to create a collegiate high school on the Lee County campus of Edison State College. Edison Collegiate High School is expected to enroll its first students next fall.
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LA BELLE — Hendry County has a new $4.76-million emergency operations center. The 10,000-sq.-ft. facility is designed to withstand winds of up to 180 mph.
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LAKELAND —?The state’s Board of Governors will allow the University of South Florida Polytechnic to begin offering lower-division undergraduate courses. Previously, USF-Polytechnic was able to offer only upper-division courses, along with bachelor’s and master’s degrees.
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PASCO COUNTY — The county has budgeted $1 million in federal stimulus money toward preventing homelessness. The money will help at-risk residents pay overdue rent and utility bills.
» Pasco e-School, the school district’s newly launched online teaching program, has attracted more than 1,000 course enrollments this fall, well above the anticipated 650.
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TAMPA — Gwendolyn W. Stephenson, president of Hillsborough Community College, plans to retire next summer. She has led the college since 1997.
» Sykes Enterprises has purchased ICT Group, a Pennsylvania outsourcing company, for $263 million.
» Texas-based financial services company
USAA will add 200 jobs, bringing its workforce in Tampa to nearly 2,000.
» The University of Tampa has signed agreements with three universities in China to allow student and faculty exchanges and opportunities for collaborative research.
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TAMPA BAY —?Tampa Bay Water will pay a consultant nearly $1 million to help it figure out the best way to repair massive cracks at the utility’s 4-year-old reservoir. The repairs, according to early estimates, could cost $125 million.
» The Port of Tampa will get nearly $5.8 million in federal stimulus money, most of which will be spent dredging 70 miles of ship channels in Tampa Harbor. Another $100,000 will pay for the Army Corps of Engineers to determine what improvements might be needed in Manatee Harbor, near Port Manatee.
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ST. PETERSBURG — In a meeting that ended in fisticuffs between audience members, a divided city council voted to cede a stretch of downtown sidewalk to the owners of BayWalk, the city’s foundering downtown shopping complex. The owners say they need control of the sidewalk to ensure that shoppers won’t be harassed by protesters at the complex.
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