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Southwest Fla. & Tampa Bay Business Briefs - Aug. 2008
Ave Maria
» Ave Maria University has received accreditation from the American Academy for Liberal Education. The eastern Collier County school has 600 students.
Brooksville
» Construction is under way on a 11,250-sq.-ft. addition to Composite Motors’ 50,000-sq.-ft. complex at the Hernando County Airport Industrial Park.
Cape Coral
» Applied Cooling Technology, a British marine manufacturing company, has opened its first U.S. facility. The company plans to employ 60.
» Cape Coral-based Riverside Bank of the Gulf Coast is laying off 45 and will close offices in eastern Collier County, Venice, Sarasota and Bradenton.
De Soto County
» Florida Power & Light is seeking permission to build a 25-megawatt solar power plant north of Arcadia. If the Florida Public Service Commission approves, the plant could open next year.
Ellenton
» Working under a six-week deadline, Zep Construction of Fort Myers rebuilt three lanes of Interstate 75 in three weeks, earning the contractor a $300,000 early-completion bonus. The original contract was for $1.7 million. The work followed a fuel tanker crash and explosion June 4 that destroyed part of the I-75 bridge over U.S. 301.
Fort Myers
» The Housing Authority of Fort Myers has broken ground on an $80-million, 120-unit affordable housing community for seniors.
Lakeland
» Publix Super Markets ranked last among 20 major U.S. supermarket chains in a Greenpeace report on sustainable seafood practices. The report cites Publix for selling 21 species of fish on Greenpeace’s “red list,” including grouper, swordfish and yellowfin tuna.
Largo
» Baxter Healthcare will lay off 95 workers at its Largo factory by the end of the year. The company is shifting manufacturing of its kidney dialysis machines to Singapore.
Naples
» The City Council, joining the Collier County Metropolitan Planning Organization, voted to oppose efforts to lease Alligator Alley’s toll facility to a private concessionaire.
New Port Richey
» Plans for Riverwalk at New Port Richey, a retail, office and residential complex along the Pithlachascotee River downtown, have been put on hold.
Palm Harbor
» Transitions Optical will take over as title sponsor of the PGA Tour’s spring stop at the Innisbrook Resort and Golf Club. The March tournament, previously sponsored by PODS, will be called the Transitions Championship.
Punta Gorda
» Construction has started on the Harbor Inn Resort & Yacht Club, a five-story, 106-room hotel along the Peace River downtown.
Sarasota
» Members of City Alliance, a group of downtown merchants and property owners, have suggested the city build a spring training baseball stadium on 42 acres of city-owned waterfront land previously targeted for a cultural arts district. Sarasota, which lost the Cincinnati Reds to Arizona this year, hopes to lure the Boston Red Sox from Fort Myers.
St. Petersburg
» The University of South Florida’s St. Petersburg campus has broken ground on a $12-million, 35,000-sq.-ft. science and technology center, with completion scheduled for fall 2009.
» The Tampa Bay Rays have decided not to continue pushing for a city vote in November on a new waterfront stadium downtown.
Tampa
» WellCare Health Plans, its Tampa headquarters raided by the FBI earlier this year, eliminated 208 jobs, including 78 in Florida. Meanwhile, Standard & Poor’s has lowered WellCare’s credit rating from B+ to B.
» SimDag-Robel, the developer of the proposed 52-story Trump Tower Tampa, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
» Barbados-based Sagicor Life Insurance Co. has established a U.S. headquarters in Tampa.
