Florida Trend | Florida's Business Authority

Southwest Florida Newswire - August 2017

Business Briefs

BELLEAIR — The town has agreed to sell its public golf course for $3.8 million to a local family that will operate the course. Belleair officials plan to use the proceeds for infrastructure projects.

BRADENTON — Snooty, the world’s oldest captive manatee, has been joined at the South Florida Museum’s aquarium by three manatees rehabbing from injuries. The aquarium hopes to release the rehabbing manatees back into the wild after they recover. Snooty, who turned 69 in July, is a permanent resident.

BRANDON — Derek Jeter’s Turn 2 Foundation and Phoenix House, a non-profit drug and alcohol rehabilitation outfit, have opened the Derek Jeter Youth Addiction Treatment Center in Brandon.

CLEARWATER — Aimmune Therapeutics is moving into a 40,000-sq.-ft. facility in Clearwater, where it will make peanut allergy treatment products.

HAINES CITY — The developers of the Balmoral Resort in Polk County plan to build a Ronaldo Soccer Academy soccer training facility by the end of this year. The academy will include a professional-quality soccer field, two training fields, locker rooms and a conference center.

LARGO — The Pinellas County Housing Authority has broken ground on a 92-unit mixed-income workforce housing community to be called Palms of Pinellas.

PLANT CITY — Dart Container, which makes and distributes foodservice packaging, is moving into a new 77,500-sq.-ft. facility. The company already employs 375 people in Plant City and is looking to add another 35.

PUNTA GORDA — Western Michigan University will start offering an aviation flight science program this fall at the Punta Gorda Airport.

SARASOTA — Boca Raton- based FloorForce is moving its headquarters to downtown Sarasota. The company will get $144,000 in Sarasota County incentives over eight years if it adds 72 jobs within five years.

ST. PETERSBURG — The city is considering a proposal to ban chain retailers from a three-mile stretch of its Central Avenue corridor downtown. Kucera Properties has sold Priatek Plaza, the city’s tallest building at 28 stories, to Third Lake Capital for $65.75 million. The owner of the St. Petersburg home where poet Jack Kerouac spent his final years intends to convert the 1,760-sq.-ft. building into a Kerouacthemed museum. The Florida Institute of Oceanography and USF have a launched a new research vessel, the $6.3-million, 78-foot R/V W.T. Hogarth. The ship’s home port will be at the USF College of Marine Science in St. Petersburg. St. Petersburg’s Triad Retail Media will open an office in Mexico.

TAMPA — The University of South Florida ranks fifth among American public universities in generating new U.S. patents. USF’s 114 patents last year rank it 11th among universities worldwide. Amid financial troubles, the Museum of Science and Industry will close most of its operations near USF. The museum plans to move downtown in 2022. Tampa will host Super Bowl LV in 2021. NorthStar Banking Group has been sold to Stuartbased Seacoast Banking for $32 million.

Players

» Tonjua Williams is the new president of St. Petersburg College, replacing Bill Law, who resigned. Williams, a 53-year-old St. Petersburg native who has worked at the college for more than 30 years, is St. Petersburg College’s first female and first African- American president.

» Tampa General Hospital has named John Couris its next president and CEO. Couris, who starts work in September, was previously president and CEO of Jupiter Medical Center, a 327-bed hospital in Jupiter. He replaces Jim Burkhart, who resigned last November after four years as Tampa General’s CEO.

 

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