Florida Trend | Florida's Business Authority

Wednesday's Daily Pulse

Florida foreclosure filings trend up as some fear a fall wave awaits

Gov. Ron DeSantis extended Florida’s eviction and foreclosure moratorium until Oct. 1 last month, delaying what some fear will be a wave of foreclosures across the state once the ban is lifted. Those fears are justified if trends documented by mortgage date firm ATTOM Data Solutions in its August 2020 U.S. Foreclosure Market Report continue into fall and 2021. According to ATTOM, which owns RealtyTrac, Florida had the nation’s second-highest foreclosure filing rate in August, with Jacksonville’s foreclosure filing rate the highest for any metro area in the country. [Source: The Center Square]

Florida Trend Exclusive
Florida's Hispanic population boom

The latest demographic data ahead of the 2020 Census show Florida with a vanishing white majority. UF’s Bureau of Economic and Business Research projects a white minority in Florida by the 2030 Census, meaning Florida will join Hawaii, California, New Mexico, Texas and Nevada as a state without a white majority. Hispanics — who can be either white or black — have grown to 26% of the state’s population. [Source: Florida Trend]

First ballots submitted in Florida's general election

The first votes from Floridians are in for the 2020 general election. The state Division of Elections on Tuesday morning posted that 42 vote-by-mail ballots had been returned, with most of them in Flagler and Monroe counties. Supervisors of elections must send requested vote-by-mail ballots to stateside and overseas military members, along with overseas citizens, no later than 45 days before an election. [Source: News Service of Florida]

With tropics sizzling this hurricane season, why has South Florida been lucky so far?

Just one storm name remains in this year’s stash of tropical monikers as cyclone records collapse like sandcastles at high tide, yet South Florida has so far remained on the soggy margins of tropical duress this season. Despite its geographic taunting of Mother Nature – dangling into the Atlantic basin as if on a dare – it’s been spared a landfall from a tropical storm or hurricane. [Source: Palm Beach Post]

Assisted-living facilities in Florida no longer have to test staff for the coronavirus

Assisted-living facilities in Florida no longer have to test staff for the coronavirus after two emergency mandates from the Agency for Health Care Administration expired Sunday. The statewide orders were issued in mid-June and required nursing home and assisted-living facility staff to be tested every two weeks for COVID-19. Workers wouldn’t be let inside unless they had tested negative for the virus. [Source: Tampa Bay Times]

ALSO AROUND FLORIDA:

› Luminar Technologies goes public
Luminar Technologies, an Orlando company that makes lidar sensors for self-driving vehicles, went public via a $3.4-billion merger with Gores Metropoulos. The company will be listed on Nasdaq under the symbol LAZR.

› Specialty grocer to hire 110 as new Tampa store nears completion
Fast-growing specialty grocery store chain Sprouts Farmers Market plans to hire 110 people to work at its newest store in Westchase, a Tampa suburb, slated to open Dec. 2. Phoenix-based Sprouts has been expanding rapidly in the Tampa Bay region. It opened a store in New Tampa on Aug. 12 and also has a Tampa Heights location in the works scheduled to open in 2021.

› 1,900 SeaWorld employees are laid off in latest cuts for the company
Nearly 1,900 furloughed employees permanently lost their jobs this month at SeaWorld’s three Orlando properties, according to a state notice. The layoffs come as theme park attendance at SeaWorld Orlando reopened in June with limited capacity of 30 to 35% attendance during the coronavirus pandemic, the company disclosed to the National Labor Relations Board.

› Ringling opens coffee shop; restaurants also opening at Sarasota museum
The John and Mable Ringling Museum has been without a full-service restaurant since the departure of Muse earlier this year but that should soon change. Mable’s Coffee and Tea, the new coffee shop inside museum's McKay Visitor’s Pavilion, held a grand opening on Monday with plans announced for a pair of restaurants to also open on the museum grounds in Sarasota.

Go to page 2 for more stories ...

› Two-thirds of Florida voters support $15 an hour minimum wage ballot measure, poll finds
About two-thirds of Florida voters back a 2020 ballot initiative to gradually hike the state’s minimum wage to $15 per hour, which would be enough support for the measure to pass, a new poll released Tuesday found.

› Fort Lauderdale’s pandemic budget keeps tax rate, raises stormwater fees
No tax rate hike is coming next year in Fort Lauderdale. But we can’t say the same for stormwater rates — a fee that had one weary resident referencing the infamous “taxation without representation” Boston Tea Party. Fort Lauderdale property owners will pay the same property tax rate and fire fee under an $847.8 million budget plan that sailed through a final commission vote Monday night.

› St. Augustine Amazon delivery center in review
The St. Johns River Water Management District is reviewing a permit application for an Amazon.com last-mile distribution facility in St. Johns County. The proposed 125,000-square-foot facility is planned at 3960 Inman Road in St. Augustine by developer Ryan Companies US Inc., based in Minneapolis with a Tampa office.

› Manatee CARES Act funding creates new COVID-19 partnership
Manatee County CARES Act funding has helped facilitate a new collaboration focused on protecting the county’s most at-risk residents from COVID-19. A $342,000 grant to Tidewell Hospice will help found the Multicultural Action Team: A countywide initiative focused on prevention, education, advocacy, research, linkage to care and sustainable solutions.