Gulf Coast Week in Review

Gulf Coast Week in Review

A Look at Business News in our Region This Week

TAMPA BAY

Bush officials fight water war

U.S. Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne convened a meeting in Washington of governors and senators from Florida, Georgia and Alabama in the hopes of negotiating a truce to a growing water war that could affect the Florida seafood industry and power plants.

They agreed to meet again in December in Tallahassee to hammer out an agreement. In the meantime, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said it would recommend reducing the water flowing into the Apalachicola River by 16%, holding more back to provide more drinking water for Atlanta.

The three states have been fighting about water resources since 1990 concerning withdrawals that affect the Apalachicola and Chatahoochee rivers. It is an issue now because of a draught in the Southeast.

Lake Lanier, which flows into the Chatahoochee, supplies most of Atlanta's drinking water. The corps controls the flow out of the lake. Georgia wants the corps to stop releasing so much water.

But the Chatahooche, which flows into the Apalachicola, provides cooling for several power plants. And the amount of water flowing into the Apalachicola, as it gushes into the Gulf of Mexico in Florida, controls the health of the $134 million seafood industry.

Tampa Mayor pushes light rail

Tampa Mayor Pam Iorio urged fellow members of the governing board of Tampa International Airport to seriously look into a $190 million to $235 million 3.5 mile light rail system that would take passengers into the airport on electric train cars.

Iorio said the rail system would be much cheaper than the hundreds of millions going into the interstate widening. The airport rail route would be part of a system connecting downtown Tampa and downtown St. Petersburg, she said.

Sembler to sell BayWalk

Sembler, the St. Petersburg company that developed BayWalk and Centro Ybor, two two-level urban retail revitalization projects in St. Petersburg and Ybor City, has put BayWalk up for sale.

Sembler would not reveal an asking price for the $40 million project it opened in downtown St. Petersburg in 2000.

After developing Centro Ybor and opening it in 2000, Sembler walked away from the project in 2004 and the city of Tampa took over payments on a federal loan. Plans are to turn some of the movie theaters into offices.

Policyholders face Poe tab

Florida homeowners will again have to pay for a Tampa-based insurer that went belly up after the 2004 and 2005 hurricane seasons.

State insurance regulators signed off on another 2% assessment on liability insurance premiums because the money is needed to continue paying claims for the insolvent Poe Financial Group. The meltdown of the three Poe companies marked the biggest insurance failure in state history.

Selmon tackles restaurant chain

Hall of Fame football player Lee Roy Selmon and a group of investors are planning to buy the Lee Roy Selmon's restaurant chain from OSI Restaurant Partners, the Tampa parent company of Outback Steakhouse, and expand it more quickly.

Selmon and chain president Peter Barli lead the investment group that will acquire 80% of the company before the end of the year.

TECO Energy gets out of shipping

Tampa-based TECO Energy said it will sell its shipping business, TECO Transport Corp., to a Miami-based investment group for $405 million by the end of the year, to reduce debt and raise capital.

TECO, the parent company of Tampa Electric and Peoples Gas, wants to generate capital to expand those two businesses, which serve 1 million people in Florida. The company has been looking for ways to get back to its core utility business after an expansion strategy, building power plants out of state, did not pay off.

SARASOTA/MANATEE

Sarasota: Supermajority Rules

Sarasota voters approved a proposal requiring local governments to enforce a supermajority rule Election Day.

The amendments to the city and county charters, which passed by more than 60% in both jurisdictions, are designed to make the development approval process tougher. Now, four out of five commissioners must agree on any proposal that increases land density and many other types of development, as opposed to a standard 3-2 majority vote.

Some Sarasota developers and business leaders had spoken out against the plan in the weeks leading up to the vote, but the backers of the proposal, including groups called Citizens for Sensible Growth and Save Our Sarasota, had a higher public profile.

Voters in Sarasota County also approved a continuation of the county's 1% sales tax, money that the tax's supporters say will bring in $1 billion for new parks, roads and schools. In a separate Sarasota County proposal, voters rejected a $16 million bond referendum to help fund a refurnishing of Ed Smith Stadium, the spring training home of the Cincinnati Reds.

Super-sized community to grow

Lakewood Ranch, one of the largest master planned communities on the Gulf Coast, in eastern Manatee County, is primed to get even bigger.

On Nov. 1, the Manatee County Commission unanimously approved the community's latest, and biggest, development plans: More than 4,400 homes, 200,000 square feet of commercial real estate and 105,000 square feet of office space to be built on 1,500 acres SMR owns between state roads 70 and 64, a few miles east of Interstate 75.

Lakewood Ranch, currently has about 7,000 homes, a mix of condos, small single family and larger multimillion-dollar homes.

Construction will not likely begin to at least next spring, when most of a road expansion project on S.R. 64 is complete. The development project will require several other road expansion efforts, all of which need county commission approval, too.

Stoneridge closes Bradenton plant

More than 300 Manatee County jobs are being eliminated as Ohio-based auto-parts manufacturer Stoneridge announced it would be closing its Bradenton factory by the end of 2007.

The plant scheduled to be shuttered, Hi-Stat Manufacturing, made mostly switches and valves for the Big Three automakers in Detroit, and business has slowed considerably the past year, the company said in a statement.

Hi-Stat Manufacturing had been one of the biggest employees in Manatee County for a few years, although it went from the 800s in the late 1990s to under 500 earlier this decade. The job loss announcement is also one of several recent ones in Greater Sarasota. Other companies to announce layoffs include Venice-based window and door maker PGT Inc., Honeywell International and Wellcraft Marine.

In a statement announcing the plant closing, Stoneridge president and chief executive officer, John Corey, said the Bradenton plant's costs are too high to "sustain manufacturing operations." The company trades on the NYSE under the symbol SRI.

LEE/COLLIER

First Home fires 204 employees

First Home Builders of Florida will lay off 204 employees Dec. 28, according to filings with the state and confirmed by a company statement.

At the height of the residential-construction boom, First Home was the largest homebuilder in Lee County. Hovnanian Enterprises of New Jersey bought the company in August 2005, which had 671 employees at that time.

After the layoffs, First Home will have 44 employees in Fort Myers. "This is a painful action, but a necessary one to right-size the company," says Tim Graney, the builder's vice president of finance.

First home targets first-time homebuyers and it has been hit hard by massive overbuilding in Lee County.

Lee building permits near low

The pace of permitting for homes in Lee County has slowed dramatically, giving the building industry an opportunity to fill hundreds of vacant unsold homes.

In October, the Lee County Community Development department issued 91 permits for single-family homes in unincorporated Lee County, Bonita Springs and Fort Myers Beach. By contrast, the department issued 444 permits for single-family homes in October 2006.

Permits for commercial buildings were relatively stable in October compared with the prior year. The county issued permits for commercial buildings valued at $20 million last month compared with $18.6 million in October 2006.

For the year ended Oct. 31, the county issued $2.1 billion worth of permits of all kinds.

Parker Hannifin buys Shaw Aero

Parker Hannifin, a manufacturer of motion and control systems with $10 billion in annual sales headquartered in Cleveland, acquired Naples-based Shaw Aero Devices. Terms were not disclosed.

Shaw, which was founded in 1956 and has 250 employees in Naples, invented safety lock, flush-mounted fuel and lightning-safe caps as well as fuel-system components, lubrication and hydraulic systems for commercial and military aircraft.

Shaw Aero will now be part of Parker Aerospace's air and fuel division, which is headquartered in Irvine, Cal. A Parker Hannifin spokesman says it will continue to operate the Naples facility and there are currently no plans to close it.

In addition to Irvine and Naples, Parker Aerospace has facilities in Tolleson, Ariz., and Guaymas, Mexico.