City pays for lead generation

Psst, want to make a little extra cash?

The city of Bonita Springs will pay $1,500 for anyone who brings a business that will relocate to the city and create at least five jobs.

“You just have to give us the lead and it has to work out,” says Carl Schwing, the city manager of Bonita Springs in south Lee County.

City commissioners decided recently they needed an extra arrow in their economic development quiver besides the typical incentives and promises of speedy permitting. Initially, the leads were going to be paid to real estate agents only, but the city decided to pay anyone who can bring new business to the small town of 44,000 residents.

The city has 1.26 million square feet of vacant space and 1,700 acres of industrial land. “There are a lot of opportunities here,” Schwing told a group of executives meeting with the Real Estate Investment Society in Fort Myers recently.