Corporate Report: April 26

John Neal buys summer golf card program
Big Summer Golf Card Holdings LLP, a new company formed by John Neal and Charles Varah representing the Pasold family, has purchased the Big Summer Golf Card program.

Operating for more than 20 years, the Big Summer Golf Card, founded by Linda Talbot, has provided golfers with summer golf at discounted pricing throughout Florida's southwest, south and central regions. More than 100 golf courses participate in the program, which reaches about 17,000 golfers in the Florida market.

“What is especially appealing is that the Big Summer Golf Card has provided a stable, contract-driven, summer golf marketing program, which has been a lifeline for many area golf courses and an important revenue source during the, traditionally, quieter period of May to October,” Varah says in a news release.

Neal is president of Lakewood Ranch-based custom home building company John Neal Homes.

Tampa Electric files with PSC for 10% rate increase in 2014
Tampa Electric Co. has filed a formal request with the Public Service Commission to raise its electricity rates. Typical commercial and industrial customers would see increases of about 6% and residential rates would grow about 10% starting in January 2014.

Tampa Electric is seeking about $135 million in higher rates, or an increase of $10.41 a month - or 35 cents a day - for the average residential customer who uses 1,000 kilowatt-hours (kwh) a month.

If approved as filed, the average residential bill would be about $113 a month, which the company says is still 5% below the national average.

The company says a residential customer who uses 1,000 kWh a month currently pays $102.58 a month.

“There is never a good time to raise rates, but even with this increase, Tampa Electric bills would remain among the lowest in Florida,” Gordon Gillette, president of Tampa Electric, says in a release.

The PSC is expected to hold hearings about Tampa Electric's request later this year, and is expected to vote on the issue by the end of the year.

PR survey shows social media spending up
In a recent report, Osprey-based market research and business consulting firm Burton-Taylor International Consulting LLC says 2012 global spending for public relations information and software was up 4.41% compared with 2011, to reach $1.99 billion.

The report also shows that social media is the fastest-growing area of spending for PR professionals. Almost 60% of respondents expect their spending on social media tools to grow in 2013.

“Since the economic meltdown in 2008, there has been much greater emphasis on transparency and tighter controls on information distribution,” Douglas Taylor, managing partner of Burton-Taylor, says in a news release. “Client interest in online visibility, especially via social media, is also boosting growth.”

The survey results say HootSuite and Radian6 currently top the list as PR practitioners' primary social media providers.

Tampa International Airport board adopts new growth plan
The Hillsborough County Aviation Authority Board has unanimously voted to move forward with an updated master plan for Tampa International Airport.

The update outlines a 20-year blueprint for growing the airport based on Federal Aviation Administration-approved passenger projections.

The new master plan calls for a consolidated rental-car facility connected by a people mover to the main terminal, connections to regional transportation networks, a new international terminal and a security-screening checkpoint in the main terminal.

The plan suggests delaying construction of a north terminal, proposed in the 2005 master plan, until passenger volumes reaches 25 million a year. The airport served nearly 17 million passengers in 2012.

“The beauty of this plan is that it takes a measured approach to capital investment so we can expand incrementally as passenger demand dictates,” Tampa International Airport CEO Joe Lopano says in a news release. “It also takes advantage of the airport's ground-breaking original design that offers plug-and-play expansion by building a new airside attached to the main terminal. And by putting off construction of a north terminal, we're preserving valuable land for growth far into the future.”

Work on the first phase of the master plan is scheduled to begin immediately and be completed by 2018. It includes expansion of the main terminal to the east and west, as well as construction of the consolidated rental car facility near the airport's entrance, connected to the main terminal by an automated people mover. The 1.3-mile line will serve not just rental car customers, but also economy parking garage users, passengers on public transportation, commercial and personal vehicles at a new curbside at the rental car facility and airport employees.

The airport suggested expanding the people mover south to a proposed multi-use center in the Westshore Business District, offering a one-stop trip from Interstate 275 to Tampa International Airport's main terminal.

The airport anticipates funding the $2.5 billion master plan projects through revenue bonds, grants and through public/private partnerships.