Toughing It Out
by
Melissa wells
Amid an economic recession, tourism and high tech take
hits but Pinellas industries hold strong.
The destruction of the World Trade Center towers on Sept. 11
by terrorists not only shook Wall Street and rocked the nation’s
economy, but the aftermath has hurt Pinellas County. Its tourist
industry, which had been growing at record levels for the previous
eight years, has suffered since the attacks. The county’s
technology industry has also taken a hit with a circuit board
manufacturer in North Pinellas announcing weeks after the attacks
that it would lay off 450 employees and close its doors. And
shortly thereafter a 56-employee plastic injection mold firm
in St. Petersburg stated its intentions to also shut down.
But with the Defense Department increasing its 2002 budget to
$328 billion to fight the war against terrorism, Pinellas County’s
defense industry manufacturers are resurging. Raytheon, with
facilities in St. Petersburg and Largo, has been awarded contracts
amounting to more than $280 million for advanced communications
systems for the military. General Dynamics Ordnance in St. Petersburg
has received $113.3 million worth of contracts for munitions
and L-3 Communications Holdings in Clearwater $20 million for
bomb detection systems for luggage checked at airports.
"Pinellas
is strong in a lot of regards," says Ron Waselewski, marketing
manager at Pinellas County Economic Development. "Tourism
can and will bounce back. Many of our industries are strong
and some will benefit from defense initiatives."
Those workers who have been laid off by Pinellas manufacturers
will receive employment services thanks to an emergency grant.
"Pinellas took in $2 million to assist," Waselewski
says. "Pinellas hasn’t been hit as hard as other areas
of the country but that money allows for retraining."
The 450 employees at Flextronics International will benefit
from those funds when the Singapore-based manufacturer of electronic
components closes its 130,000-square-foot Palm Harbor facility
early next year. Another 56 employees at St. Petersburg’s
Thermotech Division of Menasha Corp., based in Hopkins, Minn.,
will lose their jobs at roughly the same time.
Meanwhile Florida’s tourist industry, which Visit Florida
Inc. claims will lose approximately $3 billion in business this
year due to terrorist attacks, is working to recover. In Pinellas,
prior to the attacks, the industry had been burgeoning despite
a soft economy. Last year the county attracted 4.7-million overnight
visitors, a 3.5 percent increase from the previous year. And
those tourists spent $2.5 billion, an increase of 5.2 percent
from 1999.
Since Sept. 11, however, beach resorts and merchants at the
coastal town of Tarpon Springs have been watching for the return
of tourists. "We see a long recovery ahead," says
Carol Ketterhagen, executive director at the St. Petersburg/Clearwater
Area Convention and Visitors Bureau. "We’re optimistic,
however. The industry tells us it’s promising. New flights
to the area are being added by airlines and the consumer confidence
level has increased (since Sept. 11). There is more confidence
in the whole safety issue of flying again."
|
|
| Michel
Bellevance, general manager of U.S. operations at Montreal-based
Forensic Technology Inc., likes doing business at the
STAR Center in Largo. Photo: Roman Coia |
Safety issues
are also looming large at the Pinellas STAR (Science, Technology
and Research) Center in Largo. Constellation Technology Corp.,
with its headquarters at the converted Dept. of Energy facility,
has had increased demand for its nuclear, chemical and biological
detection systems. The 85-employee firm has developed a device
to detect anthrax or any other chemical substance in seconds.
"Constellation is bombarded with interest in its technology
for public safety," says Ken Hall, the STAR Center’s
director.
Another niche of the safety industry has made the STAR Center
home. The National Forensic Technology Center has a 10-employee
office at the facility and trains law enforcement officials
how to properly obtain and preserve criminal evidence. Thanks
largely to its influence, Forensic Technology Inc. has relocated
several operations from its Montreal headquarters to a 20,000-square-foot
office at the STAR Center. It has hired 32 people to work in
its assembly operation, training and customer support center.
"The people at the National Forensic Technology Center
told us about the STAR Center and the concept behind it,"
says Pete Gagliardi, Forensic Technology’s vice president
of U.S.A. operations. "We thought that would be a place
where our company would fit in well."
The STAR Center was formerly a facility used by the Dept. of
Energy to manufacture triggers for nuclear devices. When that
function stopped six years ago, the building and its technology
were made available to high-tech firms that needed operating
space. Within a few years, with Raytheon taking 300,000 square
feet as the anchor tenant, the center filled and has been growing
ever since with several new buildings to accommodate many of
the companies that have expanded. "We have 1,700 workers
at the STAR Center now," Hall says.
"The STAR Center is a testimonial to the good things that
can be done converting government facilities not in use any
more to healthy economic development sites," Gagliardi
says. "It’s a good example of the system working like
it should at the federal, state and local government."
Key to Forensic Technology’s relocation has been incentives
offered by Pinellas County Economic Develop-ment. "They
helped defray some of the costs of the move," says Gagliardi.
"But most of all the people in Pinellas made us feel welcome
and were always willing to go an extra mile to help us out.
We felt we had a partner to turn to for everything we needed.
We’re glad to be in a beautiful building in a location
that fits our company’s profile of science, technology
and research."
Forensic Technology provides systems that correlate crime evidence
on databases used by crime labs throughout the world. The firm
has developed technology that identifies the unique "ballistic
signature" of each firearm. The way a gun propels a bullet
registers marks on the bullet and shell that are unique.
"Our system has a correlation engine, like a search engine
on the Internet, that compares the signature with others and
gives a report of the most likely matches," says Michel
Bellevance, the firm’s general manager of U.S. operations.
"The system does the first step of sorting that provides
leads."
Those
leads are then scrutinized by firearms examiners that confirm
evidence for use in court. What was previously a tedious manual
sorting process for examiners has been reduced to a quick and
easy electronic sort. This ultimately assists law enforcement
officials in identifying the perpetrators of crimes committed
with firearms.
A boost came to Forensic Technology in late 1999 when the Bureau
of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and the Federal Bureau of Investigation
agreed to standardize this type of research throughout the nation
by using the Canadian firm’s system. "Our system should
be installed in 250 crime labs across the United States by the
end of 2002," Bellevance says. "We also sell the system
to large municipal police departments."
The police departments in New York, Houston and New Orleans
are currently using the firm’s equipment. The system has
also been installed in 24 nations. A contingent of international
customers recently met at Forensic Technology’s Largo facility.
"We had people from Colombia, Brazil, Spain, Turkey, Israel
and Italy here," says Bellevance. "We’re leading
toward a worldwide network but we’re very far from this
possibility now. National laws of various countries prevent
this sharing of information."
But the crime labs in the United States will share their databases.
"It is not a far-fetched situation to link crimes committed
with the same firearm in cities located across vast distances,"
Bellevance says.
Another asset with the system is the instance of the police
officer who arrests a driver for speeding and then discovers
that a firearm in that person’s possession has been used
in a crime.
The Largo operation handles assembly, installation and maintenance
of the system along with a training center and customer service
center that answers calls worldwide. "We needed a strong
customer service facility in the United States," says Bellevance.
"This area is geographically advantageous for developing
business in South America."
As the company places more systems, Bellevance plans to increase
the size of the customer service center. "We’ll add
20 employees next year," he says. "We’re growing
faster than we expected. We thought we’d be at 25 at the
end of this year and we’re already at 32."
Another high-tech firm handling security issues has relocated
from Tampa’s Westshore area to Feather Sound in the Gateway
area. Integration Specialists Inc. builds an intrusion detection
system that prevents hackers from breaking into a computer network
and defacing a web site or stealing confidential financial information.
"I saw this (technology) as an area with a lot of growth
as companies put more things on line and more assets are digital
in nature," says Andy Swenson, the firm’s president.
"This would require a sophisticated form of protection."
To that end, Swenson, the chief information officer of several
public companies earlier in his career, has recruited "employees
with extremely strong security backgrounds," he says. "One
is retired from MacDill Air Force Base. He was head of security
for their link command. He runs my security practice."
Swenson moved his eight-employee company to the Gateway area
in an expansion. "That’s one piece of the move,"
he says. "We’re very conveniently located – we
can hit anywhere in the Tampa Bay market, even to Lakeland,
within 45 minutes of here – yet we’re paying not quite
half of what we were paying before."
Also operating in the Gateway area is Catalina Marketing Corp.
(NYSE:POS), which this year Forbes magazine ranked 101st among
America’s 200 best small companies. The 450-employee company
has occupied its new 150,000-square-foot headquarters building
at Carillon. Producing software that generates coupons at the
cash register in retail venues, Catalina Marketing relocated
to St. Petersburg from California in 1993 with 70 employees.
"Moving to Pinellas has been positive for the company,"
says Chris Wolf, the firm’s vice president of finance.
|
|
| BIC
Graphic USA has expanded operations at the ICOT Center
in Clearwater. |
Another company
that started small in Pinellas County and has grown considerably
is BIC Graphic USA. A subsidiary of Clichy, France-based Societe
BIC S.A., the local operation has been producing promotional
writing products (pens with customized printing of logos and
corporate information) since 1977, starting with 35 employees
in a 30,000-square-foot leased facility and annual revenues
of $2 million. "We’ve grown to 800 employees in this
market place and annual revenues in excess of $150 million,"
says Jack Teague, global president at BIC Graphic.
The firm now operates in a 90,000-square-foot facility it owns
at the ICOT Center. Several years ago it acquired a second 90,000-square-foot
building in the Gateway area and recently expanded that facility
by 60,000 square feet. Its most recent expansion has been a
new 44,000-square-foot building at its ICOT campus for the production
of promotional BIC sticky notes or as the company calls it,
"repositionable" adhesive notepads.
"As an extension of our product line, we were looking for
consistent products," Teague says.
BIC rolled out its new product in August. "At this stage
we’re on plan with this desktop product," says Teague.
"Customer response has been very supportive. Our order
count per day has been accelerating very nicely."
The bulk of the firm’s product line is shipped throughout
the United States, Canada and Mexico.
There are several reasons BIC has made a "very significant
capital and infrastructure investment in this community,"
Teague says. "The overall cost of doing business in this
area has been attractive. Land costs for development are very
competitive from a national perspective. What has inspired us
to continue growing here is a very good employment base. Our
employees have done a great job contributing to the success
of this business."
While BIC’s strategies have amounted to success, another
producer of custom-printed promotional products has not met
with such good fortune. Sun-Time Enterprises in Clearwater (Maddux
Report, June 2000) has filed for bankruptcy and sold its 25,000-square-foot
facility to Ken Byers, owner of Media Power based in Maine.
That company ranks among the top 10 of infomercial production
companies in the nation.
"We formed Talk 2 Us Inc., a Florida corporation, to acquire
the Sun-Time trademark, Links Walker trademark, related Web
sites and the inventory of the bankrupt company," Byers
says. "This acquisition gives us a potential venture with
their licensed product. We’re presently trying to get licenses
for this type of product in colleges."
The bankrupt Sun-Time produced products bearing logos of professional
and college-level sports teams. Its first product was a watch
with the National Football League’s logo. From that initial
success, the firm later acquired licensing rights for use of
the logos of the National Basketball Association, National Hockey
League, Major League Baseball and sports teams of colleges throughout
the nation.
Taking over the business in May, Byers has retained six of its
employees. Besides continuing with that line of product, Byers
plans to convert the Clearwater operation to a fulfillment center
"to handle our catalog orders," he says. "We’re
now up to 18 employees. We’re planning a call center in
the facility with as many as 40 to 50 employees."
Another sports-oriented marketer that relocated from Massachusetts
several years ago has recently expanded its Safety Harbor facility.
Matrix Group Ltd. Inc. is a licensee of Rawling Sporting Goods.
"We have the rights to all of their equipment bags,"
says Louis Orloff, the firm’s president.
A few years ago, Orloff acquired Youngstown, Ohio-based Spike
Nashbar, which specializes in volleyball equipment and accessories,
and relocated those operations to Safety Harbor. The firm currently
has 25 employees in its 15,000-square-foot headquarters. Orloff
bought another 18,000-square-foot building for future expansion.
The latest product line expansion at the company is sports apparel
for girls age 12 to 20. "We’ve launched our Sweet
& Powerful catalog and it looks like a successful publication,"
says Orloff. "We’re launching a Web site to go with
it."
Relocating to Pinellas County has been positive "from a
business perspective because it’s a lower cost place to
do business," Orloff says. "We did have a problem
establishing a banking relationship that we eventually solved."
As part of buying merchandise from around the world, Orloff
needed a bank with an international department that would issue
letters of credit. That was a tough find. "We ended up
constructing an arrangement through Republic Bank, who struck
up an agreement with the Bank of Tampa," says Orloff. "We
got very lucky. It took 18 months to find two bankers that would
think out of the box on how to construct a lending arrangement."
Not facing issues of international finance, a Pinellas Park
manufacturer is also expanding. Ven-Tel Plastics Corp. has 84
employees for the production of custom injection molding and
assembly for the medical, automotive and electronics industries.
The 18-year-old company, with annual revenues approaching $8
million, is soon to occupy its new 105,000-square-foot, $7-million
facility and will be adding staff.
"This is a huge capital investment in this area,"
says Arno C. Zeyn, the firm’s president. "That’s
our statement of confidence in Pinellas County."
The firm currently produces plastic parts for companies throughout
the southeastern United States. "The expansion is due to
our increased amount of business. We continue to grow and find
new opportunities," Zeyn says. "We’ll aggressively
expand our market over the next few years into the northeast
and central U.S."
Although Thermotech, another plastics manufacturer has recently
shut down its Pinellas facility, "everything comes with
a mixed blessing," says Zeyn. "We don’t like
to see that happen to anybody but for us it’s good to have
the talent available in the market place. This market has a
pool of talented people at a reasonable salary range. It’s
one of the prime reasons we’re located here and plan to
be here a long, long time."
Additional corporate expansions in Pinellas Park are a 35,000-square-foot
manufacturing and testing facility for Consolidated Polymer
Technologies Inc.; a two-story, $1-million First Community Bank
branch on Belcher Road; and Custom Mobility Inc., which sells
major brands of wheelchairs. Pinellas Park’s retail options
have expanded with the opening of the new Wal-Mart supercenter,
one of the city’s largest employers, and a new CVS pharmacy
on Park Boulevard. The former Sam’s Club warehouse on U.S.
Highway 19 has recently reopened as the Pinellas Expo Center,
a 124,000-square-foot venue for trade shows and music and sports
events.
Although speculative development in Pinellas has come to a near
standstill, Grady Pridgen Inc. is adding four buildings totaling
150,000 square feet in Metropointe Park in the Gateway area.
Hallmark Development of Florida is completing a 22,750-square-foot
office building at the Airport Business Center near the St.
Petersburg/Clearwater International Airport. "It’s
65 percent preleased," says Paul Engelhardt, a vice president
at the firm. "Another 24,000-square-foot building is in
engineering now."
Occupying the newest building at the Airport Business Center
are the information technology company SolSource (Maddux Report,
November 2001); Your Future Inc., a Virginia-based company opening
a 2,730-square-foot computer training center at that location,
and a 3,300-square-foot office for a Wisconsin-based software
development company. "All of our customers are pleased
with our accessibility to downtown Tampa and St. Petersburg,"
Engelhardt says.
Haydon-Rubin Development Inc. is well along on its new 50,000-square-foot,
three-story Bayside Concourse Class A office building at the
south end of the Bayside Bridge. "We have leased about
10,000 square feet to the Murray Co. and its sister company,
GMA Design, an architectural firm," says Rogers Haydon
at Haydon-Rubin Development.
At the north end of the Bayside Bridge on U.S. 19 the Sembler
Company is working on its plans to redevelop the 840,000-square-foot
Clearwater Mall in a joint venture with New York-based New Plan
Excel Realty, the mall’s owner. "We’re still
early in the process," says Lisa Brock at the Sembler Co.
While these projects are in the works, sales of commercial real
estate have been quite active this year. "We sold a lot
of buildings last year and are on a record pace for this year,"
says Scott Clendening at Commercial Partners Realty Inc. "The
Gateway area is a vibrant market and Oldsmar has come into its
own in the last two years. That market in and of itself has
kept us extremely busy."
One transaction is the leasing of a 62,000-square-foot building
to ProMedica, a manufacturer of medical carts relocating from
Tampa to Oldsmar. "They took half the building and we leased
the other half to Eautoclaims," Clendening says.
This is an expansion for the company, which previously leased
a 14,000-square-foot building in Palm Harbor.
Also operating in Oldsmar is Uniprise, a subsidiary of UnitedHealth
Group, which provides health care insurance to companies. The
company employs 400 people at its new 103,000-square foot health
claims processing center in the Tampa Bay Park of Commerce.
|
|
| Answer
Systems Inc. tripled the size of its facility with a move
to the 580 Corporate Center in Oldsmar. |
Answers Systems
Inc. has relocated from a 33,000-square-foot facility in Clearwater
into a 94,000-square-foot building in the 580 Corporate Center.
The 100-employee company provides database management and customer
service in the food service industry. It also handles coupon
rebates and other promotions for its customers, including Lipton,
Kraft and Kelloggs.
"We do a lot of warehousing fulfillment and shipping of
those manufacturers’ point of sale materials," says
Bud Hilton, the firm’s president.
Although the expansion is due to the natural growth of the business,
"part of the expansion is due to our Web site VisiTrade.com,"
Hilton says. This site allows large manufacturers in the food
service industry to market their products to restaurants, for
instance.
"They can order product on line in a limited fashion,"
says Hilton. "And customers can access any rebates that
are available. The Web site is in beta tests right now and we’ll
implement it the first of next year."
Oldsmar city officials have high hopes for two pending announcements
of expansion by Pinellas County companies. Ocean Optics in Dunedin
plans to develop a new 100,000-square-foot manufacturing facility
in the Tampa Bay Park of Commerce for Ocean Thin Films. This
division of the company produces highly specialized optical
filters and is currently operating in a 22,000-square-foot facility
in Largo.
"We’re in negotiations for financing the Oldsmar facility,"
says Rob Morris, the firm’s marketing manager. "We
need to expand our thin film operations to meet greater capacity
requirements."
Companies that manufacture high-definition televisions and digital
projectors are interested in the firm’s thin film products.
"Our filters produce brighter, sharper images," Morris
says. "They’re courting us to incorporate our technology
into their products. But we need greater capacity. It will take
a year to build the new facility. It’s promising but we
haven’t dotted any i’s or crossed any t’s yet."
The other candidate for wish fulfillment is Nielsen Media Research.
The firm, which tracks the nation’s television ratings,
has operated in its Dunedin headquarters since 1974 and has
outgrown its 210,000-square-foot facility at that location.
The company has submitted plans with the City of Oldsmar for
a 35-acre headquarters campus in Brooker Creek Corporate Center.
"They’re looking to construct 570,000 square feet
of space in two phases," says Nick Staszko, community development
director at the City of Oldsmar. "We’re fortunate
that the land is here for them to do this. We have a motivated
company wanting to get their operations into one place and a
motivated landowner to provide them space. It looks promising
at this point."
Moving ahead with certainty is Randy Mears, who is developing
a two-story, 22,000-square-foot building in downtown Oldsmar.
It will provide retail and office space.
Additional
new retail in Oldsmar is a 220,000-square-foot Wal-Mart supercenter,
which opened recently. Last year a 20-screen American Multi-Cinema
theater opened in Woodlands Square Shopping Center. "Traffic
has been very good," Staszko says. "The center had
40 percent vacancy before the opening of the theater and now
it’s at zero vacancy."
Earlier in the year an 82-room Holiday Inn Express opened in
Oldsmar. "The city council has approved plans for a 99-room
Courtyard by Marriott," says Staszko. "Both of these
hotels are in our downtown."
Not far away in Ozona, in North Pinellas, a high-tech firm is
expanding its operations. TBG Reliance Corp. produces software
that manages the repair and maintenance of automated teller
machines. "One of our customers has 13,000 ATMs throughout
the nation and Canada," says Jack Bennett, the firm’s
chairman of the board. "Our software does project management
for equipment installation, call tracking, monitoring and reporting.
This is a totally automated system. No one needs to monitor
the system to notify that there’s trouble with equipment."
When an ATM device needs maintenance, the firm’s system
manages the process from assigning the service provider to tracking
length of time required for the repair and costs of the repair.
"We also monitor lighting systems at ATMs," says Bennett.
"These are required by law in some states. We notify a
customer to turn off their ATM when the light system is inoperable.
There can be a significant fine associated with that."
The company’s software is also used in the petroleum equipment
industry to detect and fix leaks. "Our equipment is attached
by modem to the tank measurement equipment and any leakage is
reported to us," Bennett says. "We then notify company
officials and submit monthly reports to the Environmental Protection
Agency."
The 12-employee firm has been operating in a 3,000-square-foot
office. It is expanding into a second 4,000-square-foot support
facility for a new line of business. "We’re finding
that companies don’t want to be involved in help desk operations,"
says Bennett. "We’ve submitted two proposals to take
over those total operations on a contract basis. We’ll
provide repair and maintenance oversight for swipe equipment
used at the gas pump and will increase our staff to 40 if either
of the proposals is awarded."
While TBG Reliance prepares for this expansion of services,
IMRglobal Corp. in downtown Clearwater is adjusting to its new
ownership. At the end of July Montreal-based CGI Group Inc.
acquired the 400-employee company that is best known for helping
companies prepare their computer systems for Y2K. As a result
of this merger CGI is the fourth-largest information technology
services company in North America with 13,000 employees and
3,000 clients. No layoffs have been announced at the Clearwater
facility and there has been speculation that CGI may transfer
some of its operations to the area.
In Largo HCA-The Healthcare Co. has opened a 72,000-square-foot
medical supply service center in Starkey Lakes Office Park.
It has employed 100 people to handle administrative services
and deliver supplies to HCA hospitals in the area. One of those
hospitals, Largo Medical Center, has recently completed a $32.5-million
expansion and renovation of its emergency and surgical services
areas in addition to a new three-level parking garage.
In downtown St. Petersburg the high-tech community has grown
with the relocation of ComCept Solutions LLC from Winston-Salem,
N.C. The 16-employee firm provides hardware and software to
the automotive paint distribution industry. At BayView Tower
CareMedic Systems Inc. recently celebrated the grand opening
of its new 15,500-square-foot headquarters office with 70 employees.
The firm provides Medicare reimbursement software to hospitals,
home health agencies and nursing facilities. Ben Comp National
Corp. has expanded into a 19,000-square-foot office at the tower.
With 120 employees, the firm is a software developer for the
insurance industry and it provides back office operations for
its clients.
Making a substantial investment in new development in downtown
St. Petersburg is Orlando-based ZOM Development, which is building
the $35-million, 277-unit Madison luxury apartments. The firm
is also planning to develop 250 rental apartments at the Dew
Cadillac site south of Central Avenue. Plans are also under
way by the Sembler Co. to develop a 27,000-square-foot Publix
grocery store and additional retail space at that site.
This retail project follows on the heels of the developer’s
success at the BayWalk entertainment and retail complex. The
157,000-square-foot facility is home to a Muvico theater that
is among the top performers for the movie chain.
And a new buyer is closing on the 105,000-square-foot office
building downtown that was formerly occupied by Franklin-Templeton.
"We’re seeing good real estate business in St. Petersburg,"
says Scott Clendening at Commercial Partners Realty Inc. "This
market is holding its head."
Corporate
Report: Plant City click here
|
