by Larry Thornberry

There are people now who sleep in Tampa and work in Brandon ­ what a concept! OK, there have been isolated sightings of this for years. But now there are lots of them. They go to work at Brandon corporate addresses that carry names like Citicorp, Intermedia Communications, Progressive Insurance, Highwoods Properties, and others that business page readers easily recognize. More of their like are on the way.

After decades of being a bedroom community that supplies workers for corporate Tampa, Brandon is finally becoming a corporate address itself. The corporate piece is the final part of the economic mix, falling into place after housing, services, and retail have established themselves. It allows Brandon boosters to talk proudly about their ŗfull service community.

And why not? Brandon provides the work force, the transportation network, a great location, housing, retail, medical services, and the rest of the social and economic infrastructure that businesses of all sizes and all levels of complexity need. And the areašs population of 130,000 to 135,000 would make it the statešs eighth largest city if it were incorporated.

Of course, being unincorporated, therešs ambiguity over where Brandon is. The folks at the Greater Brandon Chamber of Commerce, the closest thing to an official agency for Brandon, consider Brandon to stretch north to Interstate 4, south to just south of the Alafia River, west to 78th Street, and east to Turkey Creek Road. This area contains homes and businesses with addresses such as Tampa, Seffner, Valrico, Riverview, and others. Chamber president Bruce Drennan says his group is sensitive to the feelings of people in the small communities that have carried these names for decades, but says this geography makes sense as greater Brandon, or as it is sometimes expressed, the Greater Brandon Economic Area.

Corporate Guest list

Brandon now has corporate tenants ranging from household names to companies on the way to becoming household names.

CitiCorp's 250,000 square ft. facility is going up at 3800 Citibank Center photo by Aerial Innovations

Perhaps the leading example of Brandonšs appeal to corporate America is the 250,000-square-foot facility Citicorp is building at 3800 Citibank Center next to Sabal Park. At buildout, the worldwide banking and financial services giant expects to have 3,500 employees at the four new buildings and at Citicorpšs existing facility at 800 Citicorp Drive in the Corporex Park complex. At present, Citicorp has about 1,500 employees at work at the new and previously existing facilities.

Citicorp is consolidating various back-office operations at its 120 acre Brandon campus, including: worldwide securities services, human resources informations systems and services, corporate realty services, some planning and engineering, travel payment services, corporate health services, electronic debit car programs, corporate control and risk assessment, and other support services.

"Several years ago we changed our global real estate strategy and began putting people where they need to be to do their jobs," a Citicorp spokeswoman says. "We gain operating efficiency by putting people on large campuses if they donšt need to be in a specific place."

Citicorp looked at many sites across the country, based on a number of criteria, and chose the Tampa market for its campus, the spokeswoman says. After the Tampa area was selected, a Brandon site was pursued because of "the attractiveness of local housing and the quallity of the pool of workers. The Sabal Park area won after the decision was made to move to Tampa."

Intermedia Communications Inc., one of the fastest growing independent telephone, Internet, and data services companies in the nation, has called Sabal Park home since February of 1996. With offices in 40 states, the tellecommunications company with revenues last year of $247.9 million could have its headquarters almost anywhere. But the company, started locally in 1987, chose Brandon.

"We were (before moving to Sabal) on Route 60 by Ferman Chevrolet," says Intermedia Chairman/CEO David Ruberg. "We were looking for an area we could develop with. We wanted a place centrally located to highway systems, and a place not too far from where our people were already located. We wanted access to as much population as we could get. This place popped up. We (Intermedia employees) come from everywhere ­ north Tampa, south Tampa, Brandon." (Ruberg himself lives in north Tampa in Avila.) Ruberg says Brandon was selected because itšs ŗstrategically located from an access point of view,˛ has a good quality of life, and has good housing available at competitive prices.

"Our corporate headquarters are here, with all the normal administrative functions of a corporate headquarters," says Ruberg. "Therešs some engineering. Our switching center is here. Our MIS function is located here. Most of the people here are technically oriented and have a pretty good average income. The people working in these facilities probably average $45,000 or $50,000 a year."

Ruberg says Intermedia has about 1,000 employees in Brandon in all or part of eight leased buildings, and this number will increase as the company adds business. The company has just finished constructing an office building of 119,500 square feet and will complete a second of 120,500 by year-end.

"Our people growth has outdistanced our facilities growth," Ruberg says. "We'll eventually need 350,000 to 400,000 square feet just at these facilities." Real estate companies need real estate too. Highwoods Properties, a Raleigh, North Carolina-based REIT and one of the fastest growing real estate companies in the Southeast, has a regional office in Sabal Park.

"We came to this location by obtaining the Crocker portfolio, and we made the decision to remain with our corporate offices in Sabal," says Highwoods regional manager Richard Nash. "I commute from Beach Park (in Tampa). It's an easy commute. There are wonderful amenities here, restaurants, hotels, adequate housing for visitors. I absolutely love it here. Itšs a great location. Several of my employees live in Brandon. And believe me, if I didnšt love the water so much, I'd be living here."

Nash has more than 20 employees in his Brandon office. They work mostly in acquisitions, property management, and leasing for Highwoods, which manages more office property in the bay area than any other company. Other corporate locations to the greater Brandon area over the past few years have included: Rooms to Go, Alantic Lucent Technologies, Time Warner, Progressive Insurance Co. and Ringhaver Equipment Co.

Plans for More

That more large corporations will make Brandon their home is as close to a sure thing as you get in matters economic. One man who is both promoting this idea and betting on it is Eric Eicher. Hešs promoting the idea as chairman of the newly formed Brandon Economic Development Council of the Greater Brandon Chamber of Commerce.

Both Eicher and Bruce Drennan, president of the Brandon Chamber, stress that the new economic development group was not formed to compete with the Tampa Committee of 100 or the Tampa Bay Partnership, but to assist those groups and companies that may wish to locate in Brandon. Who better to advise companies on available land and commercial space in Brandon but people active in the Brandon business community? "We want to set up a mechanism whereby if a company is considering locating in Brandon, we could meet with company officials on why they should be in Brandon." Eicher says the council's other goals include: preparing of an economic development advertising piece to promote Brandon; working with the University of South Florida, Hillsborough Community College, and the Hillsborough County school system to create a training center to help ensure that technically trained workers are here to meet the needs of companies located in Brandon; and development of information on job growth and salaries for companies.

Eicher, who was active in the development of Sabal Park and of Walden Woods in Plant City, is betting on more corporate presence in Brandonšs Oak Creek, a Robert E. Woolley development, of which Eicher is executive vice president. Oak Creek, a mixed-use development on 1,000 acres just west of Interstate 75 and south of Bloomingdale, will contain industrial, hotel, retail and office use. There are also plans for 1,500 single family residences and 1,500 multi-family units. Eicher says the development is expected to "build out in about 10 years in office and industrial, though it might go even faster than that."

Eicher says the development has completed all zoning, and the company is in the process of platting the property. He says build-to-suit proposals have been submitted to several companies and there has been inquiries from large real estate acquisiitions people, including REITs. Corporations have expressed interest in space at Oak Creek, but he says he's not yet free yet to name these.

Another man on the receiving end of corporate inquiries is Tampa lawyer Richard Mulholland, sole owner and developer of Lake Brandon, a mixed­ use development just south of Brandon Town Center on Lumsden Avenue. The 500-acre development will contain retail, office, and multi-family. On the retail side, agreements have already been reached with Lowe's, Chick-Fil-A, Jumbo Sports, Publix, Rio Bravo, and Taco Bell. Mulholland says he has 800 units of multi-family under contract and has had inquiries from "several large institutional purchasers looking for 100 acre sites for campus-like office parks."

Why Now?

Brandon's growth and success in recent years have been impressive by any measure. While more than 130,000 people call the greater Brandon area home now, when the decade began only about 90,000 lived here. Many of the corporate and retail names have arrived in just the last few years.

But Brandon has always been here. Well, at least since John Brandon and his family settled in the area in the 1880s. So why is it taking off now?

An important part of the answer is transportation improvements. The Lee Roy Selmon Expressway (Tampa Cosstown) and Interstate 75, two major projects of the 1980s, made Brandon more easily accessible. And in the case of the interstate, made the outside world more easily accessible from Brandon.

The Brandon Town Center, a super-regional mall of just under a million square feet opened in February of 1995, and has hosted an average 10 million shoppers a year since. The mall has been a destination for people outside of Brandon who might not otherwise go there. With the addition of the Town Center, most residents donšt need to leave Brandon for retail reasons.

But likely the biggest reason for Brandonšs present prosperity ­ aside from a good economy that benefits all regions ­ is that Brandon's biggest competitors are running out of developable land, or are becoming too pricey to compete with Brandon.

Eicher and his colleagues at the Brandon Chamber have, for years, enjoyed jokingly referring to Brandon as "Eastshore." This may still be funny if you haven't heard it before, but itšs no longer a joke. Brandon competitor, Westshore, is going through a dramatic round of development now. But when this round is over, there's little land left for another. Pinellas County is just as strapped for developable land.

"Brandon and the south county area have the largest amount of available land left in Hillsborough," Eicher says. "I think this means the wešll see an acceleration of growth instead of an end to it all through the I-75 corridor." Those with foresight have seen Brandonšs day in the sun coming for some time. It may have been delayed by a recession and a real estate meltdown, but it had to arrive.