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Third GOP bid a charm?
Tampa business and civic leaders believe the third time will be the charm in bidding for the Republican National Convention in 2012. Members of the GOP site selection committee were greeted warmly earlier this week, despite some rain and wind, as they toured the St. Pete Times Forum.
While the city fell short in 2004 and 2008, organizers said the city now has sufficient hotel capacity to host the thousands of delegates attending the weeklong convention.
Tampa is on the short list with Phoenix and Salt Lake City. A decision is expected by summer.
Tampa cheap for biz
A study by KPMG found Tampa to be the least-expensive place for doing business among cities with populations of more than two million. A release accompanying the study cited “very competitive labor costs along with moderately low office/industrial leasing and sales tax costs” as significant factors.
The study compared each city's resources against average business costs in the four largest U.S. metropolitan areas (New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Dallas-Fort Worth). The average of the four was represented as a benchmark cost index, set at 100.
Southwest cuts 11 TIA flights
Southwest Airlines will cut 11 daily flights at Tampa International Airport during the upcoming fall travel slowdown, though those flights may be restored by winter as demand warrants.
The Dallas-based discount carrier customarily adjusts its schedule throughout the year to balance full flights with those carrying only a few dozen passengers. Cuts include a daily nonstop to Washington's Dulles International Airport and one of eight daily commuter flights to Fort Lauderdale.
“Some of those flights will be added back into our schedule,” said Southwest spokeswoman Ashley Rogers. None of the airline's current flights at Southwest Florida International Airport in Fort Myers are affected, she said.
Hospice CEO retires
Tidewell Hospice President and CEO Marge Maisto has announced her retirement from the Sarasota-based organization.
Maisto was hired in 2000 to lead Tidewell, which was then called Hospice of Southwest Florida. Tidewell has grown its average daily census from 456 people to more than 1,500 people under her leadership. The organization also added three hospice houses to the four it already had and its annual budget grew from $16.8 million to $92 million during Maisto's tenure.
Tidewell's board of Trustees has begun to search for Maisto's successor.
Bank aftermath gory
The post-mortem of First State Bank of Sarasota, which federal regulators shut down Aug. 7, is a cautionary tale of boom-and-bust banking.
The report, recently released by the Office of Inspector General of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., states that the bank's board of directors and senior management failed to properly manage the risk in its commercial real estate loan portfolio, especially development and construction loans. The bank had $463 million in assets when it was shuttered.
The bank opened in 1988 and grew to nine offices in Sarasota and Pinellas counties. Some of its assets and deposits were bought by St. Cloud, Minn.-based Stearns Bank in August. Stearns has since consolidated the bank into three local branches in Sarasota, Venice and St. Petersburg.
New tourism message
The Sarasota Convention and Visitors Bureau has a new message to attract potential tourists: Affordability.
Bureau officials say they don't want to make the area look cheap, but they do want to highlight the availability of lower-priced options in hotels and restaurants, some of which are recession-induced. The theme is the driving force behind a new five-year marketing and branding plan the CVB recently announced.
The budget for the first fiscal year of the program, which begins Oct. 1, is nearly $4 million.
State subsidies for lab
The Florida Senate has earmarked $50 million in subsidies for Jackson Laboratory to open a facility in Collier County.
Jackson Laboratory, a nonprofit biomedical research group based in Bar Harbor, Maine, is seeking $130 million in state and local subsidies for a facility to be located off Oil Well Road in eastern Collier County. Barron Collier Cos. will donate 50 acres of land to the lab and build a research park of several hundred acres around the facility.
Jackson cited the need for public funding and proximity to other biomedical research institutes as reasons for locating a facility in Florida. Biomedical institutes Scripps, Torrey Pines, Max Planck and Burnham already have facilities in Florida.
Regulators target bank
The FDIC on March 18 gave Bank of Florida Corp. 30 days to strengthen the financial position of its undercapitalized banks.
Naples-based Bank of Florida has three subsidiary banks located in Naples, Tampa and Fort Lauderdale with total assets of $1.4 billion. In an updated Securities and Exchange Commission filing, the company says it plans to raise $52 million in a secondary stock offering to comply with the FDIC order.
If it cannot raise the necessary capital, the banks must be sold or may be placed in receivership if they are critically undercapitalized for an extended period, the filing says.
Hope opens facility
Hope Healthcare Services plans to open a 45,000-square-foot hospice in April in eastern Lee County.
Hope, a nonprofit organization, operates facilities in Lee, Hendry, Glades, Highlands and Polk counties.
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