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Moffitt leases TIA building
The Hillsborough County Aviation Authority approved a 20-year lease on a vacant, 40,000-square-foot office building near Tampa International Airport to the H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center & Research Institute.
The lease is valued at $7.5 million, plus renovation costs. Moffitt expects to place 55 medical professionals next summer in the former Continental Airlines reservations center.
The building is adjacent to International Plaza.
Odyssey returns to court
Tampa-based Odyssey Marine Exploration Inc. filed an appeal May 10 over 17 tons of silver coins and other artifacts from a shipwreck off the coast of Spain.
The company, which discovered the undersea treasure in 2007, told the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta that a federal magistrate in Tampa erroneously dismissed the case last year. The ruling entitles Spain to take possession of spoils from the navy frigate that sank three centuries ago.
Odyssey stated in its brief that an earlier appellate court ruling similar to its own “Black Swan” case clarifies its argument against sovereign immunity because Spain did not originally own the galleon's contents. An estimated $500 million is at stake.
Rowdies draw a crowd
More than 8,000 spectators turned out for the Tampa Bay Rowdies' first game in three decades. The professional soccer team played the Austin Aztex to a 2-2 tie at Tampa's Steinbrenner Field.
The original Rowdies played at the former Tampa Stadium in the mid-to-late 1970s, having won the North American Soccer League championship in its inaugural 1975 season. Andrew Nestor, lead owner of the new NASL franchise, said he had hoped for a large audience for this year's first match but anticipates slightly smaller crowds at the Rowdies' 13 remaining home games.
Tech firm refocuses
Yippy Inc., the Fort Myers-based technology firm formerly called Cinnabar Ventures, is refocusing its business on software applications.
The startup company plans to acquire search engine Clusty.com and has shelved the plan to build the hardware and data part of the business. “Too much, too fast,” says Richard Granville, Yippy's CEO.
Two company executives, Rick Lisa and Frank Mambuca, have resigned and the planned acquisition of Bonita Springs-based US Metro has been dropped. However, Yippy will continue to be a customer of US Metro.
New airport terminal
The Lee County Port Authority broke ground on a new airport terminal at Page Field, Fort Myers' general aviation airport.
The new facility will include a 23,000-square-foot, two-story terminal building, a 24,000-square-foot hangar, a new fuel farm, a parking lot and an entrance road. The $16.2-million project is scheduled to be completed next year.
The general-aviation airport is located in Fort Myers and used to be the city's only airport before Southwest Florida International Airport was built east of Interstate 75 in Lee County.
Homes sales climb
Existing-home sales in the Cape Coral-Fort Myers area continued to grow at double-digit rates even as prices stabilized, according to first-quarter data from the Florida Association of Realtors.
Sales of existing single-family homes rose 28% in the first quarter to 3,979 compared with the same quarter in 2009. The median price fell 1% to $91,300 in that same period.
Sales of existing homes have surged since last year as median prices fell 72% since they hit the peak in December 2005 at $322,300.
Bond ratings raised
Manatee County's bond grades have been raised by a prominent outside auditor, a move that one official says makes the county one of the most financially secure counties in the state.
Fitch Ratings, a global bonds and credit research firm, announced the ratings upgrade when it recently recalibrated its U.S. Public Finance Ratings. In doing so the agency upgraded Manatee County's $16.7 million in outstanding general obligation bonds from AA+ to AAA, the highest possible rating. The grades for the county's other bonds, which include public utility revenue bonds, were raised from AA to AA+.
“To have our already strong bond ratings upgraded to even higher levels represents the high level of confidence that investors have in our county and its management,” Manatee County Clerk of the Circuit Court and Comptroller R.B. “Chips” Shore says in a press release. “The upgraded ratings speak highly about the financial health of our county.”
Foreclosures increase
Foreclosures in the Sarasota-Bradenton-North Port region have increased on a yearly and quarterly basis, a pair of real estate research firms recently found.
One company, CoreLogic, reported that the foreclosure percentage compared to total mortgage loans in the region was 11% last March, up from 7% in March 2009. Meanwhile, RealtyTrac reported that one in every 61 homes in the region had a foreclosure filing against it during the first quarter of 2010, up 8.5% from 2009's fourth quarter and up 28% from the first quarter last year.
Airline announces expansion
JetBlue Airways will launch a nonstop flight between Boston's Logan International Airport and Sarasota-Bradenton International Airport later this year.
The flights, long at the top of local airport officials' wish list, will begin Nov. 18. The Sarasota flight will leave daily at 3 p.m., while the Boston flight is expected to depart daily at 10:50 a.m. The airline has announced an introductory price of $69 each way for tickets.
The flights are seasonal, going from November to May. JetBlue serves 37 airports from Logan and has nonstop flights to six other Florida cities, including Tampa and Fort Myers.
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