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TIA sets targets
Tampa International Airport, in an ongoing effort to emphasize its middle name, identified four foreign cities where it would like to add flight service: Mexico City; Panama City; Frankfurt, Germany; and Bogota, Colombia.
Airport officials believe enough people drive from the Tampa Bay area to other Florida airports to fill those daily nonstop flights. However, they caution that it may take some time to convince carriers to commit.
TIA averages 24 weekly nonstop flights outside the continental United States, far below those departing airports in Orlando, Miami and Fort Lauderdale. The airport is making a concerted effort this year to grow its international schedule.
TRP campus years away
Baltimore-based T. Rowe Price says it will take several years before construction starts at a new regional campus planned in Pasco County. The economy is to blame, a TRP executive told the Pasco Alliance of Community Associations.
The investment firm bought a 90-acre parcel at State Road 54 and Sunlake Boulevard two years ago for $13.5 million with plans for a three-building, 450,000-square-foot corporate campus to replace its current Tampa offices. A total of 1,600 jobs were announced at the time, including 430 to be transferred, but TRP now says it won't hire those new positions for at least a decade.
Agenda: Impact fees
Lee County commissioners will be considering a recommendation to lower taxes on new construction.
Specifically, commissioners on June 14 will consider whether to lower by 27% so-called “impact fees” levied on builders to pay for roads, according to an alert from the Real Estate Investment Society in Fort Myers. Lower road-construction costs and less traffic were cited as two reasons for the recommendation to lower the tax.
Conservancy raises millions
The Conservancy of Southwest Florida, an environmental-advocacy group based in Naples, says it has raised $38.8 million in a capital campaign.
The organization, chaired by Dolph von Arx, the retired chairman and CEO of Planters Lifesavers Co., will use the money for programs and to fund an endowment for policy, advocacy, environmental science, research and education.
In addition, money raised will be used to rehabilitate buildings on its Naples campus, including the new von Arx Wildlife Clinic.
Love opens store
Norman Love Confections, the Fort Myers-based chocolate maker, has opened a retail store in Naples.
Love, whose business is principally as supplier of millions of chocolates to retailer Godiva and upscale supermarkets, has held off expanding a retail operation for several years because of the economic recession.
Currently, Love sells chocolates to the public from a 700-square-foot store inside his Fort Myers manufacturing facility. The new 1,263-square-foot chocolate salon in Naples sells chocolates, pastries and coffee.
Home sales fall
The number of existing single-family home sales dropped 6% in April while median prices rose by the same percentage rate in the Naples area compared to the same month a year ago.
The Naples Area Board of Realtors reported 412 single-family home sales in April, while the median prices rose to $237,000. Existing-condo sales in April fell 7% to 501, and median prices dropped 11% to $165,000 compared with April 2010.
Bank purchase approved
Federal regulators signed off on the Community Bank-First Community Bank of America acquisition.
The approval, from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., was the last step in the process for Lakewood Ranch-based Community Bank & Co. to buy Pinellas Park-based FCBA. Community agreed to buy FBCA for $10 million in a deal announced in February.
The acquisition is expected to close June 1. It will yield a single bank with more than $700 million in assets and 17 branch locations throughout the Gulf Coast.
Colleges seek funds
The Florida state budget approved by the Legislature holds the potential of at least $10 million in aid for two of the largest colleges in the Sarasota-Bradenton area.
One school in line to receive funds is the State College of Florida in Bradenton, which could get $5 million for a library project. New College of Florida in Sarasota could receive $6.3 million for remodels and repairs of campus buildings.
Gov. Rick Scott still needs to approve the budget. But the possibility of any money surprised school officials, who thought the colleges would get nothing because of the statewide budget shortfall.
President plans retirement
New College of Florida President Gordon “Mike” Michalson will retire from the executive position next summer.
Michalson is the longest-serving president of New College. He has been president since 2001 and was a dean and warden at the school from 1992-1997.
Michalson, recognized nationwide as a leading scholar on Immanuel Kant and the philosophy of religion, will take a one-year sabbatical after he retires July 1, 2012. He plans to return to the college in 2013 as a professor of religion.
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