BUSINESS
FOR MORE INFORMATION
Learn about the Tradition Center for Commerce:
www.cityofpsl.com In the right-center of the page watch
the images in the Highlights box until Southern Grove
shows up and when it does, click it.
City Electric Supply decides to move to Tradition:
www.cityofpsl.com/Home/Components/News/
News/3165/1968
$3 million grant announcement:
www.cityofpsl.com Hover over Discover Us at the top
left. Scroll down to News and click. At the top center of
the new page, wait for the changing image to get to “PSL
Awarded $3M Grant” and click to read the details.
times for job-seekers or those hoping to change jobs.
City Electric, founded in 1983 in Tampa, has 458 branches
and more than 2,700 employees. The company, cramped with
200,000 square feet of space in St. Lucie West, was considering
moving to Dallas or to Charlotte, North Carolina, before
deciding to double its space in the new commerce center.
Plans call for spending $28 million on manufacturing, distribution
and administrative space in the new building and
another $10 million on machinery and equipment.
CITY LEARNED ITS LESSON
The city isn’t going to make the financial mistakes it made
before the Great Recession a decade ago, leaving the city on
the hook for huge payments when Digital Domain and the
Vaccine and Gene Therapy Institute failed and bailed out,
Mayor Oravec says. Because the city had agreed to guarantee
payment of the bonds the two companies used to build, the
city had to pick up the tab when the companies quit paying.
After adopting a rule change about three years ago, the city
can no longer guarantee bonds as an incentive to lure businesses
to Port St. Lucie.
Instead, the city chose low-risk incentives such as tax abatements
for 10 years (full abatement followed by sliding scale
abatement), infrastructure improvements such as the loop
road, expedited permitting, and mitigation of impact fees,
Oravec explains.
The loop road along with water and sewer improvements
will cost $4 million, to be paid for with the $3 million state
grant plus $1 million from the Tradition Economic Development
fund. Money for that fund was provided by two developers,
Wilson Groves and Riverland/Kennedy.
While Port St. Lucie’s residents may be impatient, the
wheels are finally rolling on the plan to provide work for
them. There’s no question that more jobs are needed, Oravec
says. “People say it’s great to be safe and to live here, but we
want more jobs. We want to work here.”
With the commercial retrofit, that’s what the city hopes to
accomplish. E
5101 Southeast Federal Highway,
Stuart, FL 34997
772-283-8300
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Port St. Lucie Magazine 23
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