COVER STORY

The Bay Economic Development Alliance welcomed 2022 with a bang. During the first two weeks of the year, the Bay EDA announced two new projects will be coming online in Bay County this year. On Jan. 4, the Bay EDA, along with the Panama City Port Authority, Bay County Commission, and the City of Panama City announced that FedEx Ground has chosen Panama City as the new home of its regional logistics and distribution center. The regional center, which will serve the area from Pensacola to Tallahassee, will be built in the Port Panama City owned Intermodal Distribution Center on Highway 231. FedEx Ground will build a 250,000 square-foot state-of-the-art facility on 33 acres in the park. The project will support more than 200 jobs, and the company is investing $55 million in the building and equipment for this operation. This project would not have been possible without the leadership and strategic foresight of the Port Authority, City and County. They worked with Florida Power and Light as well as McCallum Sweeney Site Selection consulting firm to get this site “shovel ready” and certified as a development ready site. This certification means the site is cleared, grubbed, zoned, has all wetlands mitigated and has utilities available at the site. This accelerates the timeframe of construction so the company can get up and running more quickly thus saving the company time and money.

On Jan. 12, the Bay EDA along with the Bay County Commission announced that Central Moloney Inc. has chosen Bay County to expand its manufacturing operations. Central Moloney Inc. (CMI), headquartered in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, is a key supplier to a number of large investor-owned utilities, distributors and original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) throughout the United States. The company designs and manufactures electrical distribution transformers and transformer component parts. The product line offering of electrical transformers includes both single-phase pole and pad mounted units, vaults for underground applications in urban areas, and three-phase pad mounted units primarily used in light commercial applications. Central Moloney is preparing to open this new manufacturing operation in Bay County that will produce single-phase pole mounted transformers.

For this expansion, Central Moloney, Inc. will be leasing an existing 140,000 square-foot facility owned by The St. Joe Company. The state-of-the-art manufacturing facility is located in VentureCrossings Enterprise Centre. The company will make a capital investment of more than $20M and will create 200 new jobs in Bay County.

These two projects will have a significant impact on the Bay County economy. For every primary new job generated by these companies, it is estimated there will be a minimum of four secondary jobs created in our community, whether it be commercial, retail or other developments that support the operations of these new corporate partners.

These two companies could have located anywhere in the country but they chose Bay County. Why Bay County? How can we compete and win international and domestic projects and convince companies to locate, grow and expand in our community? What goes into being able to recruit and close these deals? A lot. The Bay Economic Development Alliance works some projects for years before they come to fruition. In addition to having the “world’s most beautiful beaches”, Bay County has product (development ready sites and buildings), great educational partners such as Gulf Coast State College, Florida State University Panama City, Haney Technical School and Bay District Schools, a world-class workforce partner in CareerSource Gulf Coast, a growing airport and a strong, successful international port, just to name a few of our assets. The driving force behind all the success in Bay County leadership and public/private partnership, which is personally second to none. Leadership is the key to success. In Bay County, no one cares who gets the credit as long as we keep racking up the wins.

As we continue to blast through 2022, Bay EDA is looking forward to more recruitment and marketing trips around the world, as well as hosting more prospect visits in Bay County. Look around and you will see many outstanding growth projects underway. There are more exciting initiatives coming as we all continue to work hard to make great things happen in Bay County every day.