®
oundtable:
County officials Across the region, officials are assessing needs and allocating funds. Here, local leaders discuss what is happening in their county.
Bill Beasley
County Manager Polk County
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Dan Biles
County Administrator Pasco County
What business sectors is Polk County focused on attracting? Polk continues to strive for balance between the tax base that supports residential growth and that which supports commercial growth. I would like to see a slightly heavier commercial growth sector, but we’re taking anything and everything that’s reasonable here. Residential growth is certainly substantial. Polk is big in the warehousing and logistics industries: that will continue. We want to push higher wage jobs, higher tech jobs. We have the SunTrax facility here located next to Florida Poly. I think there’s some good synergy there for landing some high-tech R&D in that corridor and connecting them with artificial intelligence and remote operating environments. I think we’re seeing good growth in the medical side of business. The medical community is growing in Polk County, and that’s important both for medical workers who want to live in Polk and residents who want access to quality healthcare facilities.
What key infrastructure projects are in the pipeline? We have a robust transportation capital program to improve our intelligent transportation system. Those projects have not stopped despite the pandemic. We were able to get approval for the Ridge Road Extension, an east-west connection from the west side of Pasco to the Suncoast toll road. Our water projects continued too. We saw a slight pause in March and April 2020 as everyone tried to figure out what was happening with the pandemic but then it was like the construction industry went into overdrive. Regional homebuilders reported they were breaking sales records due to migration from the Northeast. In September, October and November, single-family permits were double what they were on the year, which is unprecedented growth. The same thing has happened on the commercial side. It’s impossible to get enough staff in terms of contractors, builders and even in the permitting office we are short-staffed.
What are the biggest challenges facing economic growth and development? Let’s call it commuter mobility. I think transportation and transit could be long-term challenges. We’ve got some things we need to deal with to improve people’s ability to commute, whether that be personal vehicles, the movement of goods and services on the roadway system or public transit. Dealing with public transit or public transportation when it comes to infrastructure is massively expensive but we have some very urban, densely populated corridors in which we need to improve transportation.
What are some of the target industries you want to attract to create new jobs? Aerospace, healthcare, manufacturing and light industrial are our target industries. Moffitt just bought around 900 acres where they are planning a long-term research campus. The Pasco Economic Development Council is our partner in marketing, and we helped formalize the deal for board approval. We’re starting to see the support businesses coming into the new office spaces. One of our industrial spaces recently filled up with light industrial companies and the developer is going ahead with another 300,000 square feet of industrial space.
| Invest: Tampa Bay 2021 | ECONOMY
