GULF COAST
APRIL 27 - MAY 3, 2012
Business Review
THREE DOLLARS
FIRST UP:
ON DISPLAY:
STORY ON PAGE 22
Franklin Street seeks another year of doubledigit growth.
ON PAGE 10 A marketing company taps nearby firms to meet its clients’ special requests.
For this executive, flying is more than transportation. It’s a passion.
WRIGHT ON TRACK
Page 9
SHARING THE LOVE
Companies • Trends • Entrepreneurs • CEOs
Flying High
The Weekly Newspaper for Gulf Coast Business Leaders
Neal Knapp helps entrepreneurs around the world launch craft breweries.
PAGE 12 Brian Tietz
GULF COAST BUSINESS BUZZ
+ Airport traffic softens
You’d never guess it from the traffic on the roads in March, but airport traffic on the Gulf Coast has been surprisingly soft. In March, for example, passenger traffic at Southwest
a year ago. “It really tempers the growth,� says Carol Obermeier, director of aviation market development for the Lee County Port Authority. She says that if flights aren’t at least 90% full, airlines won’t hesitate to move planes to busier routes. “That’s what all the airports are seeing right now,� she says. Thankfully, the hotel industry has seen rising occupancies, so people are getting to the Gulf Coast by car if they’re not flying. Perhaps that explains the congestion.
+ Partnership creates optimism downtown
One of the most prominent commercial real estate properties in downtown Sarasota is primed to become a high-end restaurant and special event venue. The property, on the ground floor of the city’s new Palm Avenue parking garage, is a partnership between two well-known local entrepreneurs: Jesse Biter, who sold a $16 million auto sales software firm in 2010, and Steve Seidensticker, who co-owns Libby’s, a restaurant in Sarasota’s
Southside Village neighborhood. The new eatery is so far unnamed, but Seidensticker says it will be a restaurant and bar concept, and have a 400-seat venue for private functions. Several local officials have lamented the loss of a high-end event location since the University Club, atop the Bank of America building on Main Street, shut down in 2009. “We thought with the closing of the University Club there was no place for downtown events,� Seidensticker says. “It will bring a tremendous amount of life to
See COFFEE TALK on page 3
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COFFEE TALK
Florida International Airport fell 4.6% compared with the same month one year ago. At Tampa International Airport, domestic traffic fell about 1.3% in the same month. (March figures for Sarasota-Bradenton International Airport weren’t available at press time.) Blame it on airline consolidation and higher fuel prices, which have shrunk the number and size of planes flying here. At the Fort Myers airport, for example, takeoffs and landings were down 6% in March compared with the same month
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