2018 Gadsden County Business Journal by Rowland Publishing, Inc.

2018 GADSDEN COUNTY BUSINESS JOURNAL AN 850 BUSINESS MAGAZINE SPECIAL REPORT

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GADSDEN COUNTY BUSINESS JOURNAL

GROWING BUSINESS Gadsden sells its story through a growing network of partners by STEVE BORNHOFT

or an economic development organization to attract business, it must think like a business and perform like one. That’s the outlook of Beth Kirkland, the executive director of the Gadsden County Development Council. She would resist the notion that the job of business recruitment can be made formulaic — every prospect requires a customized approach — but there are fundamentals involved: product, policy and outreach, as Kirkland sees them. Like a retailer with products for sale on its shelves, an economic developer has to have products (or assets) to offer his prospects — buildings, sites and talent. “When we established the Development Council four years ago, we embraced the fact that we have some good product here,” Kirkland said, “but we also recognized that a lot of our legacy buildings our outdated from an industrial standpoint.” Many lack the type of loading docks or doors that distributors favor today, and ceiling heights are less than optimal. “Product is racked higher these days,” Kirkland has found. “Businesses need to be able to get more product in distribution centers.” Safelite AutoGlass provides a case in point. It was one of the first projects that the council, representing a coalition of business, education and local government interests,

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worked on. Safelite was sharing a building in Leon County with a second tenant and needed more room. “We had a spec building under construction with eave heights that were appealing to Safelite,” Kirkland said. “The fact that construction was underway meant that the building would become available to Safelite on a short timeline, but it wasn’t so far along that Safelite couldn’t customize the front office based on their established template for a regional distribution center.” Safelite wound up occupying the same number of square feet at the Gadsden 10/90 Industrial Park that it had in Leon County, but with more room beneath the ceiling. Meanwhile, the joint tenant that Safelite left behind in Leon County was presented with room that they needed for expansion.

“Everything worked out very nicely,” Kirkland said. “Both businesses benefitted, and the region benefitted. This was a very good example of why we need the type of product that Safelite moved into.” About a year after the council was formed, then-Florida Secretary of Commerce Gray Swoope challenged investor-owned utilities in Gadsden County to bring forward what they considered to be their best economic development ideas. Duke Energy responded by pitching something they had had success with in their North Carolina market: strategic sites identification. SSI involves not just finding a piece of ground that is shovel-ready. It also looks at whether a parcel is sufficiently proximate to transportation assets and utilities and far enough removed from schools and

PHOTO BY SAIGE ROBERTS

neighborhoods. Ideally, the site comprises parcels owned by five or fewer landowners whose pieces might be acquired to arrive at an adequate whole of 150 to 1,500 acres. “By completing the initial SSI analysis, which Duke Energy funded, we put together a portfolio of 20 sites that would make sense for light or heavy industry,” Kirkland explained. “And we also considered these sites in terms of what local governments want to do and are planning in terms of utility line extensions.” Of the 20 sites, six were selected for a second, more detailed round of “desktop evaluation.” “We looked at characteristics from civil engineering and environmental standpoints by pulling data from the web and from state and local data bases,” Kirkland

explained. “We wanted to honestly assess the developability of these sites. We looked for nuances that might preclude development, including the presence of endangered species or archaeological significance or landowners that just wouldn’t be interested in selling.” The additional work amounted to a feasiBeth Kirkland, executive bility analysis. director of the “You discover where Gadsden County you want to spend your Development Council, site-acquisition money, and Steven and you are much betGruenewald, ter prepared when you Western Florida operations go to the state for fundmanager ing from a program like for Safelite the Rural InfrastrucAutoGlass, tour the company’s ture Fund,” Kirkland Gadsden County stressed. “You can prove distribution to them that you have center. The building reflects done your homework.” the ceiling The analysis didn’t heights that stop there. many businesses require today. Gadsden was accepted into the state’s Competitive Florida asset-mapping and cataloging program, an initiative of the state Department of Economic Opportunity. Competitive Florida communities assemble a comprehensive picture of what they have to offer, then move on to a Year 2 project in which specific sites are scrutinized. Gadsden submitted its top SSI sites to that process. No site was eliminated. “All of this work helps us know which properties to show someone who is looking for sites,” Kirkland said. “We get leads from Enterprise Florida, and we use a lead-generation service offered by a private company, Expansion Solutions.” The development council’s progress has been furthered by technical assistance grants from the Competitive Florida program, cooperative marketing grants through Enterprise Florida and infrastructure grants awarded by the DEO. Kirkland serves as the council’s grant writer and is quick to acknowledge contributions made by her board of directors. “We have a good board whose members agree to serve when called upon on,” Kirkland said. “They participate, for example, on regional economic development councils, the Apalachee Regional Planning Council

and the Capital Regional Transportation Planning Agency. They are engaged and, through their service, we build a circle of influence and our own lead-generating machine.” Kirkland, who holds a bachelor’s degree in computer science and a master’s degree in systems analysis, has been a Florida resident since 1986. Today, she is halfway through her two-year term as board chairman at CareerSource Capital Region, whose efforts are focused in Gadsden, Leon and Wakulla counties. “You couldn’t find three more diverse, contiguous counties in the state,” Kirkland said. Through activities, including an annual Talent Innovation Summit, CareerSource Capital Region seeks to unite jobseekers with opportunities at managerial, skilled and unskilled levels. Three North Florida workforce boards have established alliances with workforce boards in South Georgia. “People don’t care about county or state lines,” Kirkland said. “They just want a job and are willing to travel an hour to 90 minutes to get there. We have developed a strategic plan in concert with the Georgia boards. And this is the kind of cooperation that the federal Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act calls for.” That spirit of cooperation extends to education providers, including Tallahassee Community College, Florida State University, Florida A&M University and the Gadsden Technical Institute, recently accredited by the Council on Occupational Education. That accreditation made the institute, located in Quincy, eligible to take on students who qualify for Pell grants. Relationships with prospects are enhanced when counties and other jurisdictions can demonstrate that they reliably operate based on established policies. “Businesses who are looking to move to your community or expand within your community require a level of certainty,” Kirkland said. “They have to know what the process is and how to get through the process and the amount of time that it is going to take. There is nothing that says that the answer is always going to be yes, but there needs to be a consistent way of arriving at the answer, on the local level and the state level.”

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Permitting fees are not as high in Gadsden County as they are in neighboring Leon County, and hoops may be jumped through more quickly. But dealings may be complicated by the fact that Gadsden is home to six municipalities and a host of utilities providers, private and public. When Hoover Treated Wood Products set up shop in unincorporated Gadsden County, it found that water and natural gas were provided by the Town of Havana. Hoover, Kirkland noted, is eligible for a Qualified Targeted Industry tax refund, provided that it generates a required number of jobs in the next three to five years. Of the total refund, 80 percent will come from the state and 20 percent from local jurisdictions. “Local entities don’t have to provide the match to use the state’s money, but if you don’t provide the match, the company only benefits by 80 percent of what the program could potentially offer,” Kirkland said. “It was important to us to put our own skin in the game. The refund is small compared to the income that will come through the company.” Generally, Kirkland is satisfied that Gadsden County has a good story to tell, one that includes four interstate interchanges and two railroads — the CSX mainline and a short line operated by Genesee & — Beth Kirkland, Wyoming. executive “We have relationships with director of the the industrial developers at the two railroads, and that is huge Gadsden County in lead generation,” Kirkland Development said. “We’re not just about Council having our own website, doing social media and being in a magazine. It’s about relationships. We are marketing ourselves on the railroads’ websites. There is a lot of cross-promotion going on.” And a lot of targeting. With a marketing grant, the council is preparing along with Brand Acceleration, a company that specializes in economic development, a series of emailings targeting four industry sectors of interest: manufacturing, distribution, food/fiber and tourism/retail. “Brand has the audiences we want,” Kirkland said. “Their emails get opened. “This is good stuff.”

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PHOTO COURTESY OF CSX GEORGIA INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT

“We’re not just about having our own website, doing social media and being in a magazine. It’s about relationships.”

Gadsden County connects you to the world. • North Florida’s Interstate 10 corridor runs the entire length of the county. It brings between 14,000 and 17,000 vehicles traveling east and west through the region each day. • Nearby Interstates connect the county to regional and national markets. Interstates 65, 75, and 85 are a short drive away - offering easy access to the regional workforce and market. • Port, Rail, and Air connections are easily accessible from Gadsden County, including Tallahassee International Airport, CSX, Norfolk Southern, Genessee & Wyoming short line rail services, JAXPORT, and Port Panama City.

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GADSDEN COUNTY BUSINESS JOURNAL

GOOD MEDICINE Cannabis generates jobs, transforms lives by MICHAEL MOLINE

he parking lot is full outside Trulieve’s corporate office/production facility in Quincy. Surely a welcome sight in Gadsden County, where the poverty rate is nearly 26 percent and the median income is south of $39,000. These vehicles belong to blue-collar workers who grow, package and ship the medical cannabis produced here, as well as highly skilled technicians holding advanced degrees. These are good jobs, and — given

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the demand for medical cannabis — they’re jobs with a future. “We’re growing, obviously, very, very quickly,” said Kim Rivers, an attorney and entrepreneur who serves as the CEO of Trulieve, which employs about 300 people in Gadsden County. “We received our license in November 2015 and opened this facility in March 2016. We have been growing rapidly ever since,” she said. Trulieve might be the largest employer in the county, with a “spectacular” growth rate, said David Gardner, executive director of the Gadsden County Chamber of Commerce. “They pay good wages with benefits,” he said, and the principals are committed to the community. “They hit the whole spectrum, from entry level to the executive level. From the chamber’s perspective and the community’s perspective, we appreciate them being here.” The county’s traditional tobacco barns are long gone — either collapsed or pulled down after that industry dried up. Trulieve represents the next chapter in Gadsden

County agriculture — in which the crop matures indoors, in a sprawling, climatecontrolled facility. “To get the highest quality product in Florida’s climate,” Rivers said in a recent interview, “we wanted to control the environmental factors.” Workers wear scrubs or lab coats, plus paper hair and shoe coverings. A warren of rooms contains plants in various stages of

Trulieve employee Cory Williams, top photo, inspects plants at a medical marijuana cultivation facility located in Quincy. Finished products, above, include batch oil vapes, a delivery device.

PHOTOS BY SAIGE ROBERTS

development, from seeds to mature plants loaded with fat buds that drip with aromatic resin. “It’s not Cheech and Chong out in the woods,” production manager Kyle Landrum said. “It’s very scientific. For production agriculture, it’s a pretty clean environment.” Trulieve employs more than 800 people in 15 dispensaries around the state, plus the headquarters grow house and two similar facilities elsewhere in Quincy. A fourth grow house is planned. The mothership occupies a former tomato packing plant, Rivers said, “which is cool, because the building sat vacant for a long time. To be able to come in and give it new purpose has been wonderful.” The building pointedly lacks signs, sitting behind a tall chain-link fence. Nothing betrays what happens here until a visitor enters and gets hit by a pungent, cannabinoid funk — one that lingers on one’s clothing after leaving the building. Trulieve is a closely held private corporation whose investors include the owners of three North Florida conventional nurseries, including Thad Beshears, whose brother Halsey is a legislator. Florida adopted a vertical production model for medical cannabis — companies produce, transport and vend their wares without middlemen. Distribution through dispensaries and home delivery requires a fleet of more than 40 unmarked vehicles. State regulations call for two staff members per vehicle. “We’re running the equivalent of a FedEx,” Rivers said. “We have next-day delivery to our patients across the state.” Trulieve concentrates on plants with high levels of non-euphoric cannabidol, or CBD — as opposed to THC, the kind that gets you high. The former has been found to prevent seizures. Products carry names held over from the drug culture, like Remedy, Skittles, Panama Red. An additional strain, Charlotte’s Web, often prescribed for ailing children, is also known as “The Hippie’s Disappointment,” Rivers said. “Because you can’t get high.” One of the company’s most popular products is Truclear, a concentrated cannabis oil for dosing orally — pop a drop on a cracker or in your stir fry — or via vaping. Its color and consistency resemble honey.

The company provides rigorous training to its employees, using a video program plus frequently updated standard operating procedure manuals. Given the rapid growth, there’s ample room for career advancement. “It’s one of the big challenges,” Rivers said. “When you’re going from start-up to scale rapidly, how do you have consistent quality control — not only in your processes but also with your people?” Security, obviously, is a priority. The company staggers delivery times and tracks its fleet in real time. Rivers discourages news photographers from taking pictures of the outside of the facility. “At every store, there are security personnel. At the same time, we don’t want patients to feel as if they’re in a security-threat environment,” she said. Doors are key-coded, and cameras keep a look-out. To say the environment is calm and comfortable at Trulieve’s dispensary on Tallahassee’s Capital Circle Southeast would be an understatement. With its blond wood, glass counters and quartz trim, you might mistake it for an Apple Store. Every employee undergoes a criminal background check. Pilferage is not a problem. “Obviously, we have a zero-tolerance policy for that type of activity,” Rivers said. “They also know the likelihood of getting caught is high.” Trulieve is always on the prowl for workers to sustain its rapid growth. It held a job fair in Tallahassee recently and works with local career resource offices. “One of our stated goals was to try to hire as much as possible from this area,” she said. That commitment played heavily in the state’s decision to award a cannabis cultivation license to Trulieve. “We knew that we could grow in Quincy — meaning expand,” she said. Landrum holds a degree in agricultural economics from UF and a master’s in education and leadership. He previously worked for the Sonny’s barbecue restaurant chain. “I finally am able to use my agricultural degree. It only took 12 years,” he said. “We get a lot of horticulture and agronomy students from FAMU,” Landrum continued, many in their first post-college jobs. “They want to get into the industry, and they’re willing to come in at the entry level. We’re

Trulieve founder and CEO Kim Rivers, at right of photo, attends to customers at the business’s dispensary in Tallahassee. Rivers has worked to ensure that Trulieve’s stores are both properly secured and customer friendly.

growing so fast, the opportunities come around fairly quickly. They get promoted and move up.” Cory Williams, a soil science grad from FAMU and former massage therapist, joined the company in November. “What wakes me up is that I’m directly helping people each day,” Williams said. James Polston, who holds a degree in biomedical sciences and worked in the cannabis industry in Western states, oversees the extraction of cannabinoid compounds from the organic matter. “We have a fairly comprehensive, full-scale analytical set up here,” he said. “Our employee base is incredibly excited to be in the industry,” Rivers said. “We make medicine that gives people quality of life. To be in as exciting an industry as this, and to have the growth we’re experiencing from a professional and financial standpoint, but also to be a small part of life-changing experiences for people — it’s just incredible.”

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GADSDEN COUNTY BUSINESS JOURNAL

NAILING DOWN JOBS Gadsden gains second wood manufacturer by LAZARO ALEMAN

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including the Qualified Target Industry (QTI) Tax Refund Program from the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity. A performance-based incentive program, the QTI assures Hoover a five-year annual tax refund of $8,000 per job created, provided the jobs pay more than 115 percent of Gadsden’s average annual wage. “At 25 jobs committed over a three-year period, this creates an award of $200,000, of which $160,000 is funded by the state, $30,000 by Gadsden County, and $10,000 by Havana,” Kirkland said. Hoover’s promise of job creation, in fact, was one of the project’s key selling points. Tim Borris, Hoover’s vice president of

operations, told Gadsden officials that his company would hire 15 individuals initially and grow that number to 25 eventually. He said the jobs would pay $40,000 on average, and that Hoover was committed to hiring locally. He also promised that the Gadsden facility would produce only fire-retardant products, not preservatives. As to why Hoover chose Gadsden over its other option, which was to expand the Georgia facility, Borris said the company wanted to be closer to the market, citing Florida as a big consumer of fire retardant products. Moreover, he said, North Florida’s abundance of forest products and lumber mills, plus Coastal Forest’s proximity, made

Hoover Treated Wood Products opted to build a manufacturing facility in Gadsden County versus expanding its Georgia operation due in part to the abundance of forest products and lumber mills in Florida.

PHOTO COURTESY OF GADSDEN COUNTY DEVELOPMENT COUNCIL

adsden County officials earlier this year approved and issued the development order for a wood manufacturing facility just outside Havana. “This project is good for the economic development mission of Gadsden County,” said Commission Vice Chair Anthony V. Viegbesie, expressing the board consensus. The approved facility is owned by Hoover Treated Wood Products, Inc., a Georgiabased subsidiary of the Graham Holdings Company (formerly the Washington Post), a diversified conglomerate whose products include educational services, television broadcasting, online print and manufacturing. Hoover produces what is described as pressure-impregnated, kilndried lumber and plywood products for fire retardant and preservative applications. The Gadsden facility, Hoover’s 10th, is located near U.S. 27 on a 65-acre site zoned heavy industrial. Next door is Coastal Forest Resources Company, a lumber producer/ supplier with close ties to Hoover. Coastal, in fact, sold Hoover the 65-acre property and served as the initial point of contact between it and Gadsden County economic development representatives. Beth Kirkland, executive director of the Gadsden County Development Council (GCDC), explained that much vetting and back-and-forth preceded the project’s introduction to Gadsden officials, setting the stage for approval. The GCDC, in fact, began working with Hoover in mid-2017. It guided the company through the application process and ensured that Hoover knew about the various federal, state and local incentives available,

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the Gadsden site that much more attractive. Not to mention the availability of rail and Havana’s ability to extend water and natural gas to the plant via a $323,000 grant it received. The project wasn’t without opposition. Neighboring property owners in the largely rural area and Tall Timbers (TT), which owns about 500 acres of conservation easements nearby, had concerns. These included the potential for increased traffic, excessive noise, devaluation of properties and chemical contamination. Hoover satisfactorily addressed most of the concerns, especially those of Tall Timbers relative to stormwater runoff. “I think we ended up with a win-win situation,” said TT planning coordinator Neil Fleckenstein. “Everybody worked in good faith. We were able to protect the environment and the water quality, and they were able to get a facility approved in a rural county that needs the jobs.” Not all opponents were satisfied, however. Tallahassee Attorney Randie Denker represented a group of such property owners. “I can’t represent that my clients were ‘happy,’ ” Denker emailed. “I can only represent — Beth Kirkland, that they made a pragmatic executive decision to settle. My clients director of the agreed not to litigate unless Gadsden County Hoover violates the terms of the settlement agreement. Development However, they will continue Council to monitor (the project).” Kirkland, for her part, sees only positives from the project beyond the $3.3 million capital investment that Hoover is making. “Taking into account the direct, indirect and induced job creation resulting from this project, Hoover will create 37 jobs in Gadsden County with new-to-Gadsden annual revenues of $5.3 million,” she said, adding that during the plant’s construction phase, another 19 temporary jobs will be created and $2.1 million injected into the local economy.

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PHOTO BY SAIGE ROBERTS

“Taking into account the direct, indirect and induced job creation resulting from this project, Hoover will create 37 jobs in Gadsden County with newto-Gadsden annual revenues of $5.3 million.”

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Technician Herbert Campbell, left, and service manager Michael Todd discuss a work order at the Four Star Freightliner facility in Midway in Gadsden County. The facility opened in March.

BETTER THAN A BILLBOARD The new Four Star Freightliner location in Midway is hard to miss

ou know the real estate adage. Location, location, location. Four Star Freightliner has six stores: Montgomery and Dothan, Alabama; Tifton, Valdosta, and Albany, Georgia; and now, Midway, Florida. Its dealership had built up plenty of local business over 14 years at Capital Circle Northwest. However, the Tallahassee store was unable to capture the national truck traffic passing through North Florida on I-10. For Jerry A. Kocan, Four Star Freightliner’s dealer principal, it was time to move. Two

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years ago, Kocan hired a broker, Johanna Money, to help him find a site with clear highway visibility. They looked to move elsewhere in Tallahassee but with relatively few interstate exits, their search was limited. Money reached out to Beth Kirkland of Gadsden County Development Council, who helped Four Star Freightliner find a home nearby, off Exit 192 in Midway. The Gadsden location is close enough to continue to serve local Tallahassee customers, but situated near I-10 and U.S. 90, it will bring in new business, as well. Midway’s

Four Star Freightliner services Freightliner and Western Star commercial vehicles as well as any truck with an automatic transmission. “We’re adjacent to two truck stops, so we’re convenient for the customer passing through,” Kocan said. “Freightliner has 40% of the Class 8 market share. Four out of every 10 trucks going into those stops are Freightliners. It’s been helpful.” After almost 18 months of building — hammering out an agreement to buy the land, making agreements about roads and utilities, and constructing the site — Four

PHOTO BY SAIGE ROBERTS

by ERIN HOOVER

Star Freightliner opened in Midway in March of this year. Kocan had anticipated making a $2.5 million capital investment in the new site, but construction far exceeded that estimate. “This is my first store that I built new, and when you build things for the first time, you learn,” he continued, adding that so far, the move to Midway has been worth it. “I can’t buy enough billboards to accomplish what I have by opening next to the interstate,” he said. Four Star Freightliner’s Midway location was made possible by cooperation between the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity, Gadsden County and the Gadsden County Development Council.

INVESTING IN PEOPLE The Tallahassee staff of 21 employees moved to the new location, and the company plans to make several new hires to accommodate increased operations. The site is bigger, too — 30,000 square feet where Tallahassee

had been 20,000. In this way, Four Star Freightliner in Midway is positioning itself for growth. The new dealership also includes a classroom that will function as a diesel college for Gadsden County, staffed by a certified trainer and with classes beginning this fall. Kocan said he has been working with Dr. Sylvia Jackson of Gadsden Technical Institute to develop a training program. “In this industry, someone can get up and running pretty quickly and earn money. Technicians are highly compensated,” Kocan said, noting that the average diesel technician with five or more years’ experience can make $80,000 a year or more. This kind of investment in people is central to Kocan’s business model. The Midway move was only possible, he said, because of the strong team he has in place in Florida. “I wouldn’t make investments like this if I didn’t feel good about my team. We keep growing because we have a good product and we have outstanding people,” he continued.

Following his Florida strategy, Kocan moved the Valdosta location closer to the interstate this past summer. A new Four Star Freightliner dealership is planned for Valley, Alabama, in 2019. Kocan said he’s never forgotten the lessons he learned as an employee at a Volvo GM Heavy Truck store in Atlanta, where he worked as a sales manager. “I was an employee for most of my career,” he said. After buying shares in the Atlanta dealership, Kocan went into business for himself by purchasing two Daimler stores in Alabama, bringing them together under the Four Star Freightliner brand in 2000. “My front-line people talk to more customers in a month than I do in a year. If employees have a good feeling about who they work for, they’ll show that to the customer,” he said. Of course, you need to get those customers in the door first. For the truck driver who needs service, Four Star Freightliner in Midway is a welcome sight.

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PORTENDING THE FUTURE Four counties are collaborating to attract industry

ulf, Franklin, Liberty and Gadsden counties are continuing work on a zoning project with high hopes of attracting industry to their rural corridor. The area links interstate and state highways, a railroad line, an airport and a seaport in a freight logistics zone (FLZ). Victor Leotta of Leotta Location and Design, LLC, said his business was brought in to “identify the highest and best undeveloped sites in communities that have all the best qualities to support a quality job-creating project.” The firm used its Strategic Site Inventory (SSI) process to assess the FLZ. A report published by his company in 2017 assessed the corridor’s site selection and economic development possibilities. Leotta found that the transportation types either located in or near the FLZ “afford the four-county region unique economic development advantages to attract major manufacturing and assembly projects that require multimodal shipping options.”

The site search found 19 new potential commercial and industrial sites for Gulf, Liberty and Franklin counties. Gulf County had seven sites identified, Liberty had six and Franklin also had six. Previously, under a grant from Duke Energy, Leotta’s process had identified 20 sites in Gadsden County, one of which is the focus for the FLZ project. According to the report, primary transportation access included an array of rail-served and non-rail served sites with state highway access, airport access and seaport access. Phase two was to do preliminary engineering and environmental due diligence, a “desktop exercise,” Leotta said. Phase three was to assess landowner engagement and to move properties to market. Phase four, should a site warrant that level of engagement, is to engage in formal engineering and environmental due diligence. Phase five is to work on community branding and marketing for the chosen sites. Leotta said his firm spent about three months combing through the four counties in 2014.

“A headline for us is our option on 600 high and dry acres in Gretna.” — Antonio Jefferson, chairman, Gadsden County Development Council

The assessment used five phases. Phase one was site discovery — articulating geographic features which would either benefit or hinder development; identifying sensitive environmental properties; the available labor force; and utilities planned or in place.

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“We were interested in finding the real estate assets that are a fit with that particular community’s industry targets,” Leotta said. “The SSI program was to identify properties that would be relevant to freight and logistics operations along the principal transportation networks. If you think of it as nodes along

these transportation network lines, the goal is to bring in projects that create jobs. The identification of the potential strategic real estate is done on the front end to inform the developments later on.” The idea was to provide a set of strategic sites throughout the FLZ that would either serve to host an anchor project or play a supporting role for a project in another location, Leotta explained. A critical component of an FLZ is the inclusion of one or more proposed Intermodal Logistic Centers (ILC). The plan calls for two such centers — one at I-10 and one at the Port of Port St. Joe — on either end of the Apalachicola Northern Railroad. A 600-acre site located in Gretna just south of I-10 and adjacent to the railroad is one of the two proposed ILCs. City manager Antonio Jefferson is working to extend Gretna water and wastewater services to the site, which already has power provided by Talquin Electric Cooperative. “The site is unique because it is on I-10 and is high, dry and relatively flat,” Jefferson said. “The owner has optioned the property to the Gadsden County Development Council for a competitive price for light industrial uses.” Jefferson, who serves as board chairman for the Development Council, is a student of economic development as well as a leader. He has completed courses offered by the International Economic Development Council and is leading one of three Florida Rural Areas of Opportunity. On the southern end of the zone, Warren Yeager has been the economic development director for Gulf County for nearly a year and served as a county commissioner for roughly 15 years. “One of the reasons we want to be involved

PHOTOS BY ANDREW WARDLOW PHOTOGRAPHY (YEAGER) AND COURTESY OF GADSDEN COUNTY DEVELOPMENT COUNCIL (JEFFERSON)

by CD DAVIDSON-HIERS

(in the development of the FLZ) is because of our port,” Yeager said. His interests lie in the economic redevelopment of Port St. Joe, which used to engage in profitable shipping practices in the ’80s, but they tapered off when the paper mill went out of business. “It got to the point that we just didn’t have product to ship out,” Yeager explained. He is interested in seeing the port develop into a functional site, connected to the railway.

Gulf County economic development director Warren Yeager believes intercounty cooperation and rail service are critical to the economic redevelopment of Port St. Joe.

CHICKEN OR EGG DEBATE “There are many companies that have shown interest in our port,” Yeager said. “One of the key questions is, ‘Do you have rail into the port?’ ” The answer: Yes, but the rail line leading to the port is in need of repair. The St. Joe Company owns the rail and has agreed to provide a financial match once a company agrees to invest in the area. There is also an appropriation for dredging the channel, which Yeager explained is a long-term project. Eastern Shipbuilding has a lease on 20 acres on the mill site on about 1,000 feet of bulkhead, Yeager added, and an application for Triumph funds (a settlement fund from the BP Horizon oil spill) to build a 420 x 120 foot floating dry dock has been filed. The dock would go a long way toward fulfilling a contract with the Coast Guard to build cutters. “There’s a lot going on right now. We should see some activity in the next few months for spending $6 million for improvements,” Yeager said. “I think what it’s going to do is bring a greater focus to the rail and the port right on up to Gadsden County,” Yeager added. “It will bring awareness that this rail is here and it has the opportunity to be connected to the port. We believe there’s many different opportunities for different industries to use that rail.”

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PARK PLACES Gadsden County is home to industrial sites in the making by STEVE BORNHOFT

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eventeen years ago, Anderson Columbia Co., one of the largest highway construction firms in the Southeast, determined that it might be a good idea to develop the 191 acres it owns in Gadsden County near the confluence of U.S. 90 and Interstate 10 as an industrial park. A conceptual subdivision plan and preliminary plat were approved in 2001 and 2002. But a consequential thing happened on the way to project realization: The bottom of the economy dropped out. “We really weren’t seeing much in the way of activity,” said Brian Schreiber, Anderson Columbia’s chief financial officer, from his office in Lakeland. Accordingly, the company suspended efforts to arrive at final project approval. But in 2016, “we started to receive a few inquiries about our Gadsden County parcels,” Schreiber said, “and figured that it was time to go ahead and pick the project back up.” Doing so meant starting back at the beginning.

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The approvals gained in 2001 and 2002 had expired because the plat approval process had not been completed. So it was that Anderson Columbia was back in front of the Gadsden County Commission in November 2016. In June, Anderson Columbia gained plat approval from the county’s planning commission, and County Commission approval was obtained in July. Already, Anderson Columbia has a presence at the future park in the form of an aggregate materials yard operated by subsidiary Junction City Mining. Schreiber said Anderson Columbia employs about 30 people in Gadsden County. Roadways and stormwater improvements were constructed at the park site in 2008 based on the approvals that were in place at that time. “We have been marketing the park, but not aggressively,” Schreiber said. That effort is likely to be stepped up given plat approval, and Schreiber anticipates that the Gadsden County Development Council will become involved in spreading the word about the park.

PHOTOS BY SAIGE ROBERTS

Given plat approval of its planned industrial park, Anderson Columbia Co. hopes that the aggregate yard operated by a subsidiary at the site will soon have some company. Here, Shawn Snyder boards a front-end loader.

“It’s possible that we will have helped the council by developing another wellpositioned site that they can talk to prospects about,” Schreiber said. The park property lies within a Development of Regional Impact that was adopted in 1987 and allows for heavy industrial and industrial uses. Schreiber said that Anderson Columbia has fielded inquiries from precast concrete and storage businesses. The park comprises 33 lots, but it is hard to say how many businesses may eventually be tenants there because some may occupy multiple lots. Anderson Columbia will be the park’s sole owner; no public dollars are being used in its development. Tallahassee developer DeVoe Moore owns 60 acres across Brickyard Road from the Anderson Columbia property that are wellsuited for an industrial park. At this writing, however, Moore is undecided about whether to sell the property, located near Four Star Freightliner’s new Gadsden County

operation, participate in a joint venture or develop the property himself. Gadsden County is approaching something of a gracious plenty of business parks. The Development Council on its website lists five parks “including lots zoned for both heavy and light industry, commercial and office uses and warehousing. Together, these parks have the infrastructure in place to support manufacturing, logistics and distribution operations, food production and many other businesses and industries.” Of the five parks, two are located just off I-10 in north-central Gadsden County — Gretna Industrial Park and Quincy Joe Adams Commerce Park. One, the Gadsden Commercial Exchange, is located just west of U.S. 27 in Havana. Two are accessible from the Interstate 10 and Midway interchange — Gadsden 10/90 and Hammock Creek. In addition, Gadsden County is a leading participant in Florida’s Strategic Sites Inventory program, having identified 20 future large-acreage industrial sites ranging

Junction City Mining deals in road-building materials at the site of a planned industrial park.

in size from 200 to 1,500 acres. These sites have passed stringent suitability modeling and are proximate to Florida’s Strategic Intermodal System (SIS) assets including an interstate highway, four-lane highways, rail and ports. As a Competitive Florida Community, Gadsden County is actively positioning priority sites for development. The Development Council touts low land costs and access to transportation arteries as key advantages to locating businesses in Gadsden County.

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