Healthy body. Healthy PC.
Two columns to kick off ‘16 properly
A6
Rock & Roll remembers
Literacy benefits thru Bryan Jackson
A30 Eastern Mediterranean fare B1 Wakim’s brings new flavors to SLW
ST. LUCIE WEST • TRADITION
YourVoiceWeekly.com VOL. 4/ISSUE 9
YOUR INDEPENDENT LOCAL COMMUNITY NEWSPAPER
FRIDAY, JANUARY 1, 2016
2015 is in the books — Here is what you were a part of Patrick McCallister STAFF WRITER
pmccallister@YourVoiceWeekly.com
ST. LUCIE COUNTY — St. Lucie West and Tradition had an exciting year leading the way in a long-awaited economic rebound. The county started the year with a not seasonally adjusted jobless rate at 6.4 percent. That dropped a percentage point to 5.4 by the time the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity issued its last employment report of the year on Dec. 18. That report was for November’s employment picture. The year before, the county was at 8.7 percent unemployment in January. The county’s employment numbers are important not just for psychological reasons. In general, most economists consider 5 to 5.5 percent unemployment rates to represent “full employment.” Full employment is when there is minimal deficient-demand unemployment. In other words, if employable folks want jobs reasonably suited to their educations and backgrounds, they can usually find them in short order, because the economy is producing adequate demand. Among the strongest employment sectors in the county in 2015 was education and healthcare. Christ Fellowship buys Tradition Studios, plans opening in ‘16. In July Port St. Lucie City Manager Jeff Bremer ceremonially handed the keys of Tradition
File photo/Mitch Kloorfain/chief photographer New York Mets third baseman David Wright signs autographs along the front row just before the last spring training game against the St. Louis Cardinals at Tradition Field in St. Lucie West last season. The Mets went the distance to advance to play the Kansas City Royals in the World Series, only to lose in five games. Tickets for 2016 Spring Training games go on sale Saturday, Jan. 16. Studios over to Christ Fellowship pastors. The former Digital Domain home sat fallow since 2012 when it closed as the entertainment company suddenly shut down, laying off nearly 300. Tradition Studios was touted as an economic-development investment, a state-of-the art animation facility
that would put PSL on the map as an entertainment tech hub. The city bonded the nearly $40 million construction with visions of high-paying jobs and lucrative expansion. Nine months later, without Digital Domain paying a back a cent on the property, the company went bankrupt and the city was
left holding the 115,000-squarefoot building that was costing the city more every month to keep in salable shape. The city had nibbles on the building, but nothing came of them until Christ Fellowship strolled in holding a $13 million
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