2025 Forecast
HEALTH CARE
Danielle Drummond
President/CEO, Lakeland Regional Health, Lakeland
GROWTH: “Our community is one of the fastest growing in the state and the country. That has led to us growing alongside the community so we’re never too far from our patients and their health care needs. We recently crossed the billion-dollar mark in revenue — that was a pretty significant milestone for us. When you look at a lot of our key service offerings and service lines, we continue to see double-digit growth in a number of areas, such as our hospital admissions, the number of visits to our Lakeland Regional Health physician group, as well as our behavioral health service line, in which we made a significant investment two years ago with a brand new facility.”
RECRUITING: “Ensuring that we have a highly qualified workforce to care for our growing community is our top priority. With that in mind, we’ve been partnering very closely with educational institutions in our community (including Florida Southern College, Southeastern University, Polk State College and Keiser University) so we can support their health care education training programs. In particular, we have had conversations with them about how we can increase the pipeline of potential candidates and increase their class sizes. Oftentimes, that comes back to us opening our doors so those students can access our clinical environment and fulfill requirements of their programs.”
- DEVELOPMENT
James Nolf
President and partner, Seagate Development, Fort Myers
CHALLENGES: “It felt like for a couple years, things that were never an issue before became issues. There was a tight job market — not just for our employees, but also subcontractors. There were also inflation and supply chain issues. It was pretty disruptive. I feel like that has all settled down a bit. Now, we’re facing an insurance challenge with higher interest rates, which mostly affect our commercial business. But there still seems to be an influx of people moving to Southwest Florida, so we’re meeting the demands of existing and future residents relocating here.”
HURRICANES: “Hurricanes and insurance tend to be a headwind for us. But in some aspects, as a real estate developer, it’s also a tailwind because there’s a lot of opportunity for us to redevelop the coastline that was hit pretty hard by recent storms. It’s proven that the newer construction methodologies for those buildings and homes can withstand storms, but it’s going to take a decade to build back what we had here previously.”
- LOGISTICS
Bryan Jameson
President and owner, Jameson Logistics, New Port Richey
WORKFORCE: “The hardest thing right now in this industry is finding good salespeople. I think it’s because logistics is such a specialized area, and there are so many segments to it. It’s hard for people to grasp, even with a lot of experience, and it’s hard to find people that put their head down and charge for it 100%. You spend a lot of time learning in this industry, and I think people get tired. And then, of course, it’s always a lot of work to bring on business. Right now (as of the end of October 2024), we find the economy to be a little slow in the manufacturing segments. It’s all cyclical.”
GROWTH: “We’re always in growth mode. We move a lot of different commodities, but our No. 1 source of business is moving infrastructure materials for the solar panel industry. Our next largest segment would be industrial truck bodies and truck equipment. We just break down from there, but we mainly stay within the industrial and manufacturing industries. That’s a lot of flatbed freight. ... When I bought my partner out in 2015, we were at $3-million gross receipt. As of today, we run between $8 million and $10 million.”
- TECHNOLOGY
Chase Christensen
Vice President of Information Technology, Jabil, St. Petersburg
EMPLOYEES: “Our biggest challenge in managing our workforce is keeping up with the pace of technological advancement. ... With a footprint of about 3,000 employees in the Tampa Bay area and 140,000 employees globally, we take a three-prong approach: We look at upskilling, hiring and partnerships. ... We focus on hiring locally, so we have a very diversified employee base. I think that helps with advancing as we move forward, having a real connection back to some of the challenges in the industry. As a people-centric organization, we also definitely want to make sure we’re investing in employees — in technology skills as well as leadership skills. We also have strong internship programs. In 2024, two-thirds of those interns were hired as full-time employees at Jabil.”
AI: “The biggest change in our industry is the impact that GPUs (graphical processing units) and artificial intelligence advancements have made, both to products that we build and to certain things in the enterprise functions, whether it’s our software, legal or human resources. AI is affecting that day in and day out. We’re leveraging that impact, and it’s really driving growth. ... We’re also able to start seeing these engineering capabilities that are best in class — that we’ve invested in — applied across different products.”
Business Briefs
CITRUS COUNTY
- The Fountains at Hidden Lake, a $24.5-million affordable housing community for seniors in Crystal River, will offer 81 units as well as a pool, horseshoe court, fitness center and dog park when construction is completed late this year.
HERNANDO COUNTY
- Hernando County will open a 6,000-sq.-ft. pirate-themed splash park at Anderson Snow Park in Spring Hill by late spring. The county also is constructing a new tax collector’s building in the town, which should be completed in the fall.
PASCO COUNTY
- Chesterfield, Mo.-based building supply company MiTek is opening a $77.6-million, 480,000-sq.-ft. manufacturing plant and warehouse in Zephyrhills. Expected to be completed late this year, the site should start manufacturing products for the construction industry by early 2026.
PINELLAS COUNTY
- Downtown Largo’s long-anticipated Horizon West Bay — an $85-million mixed-use city project — should be completed early this year. The complex will feature a city hall, 18,000 square feet of retail space and a 300-space parking garage, with hopes of attracting additional restaurants and retailers to the area.
HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY
- After traffic- and inflation-related delays, major work on the $1-billion-plus reconstruction of Tampa’s Westshore Interchange will begin this year. The project — expected to be completed in 2031 — will include express lanes and general-use lanes, 32 ramps, 36 bridges and seven widened bridges.
POLK COUNTY
- Florida Polytechnic University is expected to complete construction on its third academic facility on campus, the $15-million Gary C. Wendt Engineering Building, this summer. The 40,000-sq.-ft., two-story structure will include labs, offices and collaboration spaces.
MANATEE COUNTY
- Seaflower, a 1,175-acre development in West Bradenton with 4,000 planned residential units, is making its first homes available this spring. Complete with plans for a hotel, grocer and amenity center, it marks the town’s largest mixed-use development in decades.
HARDEE COUNTY
- A 66-year-old bridge in “poor condition” spanning the Peace River near Bowling Green is being replaced in a 13-month project expected to finish this fall. The $5.2-million bridge will have two 12-foot lanes with eight-foot shoulders.
HIGHLANDS COUNTY
- The Sebring International Raceway will host the opening race of the Trans- Am Series from Feb. 20 to 23. The venue has hosted 29 Trans Am events since its debut race there in 1966.
SARASOTA COUNTY
- The $130-million Mote Science Education Aquarium will open in Nathan Benderson Park early this year, featuring 1-million-plus gallons of underwater exhibits plus interactive teaching labs. Sarasota-based Mote Marine Laboratory will provide free marine science education to 70,000 students from Sarasota and Manatee counties.
DESOTO COUNTY
- Arcadia’s first community redevelopment agency will spur developments in the city’s downtown and southwest regions starting in October. Its city council approved $25,500 for an economic assessment of potential projects from Miami-based advisory firm BusinessFlare.
CHARLOTTE COUNTY
- Alabama-based LIV Development plans to open Livano Charlotte Harbor, a 333-unit apartment complex of seven buildings in Port Charlotte this April. The 22-acre site will also feature a pool, clubhouse, fitness center, dog park and game rooms.
GLADES COUNTY
- Construction of the Seminole Brighton Bay Hotel & Casino is expected to finish early this year on the Brighton Seminole Reservation. The 38,000-sq.-ft. casino includes space for 640 slot machines and 18 tables for house-banked card games. The four-story hotel will feature 100 guest rooms, a swimming pool and a fitness center.
HENDRY COUNTY
- More than 2,300 acres of agricultural land in unincorporated Hendry County are now destined for change, per recently approved rezoning applications. Submitted projects include 4 million square feet of commercial allowances and 4.6 million square feet of industrial allowances.
LEE COUNTY
- The long-awaited $18-million Festival Park in Cape Coral, hampered by hurricane delays, is expected to open this fall. The 210-acre park — the city’s largest to date — will include walking trails, an amphitheater, a playground and 10 soccer fields.
COLLIER COUNTY
- Collier County will soon be home to one of the latest United Soccer League teams, FC Naples. The area’s first professional soccer team will begin play in March at the Paradise Coast Sports Complex, which features eight professional-level turf fields.
Airport Improvements
This year, the Sarasota-Bradenton International Airport is projected to complete more than $225 million in capital improvement projects. Among the priciest plans are a $104-million ground boarding facility, a $46-million inline system to screen checked bags and a $9-million ground transportation expansion.
The airport unveils its new five-gate terminal this month, increasing the total number of gates from 13 to 18 across two concourses. The terminal also houses four restaurants, three bars, three gift shops and two coffee brands for the airport’s 4-million-plus passengers to peruse as they await one of 60-plus flight options on 11 airlines.
Home Field Disadvantage
After a disappointing 2024 season, the Tampa Bay Rays were hit with another loss: In October, Hurricane Milton shredded the translucent fiberglass dome of the team’s Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, exposing an interior unfit to weather Florida storms.
In November, the Rays announced they would play their 2025 season at Tampa’s Steinbrenner Field, spring training home of the New York Yankees. A damage assessment projected Tropicana Field could be repaired by the 2026 season for $55.7 million. The St. Petersburg City Council ultimately voted against spending around $26 million to fix the field’s roof.
The future of the Rays was uncertain as of early December. A $1.3-billion ballpark was slotted to replace the Tropicana and adjoin the new Historic Gas Plant District, which would be the largest mixed-use development project in Tampa Bay history. Postponed county and city bond approvals, though, threatened to delay that project beyond a 2028 season opening. As of press time, the deal was in limbo.
‘CleanTech’ Boom
Solar energy systems. Biotechnology. Climate-resilient infrastructure. Each fall under the umbrella term “CleanTech” — an industry dedicated to sustainability and environmental improvements, and one emerging in fast-growing Southwest Florida, says Warren Baucom, Lee County’s director of partnerships and entrepreneurial activities.
The region has been “drinking from a firehose” as businesses flock to the area, including Fort Myers-based Terrasmart, which pioneers engineering for solar panel racking nationwide. Babcock Ranch, a 17,000-acre planned community near Punta Gorda, reigns as America’s first solar-powered town. Cape Coral’s Ecological Laboratories develops biotech solutions for water pollution, soil remediation and more. Bonita Springs-based Northstar constructs sustainable and resilient building structures and systems.
Baucom says much of the sector’s growth “comes out of everyone’s lived experience out here, between all of the blue-green algae and the red tide that’s impacting our community” along with hurricane impacts.