BY CHRISTINA CEPERO
CCEPERO@NEWS-PRESS.COM
FEBRUARY 27, 2010
Bonita Springs and Estero leaders Friday brainstormed ways of diversifying the local economy so it's not dependent on seasonal business.
Christine Ross, Bonita Springs Area Chamber of Commerce president and CEO, led a roundtable discussion at Bonita Springs City Hall on attracting more businesses and generating jobs in the area.
"There are a lot of people out there that will say, 'Let's just have restaurants and houses and let's just leave it at that,'" Bonita Springs Mayor Ben Nelson said.
"It's not going to work. It's not sustainable."
Ross laid out potential target industries for the region: alternative energy, aviation, information technology, life sciences and manufacturing.
She emphasized the importance of education and nurturing local talent.
"It is from your pre-k all the way up to retraining our 40-, 50-, 60-year-old work force who are staying in the workplace longer," Ross said.
"You can absolutely increase the per capita income and the economic status of your region through education."
She pointed to FGCU's Innovation Hub, a renewable energy research and development park slated to open within two years.
"This could be the most spectacular addition to the local economy that we see in the next 50 years," Ross said. "We need to grow our own rather than recruit."
She said the region also needs to look at facilitating locations such as vacant grocery stores and retail spaces for companies to open their headquarters.
Several participants applauded the county's $10 million incentive for Algenol Biofuels to relocate the company's laboratory from Baltimore and expand its headquarters in south Lee. The contract requires it add at least 120 jobs. Lee's unemployment is almost at 14 percent.
"It's a magnet for other facilities of like nature," said Jack Meeker, a member of the Estero Council of Community Leaders.
Don Eslick, the Estero group's chairman, said the movement to bring a freestanding emergency room and ultimately a hospital to south Lee will create health care jobs.
We do not have much medical facilities and employment in this area, our immediate area, as we will have 10 years from now," Eslick said.
Andy DeSalvo, who chairs the chamber's economic development committee, said about 2 million square feet of commercial space is available in the Bonita-Estero marketplace.
"We've already set up an expedited (permitting) review process - sit down at a single table with water, fire and city government," DeSalvo said.
"We have to entice businesses to come to the area."
Nelson said area residents may not want industrial uses near them. "We need to get them on board. This needs to be accepted by the community."
Ross pointed to existing companies in Bonita Springs such as Tigris Pharmaceuticals and Shaw Development, which makes fuel caps for vehicles.
"You walk into Shaw. That is light manufacturing. You could eat off the floor. It's not noisy. It is a beautiful building. They have a wide variety of workers," Ross said.
"The community needs to know we're not talking about messy smokestacks anymore. We're talking about clean manufacturing.
"We need to take folks into these places and show them."