St. Lucie EDC wins statewide awards
The Economic Development Council of St. Lucie County (EDC) on Oct. 14 received statewide recognition for the organization’s efforts in bringing the new FedEx Ground Regional Sortation Center to Port St. Lucie.
The Florida Economic Development Council (FEDC) designated the FedEx project as the state’s 2021 Urban Deal of the Year at its recent conference in Orlando. The award recognizes outstanding achievement in the location/expansion of business in urban communities within the state of Florida.
While the location of the 245,000-square-foot facility in Tradition’s Southern Grove area and the 900 new jobs FedEx is planning to bring to the city were important factors for the award, the most significant element of the business recruitment project was that it kickstarted Legacy Park at Tradition.
This 425-acre class-A industrial park being developed by the Sansone Group at Interstate 95 and Becker Road is anticipated to ultimately include more than 5.4 million square feet of industrial space and create more than 2,500 jobs with payrolls exceeding $100 million annually.
“We are extremely proud to have this pivotal economic development project celebrated as the top urban development project in Florida,” said Pete Tesch, EDC president. “The Sansone family, our partners at the city and county, FedEx Ground, and commercial real estate professionals Alex Pappas and Robert Smith all played major roles in this success.”
“Speed-to-market was one of the more important aspects of this project. FedEx needed to be operating out of this facility prior to the busy holiday season,” said Jill Marasa, EDC vice president of business retention and expansion. “The city’s development review team completed site plan review and master site plan approval in just 108 days.”
The EDC also won a statewide FEDC innovation in marketing award for an update to its website, www.youredc.com. Working with Marketing Alliance, a company which specializes in economic development, tourism and real estate marketing and branding, EDC staff utilized a $7,500 Team Florida grant to improve the site’s graphics, navigation, content and tools.
An interactive sites and buildings portal with a robust GIS platform, direct connect to Zoom Prospector, virtual site-selector familiarization tours, video highlights of key attributes of St. Lucie County, and dynamic property digital videos highlighting hot properties are all featured on the updated website. The Virtual Business Resource Center, a one-stop web portal for essential COVID recovery information was also created for the site during 2020.