Tag Archives: business journalism

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Who’s getting paid to renovate Tampa International Airport? Lots of locals

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TAMPA — Tampa International Airport made it a priority to hire local construction firms when it came time to divvy up nearly $1 billion in renovation and expansion jobs.

o far that appears to be paying off.

Of the 293 subcontractors working on projects at the Tampa airport, 274 are local companies or ones with regional offices here. With nearly 9,000 construction jobs expected to be a part of the $953 million project over the next two years, local firms have won primary contracts for most of the $428 million that has been awarded so far.

Construction is nearly a third of the way complete and within budget so far.

Read more here.

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Column: Online shopping now so much more than just Cyber Monday

mLLA

Isn’t every day pretty much Cyber Monday nowadays?

A lot of the big retail names, from brick-and-mortar chains like Walmart and Best Buy to online companies like Amazon, offered Black Friday-like specials all weekend long online, starting on Thanksgiving and spanning into what has been traditionally known as “Cyber Monday,” or the Monday following Turkey Day.

With so many options of where to browse and shop on the Internet these days, is Cyber Monday really relevant anymore? This year is the 10th anniversary of Cyber Monday, which was coined by the National Retail Federation to create yet another promotional shopping holiday.

Ten years ago, online shopping wasn’t quite the animal it is now. Amazon can deliver goods to your house in an hour. You pick up groceries curbside at Walmart when you order online at some stores.

“People shop online all year round. Online shopping has become so much more than it was,” said Faith Hope Consolo, chairwoman of the Retail Group for Douglas Elliman Real Estate in New York City. “The lines are so blurred now. Some of the stores are trying to push Cyber Monday into the Sunday before.”

Read more here. 

 

On air appearance with WTSP Ch. 10:

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Theme park industry gazes beyond Orlando to the next mecca

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Step aside, Harry Potter and Mickey Mouse.

Orlando may be the global mecca of amusement parks with mammoth players like Universal Studios and Disney World drawing hundreds of thousands of tourists to the Sunshine State every year, but the giant entertainment companies were hardly mentioned by global theme park industry leaders at an annual industry conference this week.

The future, it seems, isn’t necessarily in Orlando.

A rising middle class in Asia and the Middle East is fueling development of new theme parks overseas. New rides are based on emerging technology, from virtual reality goggles that are synced with the dips and loops of roller coasters to interactive rides where guests use their hands to throw digital snowballs — all of which is hard to do in parks like those in Orlando largely built-out already.

Read more here. 

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Amazon fulfillment center in Lakeland has grand opening

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“Work hard. Have fun. Make history.”

That’s the phrase that’s etched in black and gold letters over the entrance to the Amazon fulfillment center in Lakeland, a warehouse that ships online orders for the Seattle-based online retailer.

Next to it is a flashing red light that reads “no cell phone zone.” Security personnel screen each of the facility’s 800 workers with security wands and metal detectors, 24 hours a day.

On Wednesday, as Gov. Rick Scott, local officials and journalists from around the state were invited to see the inside of an Amazon facility in Florida for the first time.

Guests at the center had to have an Amazon escort anywhere they went, including the bathroom.

Read more here.

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Yuengling tries to survive craft beer craze by staying in the middle

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When Richard “Dick” Yuengling bought the former Stroh’s brewery in Tampa Bay in 1999, no one was talking about blueberry wheat beers or India pale ales.

The then-fast-growing Pennsylvania brewing company, D.G. Yuengling & Son, was ready to expand its footprint and start selling its signature lager in the Southeast. Fast forward to now, and Yuengling is still growing, but feeling the pinch as consumers’ palates have changed and more buy craft beers from independent breweries.

Yuengling is the largest brewer in Tampa Bay and the second largest in the state behind the Anheuser-Busch InBev plant in Jacksonville. It produces up to 1.5 million barrels in Tampa every year, about half of all the beer the company produces in a year from all three of its breweries — the two others being in Pennsylvania. Yuengling is the oldest operating brewery in the country and one of the largest American-owned ones.

But times are changing. Big beer companies that sell the traditional line-up of yellow, fizzy domestic drafts at sports games, in bars and in cans at gas stations pretty much worldwide, have seen sales slide as craft breweries grow larger in number and stronger in overall market share.

Read more here.