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St. Petersburg's pumped to recruit talent, jobs via new EDC while city 'vibe' stays hot

 
Forget old people sitting on green benches. St. Petersburg’s vibe today is more like this scene during the Firestone Grand Prix in March, with spectators watching the race from the Signature Place condos.
Forget old people sitting on green benches. St. Petersburg’s vibe today is more like this scene during the Firestone Grand Prix in March, with spectators watching the race from the Signature Place condos.
Published April 22, 2016

Green benches? Begone. God's waiting room? Forget it.

The aging images and outdated perceptions of St. Petersburg are so pathetically passe that they are practically banned in conversation among economic development and business leaders in the city.

After all, this is 21st century downtown St. Pete, a vibrant and hip melange of waterfront living and public parks, creative artists and innovative museums, rising entrepreneurial activity, university learning and Johns Hopkins-branded medical research. This is a city energized by diverse nighttime entertainment, foodie fare and craft beer, multiple sports teams, high-end condos and frenzied apartment building, and the fresh possibilities of an 80-plus-acre swath around Tropicana Field about to get an urban redo with a big emphasis on urban innovation.

Such is the buzz driving city and business leaders about to launch St. Petersburg's own Economic Development Corp. The EDC's mission:

First, to sell St. Pete's current mojo beyond the city and Florida borders.

Second, to recruit talented folks who city leaders think can be persuaded to live here — once they sample it.

And third, to pitch — selectively — companies with specific skills such as marine science, specialized manufacturing and data analytics on expanding or relocating here, and adding their capabilities to the city's business core and key neighborhoods.

The trick for St. Petersburg is to move quickly, to find and hire a top individual who understands the city and can spread the word about it. To make this all happen before — heaven forbid — the spotlight cools on St. Petersburg.

"How do we keep the vibe going here?" asks Chris Steinocher, CEO of the St. Petersburg Area Chamber of Commerce. "That is the golden goose here now."

I sat down recently to discuss the soon-to-launch EDC with Steinocher and Mike Vivio, president of St. Petersburg-based Cox Target Media/Valpak. Vivio currently heads the chamber group focused on honing the EDC's goals.

The two executives used the analogy of the Tampa Bay area as a huge shopping mall full of stores of all kinds.

Vivio points out St. Pete is a specialty store. The new EDC can't go shopping for a big corporate relocation that wants a big campus setting on lots of land.

"We're not Macy's," Vivio says, a store more fitting of Tampa's way of pitching its many assets to a broader base of business.

"We're the Apple Store in the mall," Steinocher chimes in. "We're the store that draws people to the mall and lifts the anchor stores, just as the other stores lift Apple."

Comparing St. Petersburg and Tampa to mall stores may be a bit odd — even Steinocher and Vivio joke the analogy may deserve early retirement — but the idea has merit.

A St. Petersburg EDC must be picky in whom and what it tries to bring to the city. There is limited land for expansion. There is little new prime commercial office space. But there is room for in-fill and redevelopment.

"Our board of directors wants us to embrace what makes us unique," the chamber CEO says.

Steinocher, who arrived in this market in the late 1980s, looks across the table at Vivio, who moved here just five years ago from Austin, Texas — one of the country's major millennial magnets.

"I remember when … " Steinocher teases, about to recall the days 25 years ago when downtown St. Pete was a ghost town by 5:01 p.m. every day.

"Shut up," Vivio interjects. They both laugh. "Let's create a new narrative," he says.

Adults in their mid 20s on St. Petersburg's streets came of age long after the city came alive, he says. They have no memory of the old St. Pete and, he says, there's no reason they should.

Vivio, former publisher of the Austin American-Statesman newspaper, sees in St. Petersburg's bones many of the qualities that made Austin a vibrant go-to town. Both cities attract creative talent, which in turn and with the EDC's marketing help, should help draw the kind and scale of companies that can prosper in St. Petersburg.

At least that's the plan.

EDCs are highly focused organizations aimed at recruiting businesses and jobs to their cities, metro area or states. Tampa and Hillsborough County — the "Macy's" of the bay area, as Vivio calls it — operate the dominant EDC. That organization has been strikingly successful in recent years in attracting big-name company expansions, from Bristol-Myers Squibb and Johnson & Johnson to the Depository Trust and Clearance Corp., Citigroup and even more nimble firms like TransferWise.

Plant City, in eastern Hillsborough County, recently started up its own EDC to help focus job recruiting on that city's needs.

The only existing EDC in Pinellas County is the county's. St. Petersburg will be the first city within Pinellas to have its own.

St. Petersburg currently has multiple economic development pursuits under way. It's in the early stages of creating an "innovation district" that geographically includes the University of South Florida St. Petersburg, multiple hospitals including Johns Hopkins All Children's, and other research organizations.

Steinocher describes the EDC, the innovation district and the new effort to reimagine the redevelopment options in the Tropicana Field area of town as all interconnected.

Efforts to recruit a top-notch EDC leader (whose title is expected to be senior vice president of economic development) are happening on the same timetable as the innovation district's search for its own leader. Both are expected to be on board by the fall.

The EDC chief will help move St. Pete forward, while pitching the city's merits to "C-level" or senior executives and serving as a traveling "marketeer," says Steinocher. That person will report to an EDC board but organizationally share some of the administrative and accounting services provided by the chamber.

The EDC will also help shape and polish a St. Pete brand created to entice businesses and talented people. The city's own branding effort unveiled in September — St. Pete: You are my sunshine city — works well for residents. But it may feel old-fashioned to the more fast-paced, tech-oriented and youthful economy local business leaders hope to leverage.

Will it work?

An EDC certainly can't hurt. St. Petersburg's far behind in actively recruiting specific businesses. An EDC run by the right person may change that. Major momentum is palpable in St. Pete. It would be disastrous to waste that energy by doing nothing.

Just remember. If Tampa Bay is one great shopping mall with many different shops, even the much-touted Apple Store must keep reinventing itself to keep the crowds flocking to its doors.

Contact Robert Trigaux at rtrigaux@tampabay.com. Follow @venturetampabay.