The Pinellas County Metropolitan Planning Organization is currently working on a “Livable Communities Model Objectives and Policies” document to guide them in their ongoing quest to redevelope some areas of the county.

From their site:

The term “livable communities” is used to describe urban environments where walking, bicycling and transit service is safe, comfortable and efficient and where the physical environment offers an interesting and unique experience from the standpoint of street, land and building design. Another key aspect of livable communities is the mixing of land uses which allows people to live closer to their points of destination such as shopping and work locations.

You can track the progress of the document each moth after the MPO’s meeting at the website they have set up.

Their next meeting will be June 6th and it is open to the public.

Pinellas County Metropolitan Planning Organization [Pinellas County] 

Planning for Livable Communities [Pinellas MPO]

The number of Limited Liability Companies created in the state of Florida is booming. Over the last five years there has been a 300% increase with over 130,000 created last year alone. That leads the nation and is over 30,000 more than previous leader Deleware.

The large amount of LLCs has been attributed to the real estate boom and the increase in foreign investment. In real estate buyers of property are creating seperate LLCs for each property they purchase. Foreign investors are creating LLCs to allow them to own or invest in local companies.

There are also businesses changing from corporations to LLCs in order to gain protection from lawsuits and creditors.

Florida Leads The Way in Limited Liability Companies [Tampa Tribune]

Limited liability company [Wikipedia.org]

The City of St. Petersburg’s Economic Department finished up their 2007 Survey of St. Petersburg Businesses for International Trade Activity. Some interesting notes:

• Local businesses engaged in international trade had jumped from 34% to 62% in the last four years, and over half of the 38% not trading internationally are interested in starting
• Trade with China has increased five fold from 8.9% to 46.5% in four years
• Only 7% of respondents plan on decreasing trade in the next year
• The greatest challenge to pursuing or continuing international trade is the difficulty in finding and maintaining reliable partnerships overseas

2007 International Trade Survey [St. Pete Shines]

Florida was named the number 1 region for biotech growth in the world by Fierce Biotech in their Top Five Regions Targeting Biotech Companies special issue.

The ranking is primarily due to the Scripps deal on the east coast, and the University of Florida’s recent citing by the Milken Institute as a leader in the country in the field.

No mention in the article of either the SRI deal or M2Gen, so there is a good chance the state will maintain its lofty position next time this study is done!

Top Region for Biotech: Florida [FierceBiotech]

Tourism officials from Pinellas and Hillsborough are looking to get together and pool their resources to attract visitors to the area. Though it might seem like an intuitive move (“People don’t go to counties; they go to destinations,” Paul Catoe of the Tampa Bay Convention & Visitors Bureau says), the last time the two counties collaborated Pinellas felt slighted.

That feeling hasn’t quite gone away. 75% of the visitors to Pinellas are tourists, while 50% of visitors to Hillsborough are there on business, so any joint program would disproportionately benefit Hillsborough in the view of some Pinellas County officials. As Tim Bogott of the Pinellas Tourist Development Council puts it, “The concern on the political side is that because we have the beaches, we’d help Tampa more than they’d help us.”

Counties consider tourism merger [St. Petersburg Times]

The Pinellas County Tips, Trends & Technology newsletter for April reports on a survey done by ACCRA. In their 4^th quarter composite index for Florida cities, Pinellas County dropped in both cost of living in general, and housing costs specifically. Housing costs dropped from 101.2% of the national average, down to 98.6%. The total cost of living fell 4% to 99.1%

This is interesting news, as Pinellas and the Tampa Bay area continue to be amongst the fastest growing, and most desirable places to live in the entire country.

April 2007 Tips, Trends & Technology [Pinellas County Economic Development]

In an effort to protect the character of neighborhoods and urbanize commercial parts of the county, the Pinellas County Commission approved changes to land use rules in St. Petersburg. The changes, brought about by suggestions in St. Petersburg’s Vision 2020 plan, will affect 37,000 property owners, and 7,789 acres, which is about a quarter of the city’s land.

The major effects of the land use change will be the prohibition of apartments in certain residential neighborhoods, and the inclusion of residential land use in the cities major shopping centers. These land use changes should allow the county to inject a little bit of New Urbanism into the city of St. Petersburg.

County tidies land use rules [St. Petersburg Times]

St. Pete Vision 2020 [City of St. Petersburg]

New Urbanism [Wikipedia]

Here is some of the data compiled for the Pinellas Couty Office Trends Report for the past quarter:

Bayside: Vacancy - 15.3% Rental Rate - $20.56/sf
Clearwater CBD: Vacancy - 17.2% Rental Rate - $17.81/sf
Gateway & Mid-Pinellas: Vacancy - 14.0% Rental Rate - $19.54/sf
North Pinellas: Vacancy - 9.7% Rental Rate - $19.70/sf
South Pinellas: Vacancy - 21.8% Rental Rate - $15.61/sf
St. Petersburg CBD: Vacancy - 10.7% Rental Rate - $22.15/sf

To download the Grubb & Ellis|Commercial Fl Trends Report, in PDF format, simply click the link below.

Q1 07 Pinellas Office Trends Report

Vacancy rates have come down about half a percent over the last year, from 5.3% to 4.8%. With the decrease in vacancy the flex and industrial market in Pinellas county has seen a slight rise in rental rates over the last year, from an average of $6.58 per square to finish the first quarter of 2007 at $6.69 per square foot.

Click below to download a PDF version of this Grubb& Ellis|Commercial Florida Trends Report. It goes into in the various submarkets in the Flex and Industrial Market in Pinellas.

Q1 07 Pinellas Flex and Industrial Trends Report

From the Grubb & Ellis|Commercial Florida Office Market Trends for Tampa Bay

Tampa Bay office market activity has continued with it’s forward momentum and is looking to repeat the success of 2006. The landlord driven market that has existed will create an increase in speculative construciton, a steady rise in rental rates and diminishing concessions for tenants looking for space. Higher construction costs are impacting rental rates as well, compounding the issue for tenants. The strong growth of the office market should march on in 2007.

The full report is downloadable below.

Market Research [Grubb & Ellis|Commercial Florida]