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Pasco Invested In T. Rowe Price Plan

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By KEVIN WIATROWSKI

kwiatrowski@tampatrib.com

Published: November 1, 2008

LAND O' LAKES - Pasco County could offer more than $7 million in incentives to lure investment firm T. Rowe Price Associates Inc. to the Sunlake Boulevard area off State Road 54.

State officials would kick in another $6 million under a plan up for consideration by county commissioners next week.
County commissioners will consider the incentive package when they meet at 10 a.m. Wednesday at the Pasco County Courthouse in Dade City.

The relocation to Pasco County would be part of an expansion of T. Rowe Price's overall operations. The company now has 435 employees in leased space in the Westshore section of Tampa.

Pasco and Florida are competing with Texas and three other states for the 1,200-person expansion.

"We know that we are the site they've selected, if they stay in Florida," Commissioner Michael Cox said Friday.

To sweeten the pot on Pasco's behalf, county commissioners are offering a basket of incentives ranging from a direct grant of $2.5 million to breaks on building fees and matching contributions to state grants.

If the deal goes through, T. Rowe Price would build three 150,000-square-foot office buildings in Pasco County starting in 2010. The company would transfer its 435 West Shore employees - about 90 of whom the company says commute from Pasco - to the new location and add about 1,200 more, making a total of 1,650 new jobs in Pasco. The average wage would be about $47,000, county officials said.

County officials defended their plan to offer millions in incentives during tough economic times by noting that the company won't get a break on property taxes. The incentives also will be paid over time as the project evolves.

"It's not all hitting at once, so this can be budgeted for," said Michele Baker, chief assistant county administrator.

T. Rowe Price's interest in Pasco has been kept largely under wraps since the company began looking for another Tampa Bay area location in May.

Shortly thereafter the county commissioned a secret study, which it released Friday, that said T. Rowe Price could add more than $58.5 million in taxes to government and school coffers during the next decade.

The T. Rowe Price project meshes with county commissioners' goal of bringing more high-wage jobs to Pasco, reversing some of the thousands of daily commuting trips to jobs in Hillsborough and Pinellas counties.

A study earlier this year by the Urban Land Institute recommended similar action, particularly along the S.R. 54 corridor in south-central Pasco.

T. Rowe Price has chosen land near the dead-center of that corridor.

The company has struck a deal with the Geraci brothers, owners of Long Lake Ranch, to buy at a discount 70 acres at the southeast corner of the junction of S.R. 54 and Sunlake Boulevard. County officials are in the process of rewriting the Geracis' development plan for Long Lake Ranch to replace a regional mall site with enough office space to accommodate T. Rowe Price.

In addition to the land deal and county incentives, T. Rowe Price is seeking nearly $4 million in state Qualified Targeted Industry grants, based on the fact that more than 1,200 of its projected jobs will pay 150 percent or more of Pasco's average wage.

If that grant goes through, Pasco would have to put up 20 percent of the funds, or about $972,000. County funds would be paid in installments between 2013 and 2022.

Pasco officials also plan to ask the state's Office of Tourism, Trade and Economic Development for $3 million to offset the cost of building roads - including the intersection of Sunlake and S.R. 54 - and other infrastructure to support the office complex. The county is prepared to absorb $1.5 million in road costs to win that grant.

"Nothing is a handout," said Mary Jane Stanley, president of the Pasco Economic Development Council. "It's tied to jobs and capital investment."

The county's last attempt to attract a major employer died last year when Hillsborough County outbid Pasco for a cancer research center that chose a site close to the University of South Florida.

Stanley said the county should know by the end of this year if the T. Rowe Price bid succeeded.

Reporter Kevin Wiatrowski can be reached at (813) 948-4201.

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