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Mosaic's Headquarters May Boost Business

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By PAUL CATALA pcatala@mediageneral.com

The Tampa Tribune

Published: March 27, 2009

With ground broken and equipment in place, FishHawk Ranch is closer to having a new major corporate neighbor, bringing in hundreds of subcontract employees to work in the area.

And with each of the approximately 400 employees that will work in the phosphate giant's fertilizer headquarters needing places to eat, shop or workout, businesses are looking forward to being before-, during- or even an after-work destinations.

Site clearing on the 7.4-acre Mosaic Company's tract about a half-mile east of Bell Shoals Road began in mid-March. Scheduled to be completed by spring 2010, the headquarters will be the gateway to the Circa FishHawk community off FishHawk Boulevard, north of Boyette Road.

Once completed, businesses near the building, particularly the shopping centers at the intersection of Bell Shoals Road and FishHawk Boulevard, are anticipating having an increase in customer traffic.

In addition, some of the employees in the headquarters already live in FishHawk Ranch, with others expected to move in.

"We conducted a study to determine a suitable geographic location that's closest to the center of where our administrative and staff employees live," said Mosaic Vice-President Rich Krakowski in a written statement. "The FishHawk Ranch area was the bulls eye."

About a half-mile west of Mosaic Fertilizer offices, Nelson Ramos, owner of The Real N.Y. Bagels in the River Springs Town Center, 13435 Boyette Road, cut open an onion bagel.

Ramos opened the bagel shop June 1, 2008, and said business has been steady, but not huge. He welcomed the possibility of bagel-hungry customers from Mosaic dropping in to bolster his business throughout the day.

"I think it's going to be good. I want to see how it goes," said Ramos, who lives in Valrico with his wife, Mayra, son, Elvin, 21 and Monica, 11. "Right now, I'm the only business open in the early morning; I feel like I'm kind of by myself. I hope they come in the mornings to get a bagel to take to work."

Mosaic will be the only tenant of the building, which will anchor Circa FishHawk. Krakowski said having management and administrative functions together will allow Mosaic to have more cohesively functioning operations and communications.

Adjacent to the site, another local business employee, Kayla Steely, is counting on administrators of those functions keeping their shirts and pants pressed.

Steely, one of two employees of Majik Touch Cleaners dry cleaning store, 16707 FishHawk Blvd., foresees an influx of Mosaic employees' and executives' wrinkled pants and shirts being dropped off once the headquarters open. The dry cleaning store has only been open five months and is one of 21 stores in the Tampa Bay area.

"I think it's going to be very good for their- and our- employees. They can drop clothes off before 9 a.m. and come back just down the road after work," she said. "Hopefully, some of them might choose to live in the (FishHawk) neighborhood and bring more business to us."

The Mosaic Company was formed in 2004 from a combination of Cargill Crop Nutrition and IMC Global and had over $5.8 billion in revenue in 2007. It has over 7,000 employees worldwide, with about 3,000 in the Florida phosphate business.

The project is being developed by Ryan Companies US Inc. Design leaders are planning the building to become certified as a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design green building.

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