Back in October 2015, the Board of County Commissioners directed staff to look into a speculative building program aimed at encouraging growth of the manufacturing sector within Hernando County. In speculative building, as the name implies, there is not an end user. There is no designated tenant or business to use the space that was constructed. The end user for the building is found after construction. It is meant to encourage a certain type of economic growth within a community.
Valerie Pianta explained on January 12th that Hernando County only has three buildings that support industrial use, all of which are located at the airport. They have not been successful in finding many buildings outside of the airport that would be categorized as industrial.
She stated that County administrator Leonard Sossaman and airport director Kevin Dougherty have worked to put together a trial program for speculative building for industrial use. Ms. Pianta explained that this will encourage business expansion or business recruitment opportunities.
Ms. Pianta discussed certain parameters that must be met. With a speculative building property, the zoning must already be light or heavy industrial. The developer would build a minimum of 10,000 square feet that includes warehouse and office space purposed for manufacturing. They could also build a type A office space. The project must be completed within 18 months.
There would be several incentives for the developer. Reimbursement for initial costs of site development up to $5000 an acre with a maximum of 4 acres. The developer must pay in advance then provide the county with paid receipts which the county would review. The county would mitigate land costs on any county owned property for two years. For example at the airport, the developer would not be charged for a land lease during construction and for two years afterward. All speculative building applicants would receive the rapid response permitting team and would be pushed through the process quickly.
Future tenants of these facilities are eligible for the county’s existing job creation incentives and job training dollars.
Ms. Pianta explained that a maximum of three speculative buildings could be undertaken at once. They would evaluate the success of the projects and determine if and when they are ready for the next building phase. “We don’t want to see buildings sitting there empty. That would be a worse problem than we have today,” she stated.
If the construction is at the airport, developers must sign the standard airport lease. All agreements are brought to the board for approval. Funding is available in the Economic Development Incentive fund. They expect an average cost of $32,000 for the incentive. Currently there are no incentives for speculative building.
“This is a very positive way to get some additional activity at the airport without having a specific end user,” stated Valerie Pianta.
“Offering these initial incentives to developers is a partnership to encourage investment in Hernando County,” County Administrator Leonard Sossamon said.
Chairman Adkins asked if there are any other counties using this type of program. Ms. Pianta stated that she is not aware of any.
Commissioner Dukes asked about how they are going to choose the builder if several who are interested. Ms. Pianta explained that it would be on a first come first serve basis. She stated that as soon as there was mention from the board about a speculative building program, there were people calling up. There are already interested parties. The county will choose three viable plans to start with and then, if they get tenants placed they will start more speculative building. There are 2000 acres to develop at the airport and hundreds of acres on the east side of the county off of Kettering Road and Anderson Snow Road. There’s plenty of opportunity, but nobody wants to see more buildings than the market can handle, she reiterated.
For complete details, you can contact the Office of Business Development at (352) 540-6400 or visit www.HernandoBusiness.com.