Get money to stay

Winter Park may soon offer businesses up to $1,500 per employee to come to or stay in the city, if a proposed business incentive program makes its way through the City Commission.

On Monday, the Commission will discuss the possibility of paying businesses not to relocate outside the city — it’s called the Targeted Industry Enhancement Program.

“There are programs to bring businesses to Florida, but we don’t have anything in place that would incentivize jobs that are already in the state that would want to move to Winter Park,” said Peter Moore, assistant director of Community Redevelopment.

This type of program has already seen some success in other cities in Florida, which have used it to pull in new business. Gov. Rick Scott’s newly revealed budget calls for $800 million in economic development funds over two years, including incentives for businesses to come to Florida.

“It’s extremely common across the state,” Moore said. “Cape Coral just raised the amount they do.”

But Winter Park would be a relative pioneer in keeping high-paying businesses in the city that otherwise may have relocated. It will specifically try to retain or pull in businesses in arts and culture, creative services, financial and professional services, health care, knowledge creation, real estate development and corporate headquarters.

The program has already gained favor in the CRA Advisory Board, but has yet to reach the Commission. It’s on the Commission’s agenda for Monday, Feb. 14.

That talk will come on the heels of a recent Commission decision during a Jan. 24 meeting to not lease the city-owned state office building to RLF Architects, a 130-employee firm that had been in Winter Park for 75 years.

That architecture firm had been looking to relocate to a larger building, with the state office building seemingly a good replacement for the city, Commissioner Beth Dillaha said.

“It’s an ideal building for an architecture firm,” she said.

Now, with the possibility that RLF will be relocating to Baldwin Park, Dillaha said that the city could be experiencing a reversal of fortune to keep the firm in the city.

“They were going to pay us $3.27 million to lease that building,” Dillaha said. “Now we could be paying them to stay in the city.”

Commissioner Phil Anderson said the city’s goal is to retain as much business as possible.

“I don’t know their plans at this point, but I certainly hope RLF is going to stay,” Anderson said.

Companies such as RLF would be a targeted business for the incentive program, because they offer high-paying jobs, Dillaha said. Those are the types of jobs that the city needs to keep, she said.

They also could get more incentives. High-wage jobs pay 115 percent of the county average or higher, a range Moore said is about $43,000 to $46,000 per year. Some cities have used tiered structures, offering even more incentives to bring in jobs that pay 200 percent or more of the county average.

Moore said the city is already in talks with a company that they could offer incentives to. It would bring in 90 jobs, 75 percent of which pay more than $100,000 per year.

He said that the city will help businesses relocate by finding them office space, and helping them through the relocation process. But the city will require businesses keep their salaries high, retain their employees and stay in the city for five to 10 years. The incentive program would only pay the businesses for five of those years.

“We want them to stay at least twice as long as we pay out,” Moore said.