2621 SW Pine Island Road<\/a>. <\/p>\nThe original estimate of $25.8 million for the project has increased to $27,296,521. The additional cost includes expansion to the square footage for administrative and executive offices.<\/p>\n
The total investment includes real estate acquisition, site development, construction costs, interior buildout, equipment and related costs, according to agenda documents.<\/p>\n
Job creation was among the benefits to the city cited.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis facility comes with a purpose,\u201d City Manager Michael Ilczyszyn said. \u201cThis fills multiple buckets for us as an economic bucket.\u201d<\/p>\n
Economic Development Manager Sharon Woodberry said 57% of the city\u2019s workforce leaves Cape Coral for their jobs every day.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have an opportunity to retain the existing jobs here and keep the 75 employees here and bring an additional 55 jobs. The wage premium is 40% over the average wage. The average wage is $28.16 an hour. The average Bones Coffee wage is $39.46 an hour. We are wanting to make it work in terms of this project in particular,\u201d Woodberry said. \u201cThis investment is creating a headquarters for operations of expanding nationally. It makes Cape Coral a national name and hub for a company that we believe is going to continue to grow and have a significant presence.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ilczyszyn said when city staff looks at economic development incentives, they look at each incentive package to try to hit particular targets and goals for the organization and private sector.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat we try to do is understand what is happening with that business and develop a plan of attack with success of Cape Coral against whoever we are competing with,\u201d he said, adding that they recently lost a business that moved to Fort Myers. \u201cI was not going to let it happen again to Bones.\u201d<\/p>\n
Many council members shared their approval of having a national headquarters in Cape Coral that will further put the city on the map.<\/p>\n
The original incentive package that was approved in August included a site improvement reimbursement grant of $562,500, ad valorem tax reimbursement up to $387,550 over 10 years, direct equipment funding grant of $1 million, lease buyout funding grant of $90,000 and impact fee deferral up to $175,000 deferred for two years. The total value was $2,040,050.<\/p>\n
Mayor John Gunter, who cast the lone dissenting vote, said at $25.8 million the city made an investment of 7.91% as a stakeholder for the project.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen it came back the project increased to a little over $27.3 million, which took the stakeholder investment from 7.91% to 10%. <\/p>\n
\u201cIf we stick to the 7.91% formula, that we did originally, that would only increase their ask by $119,184. For me, if we are going to approve any modification, we still stick with the 7.91% formula,\u201d Gunter said.<\/p>\n
When he looks at incentives and votes to approve them, he said he is looking at what types of jobs the project will bring to the city.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat wasn\u2019t applied here. Seventy-fix existing jobs, bringing 55 additional positions. Looking back on this now, I would have liked to see a breakdown for job creation,\u201d Gunter said.<\/p>\n
Councilmember Bill Steinke asked why the percentage rose from 7.91% to 10%.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe 10% comes from an internal discussion that happened between the city manager and I. We were presented with the cost increase. They started to finalize some of the numbers. A significant part of the increase was because they decided to expand administrative office space from 6,000 square feet to 14,000 square feet,\u201d Woodberry said of the $1.8 million in construction cost.<\/p>\n
She said they made a compelling case of construction of a new building, compared to an existing building in Fort Myers.<\/p>\n
\u201cTen percent is where we like to be at if we are going with different types of programs,\u201d Ilczyszyn said.<\/p>\n
Steinke said the city is not gaining 55 jobs, the city is getting 130 jobs as they are retaining the 75 original jobs.<\/p>\n
To reach MEGHAN BRADBURY, please email news@breezenewspapers.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bones Brands, LLC will receive an increased incentive package for their national headquarters facility in the city. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":80482,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[209,211,210],"class_list":["post-80481","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral-headlines","tag-cape-coral-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80481","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80481"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80481\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/80482"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80481"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80481"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80481"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}