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PO Box 1212 Tampa, FL 33601 Pinellas Updated January 2006
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Pasco Homes, Jobs Boom Together
LAND - O' LAKES - George Sturdivant watched recently as his workers constructed an entrance tower to Connerton, an 8,500-home subdivision rising off U.S. 41 in the heart of Pasco County.
Before 2005, Sturdivant's construction firm, Lutz-based Sturdivant Co., primarily built community clubhouses, walls, and playgrounds for developers in Hillsborough County. Now, said Sturdivant, 85 percent of the company's work is in Pasco County, 28 projects in Connerton alone. As a result, the company has been on a hiring streak. Sturdivant declined to cite specific figures, but he said the company hired 25 percent more employees in the past year.
"You can't believe what's going on here," Sturdivant said about the boom in population and employment in Pasco.
His company's hiring binge is among many that have helped to fuel explosive job growth in the county and helped Pasco lead the nation in job creation between April and June last year, a report issued last week showed.
Residential construction, driven by the need to keep up with the number of people piling into Pasco each day, helped the county add 8,500 jobs between April 1 and June 30, a 9.5 percent increase over the same period in 2004.
The county's breakneck pace of residential growth is driving up demand primarily for construction workers, real estate brokers and mortgage specialists to build, sell and finance new homes.
Workers also are needed for the shops, banks, doctor's offices and other businesses springing up to serve the growing population.
"There's a significant correlation between a county's population growth and employment growth," said Tony Villamil, economist and chief executive at Washington Economics Group in Coral Gables.
The U.S. Census Bureau lists Pasco as one of the country's fastest growing counties between spring 2000 and summer 2004, jumping 18.3 percent to 407,799 people during the period.
Since 2000, Pasco County has approved more than 66,000 homes, most of them in the single-family-home subdivisions sprawling across the former ranch land and orange groves within a few miles of the Hillsborough County line. An additional 42,000 homes await approval.
The population boom isn't limited to Pasco.
Villamil said Florida's population is growing rapidly because a strong economy and expanding job base continue to attract people from all over the country. The Sunshine State will continue to grow rapidly as more baby boomers from around the country retire, he said.
"We don't see this population-driven growth to stop any time soon in Florida," he said.
Pasco makes up just a small part of the work force in the Tampa Bay area - Hillsborough and Pinellas account for the majority of jobs in this area - but the job growth in that county reflects closely what's happening in the entire Bay area.
Labor Force Growing
The Bureau of Labor Statistics says Pasco's labor force has grown 3.3 percent in the past 12 months, and 8.5 percent since the start of 2003. Those figures mirror those for the entire Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater metropolitan area, which has seen its labor force grow 3.5 percent in the past 12 months and 8.4 percent since January 2003.
One area where Pasco lags behinds its neighbors to the south: wages.
Pasco workers earned an average weekly wage of $579 in the second quarter of 2005, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Multiply the weekly wage by 52 weeks, and the average annual wage was $30,108.
In comparison, Hillsborough workers earned an average of $713 a week, which calculates to $37,076, during the same period, according the bureau. Pinellas' average was $666 a week, or $34,632.
Despite its growth, Pasco still exports more workers than any other county in the Tampa area. Pasco County officials hope the next decades of growth bring high-paying jobs that would make Pasco less of a bedroom community and more of its own destination.
So what's the outlook for Pasco's job boom?
Experts don't expect to see Pasco's job market grow as quickly this year as in 2005. The housing market, which is fueling much of Pasco's employment boom, is expected to cool in 2006. It will grow, but not as quickly as in the past few years.
David Lereah, chief economist for the National Association of Realtors in Washington, predicts existing home sales in 2006 will be 4.4 percent lower than they were in 2005 and that new home sales will decline 6 percent.
Villamil said industries related to housing will continue to add jobs in Florida, but not at the pace of recent years.
"We're not in danger of a systemic collapse, but there may be some slowing," he said. "Construction will cool off, and that will impact the growth of employment."
So far, there appears to be no slowing in sight.
American Home Mortgage is one of the new financial businesses helping to boost Pasco's job growth. The company recently opened an office at 24430 State Road 54 in Land O' Lakes. Between U.S. 41 and Collier Parkway, three "coming soon" signs announce other financial institutions that will join the seven already within the two-mile stretch.
Retail Sector Surge
A growing retail sector, business relocations and new professional offices looking to serve the booming population also are generating jobs in the county.
By the end of 2007, three major retail developers hope to open more than 7 million square feet of shopping east of Land O' Lakes in the Wesley Chapel area alone. That list includes a 1.3 million-square-foot regional mall at State Road 56 and Interstate 75.
Pushed north by restrictive zoning in New Tampa, car dealers have begun setting up shop along County Road 54 in Wesley Chapel and along S.R. 54 in Land O' Lakes. Small office complexes have sprouted along the S.R. 54-S.R. 56 corridor, many of them marketed to doctors, dentists and real estate agents.
Meanwhile, companies such as flight simulator maker Opinicus Corp., with 40 employees, and commercial developer The Hogan Group, which has 16 Bay area employees, are relocating to Pasco from smaller, more expensive sites in Hillsborough and Pinellas counties.
Just south of S.R. 54, Alan Day, a minority owner in Weichert Realtors Westshore Real Estate, and Don Suda, another minority owner, opened a new Weichert office on U.S. 41 in September. They brought six agents from the Tampa office and have hired four others.
With Pasco's growth, more agents will be needed soon, Day said.
Weichert is doing its part to build its work force. It holds career nights at 7 p.m. every Tuesday. Weichert provides real estate training at no charge to about a dozen people at a time.
"We're growing here," Day said. "Our target is to have 20 agents on board as soon as possible."
Reporter Will Rodgers can be reached at (813) 259-7870, Dave Simanoff can be reached at (813) 259-7762, and Kevin Wiatrowski can be reached at (813) 948-4201.
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