Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn and Hillsborough County Commission members have often talked about recruiting new companies to the region, particularly ones in the high-tech and/or biotech industries. But they'd also like to see the various financial and insurance companies based in the Tampa Bay area remain in the region, and perhaps even boost their workforces as the economy begins to slowly improve.
So for three days last week, a high-level group of local leaders — including Buckhorn and County Commission Chairman Ken Hagen — visited the executive offices of JPMorgan Chase, Citgroup and Time Warner in NYC to thank them for doing business in Hillsborough County, and to see what they could do to make conditions even better going forward.
"The reason we went there was to express our appreciation to these companies, and to remind them as they go through their re-organizations and as they expand or contract … that this community has a long relationship with them … and is standing by ready, willing and able to accommodate more," said Buckhorn at a news conference on Monday morning at the headquarters of the Tampa/Hillsborough County Economic Development Corporation (EDC). "I think you're going to see more as the tax burden in the Northeast gets increasingly higher, and the cost of doing business is increasingly larger and tougher, and Florida becomes an even more welcoming alternative for them."
This article appears in Jun 20-26, 2013.