Port St. Lucie Civic Center

Mayor Patricia Christensen called it the “beginning of a new era.”

Since its opening, though, the $25 million facility has had more success as a recreation center than as the economic anchor of a burgeoning “downtown” in a city built without one.

Its surrounding streets, with names such as Progress Lane and Main Street, are flanked by empty fields.

Its rental facilities have been used 180 times. Rental rates were cut in half late last month.

“The whole idea for this was to stimulate the development of a downtown and obviously the economy has had an effect on that,” said Chuck Proulx, the city’s parks and recreation director.
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TALLAHASSEE — Two safeguards on a secretive process that turns tax dollars into cash incentives for private corporations were quietly removed in the final days of the 2009 legislative session to help a Jupiter Island investment manager quickly secure $20 million for his digital animation company.

An amendment gave Gov. Charlie Crist’s office, which helped craft the language, sole authority to award $42 million in economic development money. As a result, nine companies, each identified only by a code name, were awarded shares of the money within a week this summer. One $7.4 million project in Taylor County was never discussed in public.

Nearly half of the summer’s total went to Project Bumblebee — a proposal from John Textor, who is targeting Port St. Lucie for a spinoff of Digital Domain, a visual effects company he owns with Hollywood blockbuster producer Michael Bay.

Textor has promised that the spinoff, Wyndcrest Holdings, will create 500 jobs by 2014, and the recession-ravaged city is considering a separate incentive package worth $10 million in cash, land in Tradition and additional stimulus money from the city and St. Lucie County for a building.

But while the city considers its offer, the last-minute state budget amendment has already benefited the election campaigns of Crist and state Reps. Kevin Ambler, R-Tampa, and David Rivera, R-Miami, whose support was critical for the amendment.

Just days after the legislative session in May, which ran into overtime as lawmakers squabbled over the budget, Textor gave $5,000 to the Republican Party of Florida’s federal campaign account to help Crist, who has raised more than $6 million for his U.S. Senate race next year.

In June, Textor gathered $2,000 in donations for Ambler and $1,500 for Rivera. Textor also helped arrange for former Miami Dolphins quarterback Dan Marino, one of Textor’s business partners, to attend Ambler’s kickoff fund-raiser last month for Ambler’s state Senate campaign. Textor said he hopes to host a fund-raiser for Ambler in Palm Beach County. (more…)

J.J. Taylor Companies, the second largest beer distributor in Florida, plans to start construction this week on a warehouse and beverage distribution center in Fort Pierce.

About 57 employees are working out of a temporary location in the city, said Jose E. Rivera, vice president of finance and administration for the company. Those employees will move to the new 25,000-square-foot center when it opens next year in the Crossroads Park of Commerce on Okeechobee Road, he said. (more…)

FORT PIERCE — A 2-year-old girl reportedly fell in a backyard pool Sunday and was in the water for up to two minutes before being rescued by her mother, a St. Lucie County Fire District spokeswoman said Monday.

Crews were called about 5:25 p.m. to the incident in the 1000 block of Jamaica Avenue, Fire District spokeswoman Catherine Chaney said. The child was conscious and breathing when fire district personnel arrived.
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FORT PIERCE — Faced with double-digit unemployment and one of the highest rates of foreclosure in the country, St. Lucie County commissioners created a “local stimulus program” to speed up construction projects and create jobs in an economy desperate for them.

The plan included an ordinance to give local companies an edge in the bidding process and ensure that most workers involved in county projects live in St. Lucie.

But six months into the program, it’s hard to define how successful it’s been.
Economic change comes slowly, and even “fast-tracked” projects can take months to go through the design, bidding and building process. County officials, however, say their efforts have improved St. Lucie’s dire economic situation without raising taxes or increasing long-term debt.

“It’s incremental, but any jobs that we can add to the local economy absolutely has to help,” said Faye Outlaw, the county administrator.

Officials point to these milestones: (more…)

Construction jobs continued to decline on the Treasure Coast during the past year, according to a report released last week by the Associated General Contractors of America.

The Port St. Lucie metropolitan area, which includes Martin and St. Lucie counties, lost about 700 jobs, or 6 percent, between August 2008 and August 2009. The Treasure Coast ranked 59 out of 337 metropolitan areas in the country for least jobs lost. The worst losses were in Reno, Nev., which ranked 337.

The Associated General Contractors of America, based in Arlington, Va., released the numbers to highlight the decline in construction jobs across the country. (more…)

Students from two local schools may soon be learning issues and sharing cultural values with peers from around the globe, using cutting-edge computer technology.

The Dawn Project is described as an international network of students and teachers. Current plans are to make it available to some or all high school students at Lincoln Park Academy, and to Forest Grove Middle School students who are enrolled in the school’s Marine Oceanographic Academy preparatory program.

“This is an opportunity to engage students in a global learning community,” said Owen Roberts, assistant superintendent of accountability and assessment for St. Lucie County Schools. “You could be talking to people in the U.S., students in Europe or Asia.” (more…)

FORT PIERCE — Jumping from boats into waist-deep, brackish water, nearly two dozen people formed a chain alongside a small island in the Indian River Lagoon.

Their mission? To create an oyster reef in the hope of improving the health of the 156-mile-long estuary.

Oyster reefs, built of discarded shells gathered from beaches and restaurants on the Treasure Coast, can replenish depleted oyster populations, provide habitat for marine life, and improve water quality by filtering gallons of water each day. Building the reefs has been a project of St. Lucie County, the Florida Oceanographic Society, the Indian River Lagoon National Estuary Program and the University of Florida’s St. Lucie County Extension Office for about four years. The groups hope to create 11 reefs, growing oysters as larvae, called “spat,” that come through the area and attach to the old shells.

“It would be a wonderful thing for the lagoon,” said captain Barry “Chop” Lege, who leads boat tours on the lagoon and helped transport volunteers to the site last week. (more…)

The medical business continues to boom on the Treasure Coast.

Lawnwood Regional Medical Center & Heart Institute in Fort Pierce announced last week that it plans to expand its intensive care unit.

The $16.8 million project will bring the hospital’s total bed count in intensive care to 54, making it the largest intensive care unit on the Treasure Coast. There are about 40 beds in intensive care now, said Jana Eschbach, a hospital spokeswoman.

The announcement comes just months after HCA Inc.-owned Lawnwood opened a
trauma center. The center, which has seen about 375 patients since opening in May, is the only one between West Palm Beach and Melbourne. (more…)

PORT ST. LUCIE — Two men on Friday afternoon tried to lure a 4-year-old girl into a pickup near Northwest Prima Vista and Northwest Bayshore boulevards, police said.
About 5:30 p.m., the men pulled up to 452 Southwest Carmelite Drive in a gold Chevrolet Silverado truck and called out to the 4-year-old, according to a Port St. Lucie police statement circulated this morning.
The girl’s mother, who was in the garage, looked up and saw one of the men open the door and lean out of the cab.
“Baby girl, come here,” she heard him say, the statement said.
The woman yelled at her daughter and the truck drove off, heading south on Carmelite Drive.
Anyone with information can call detective Brinton Black at (772) 871-5000.