"I’ve been here 14 years. We export about $7,000,000 a year in products to the Midwest from Cape Coral. No one’s talked to me about retention. We’ve got 13 months left and we’re going to move out," said Michael Fischer, owner of Energy Harness Corporation, to a group of Cape Coral city leaders and fellow local manufacturers. "I’m looking for a better location for me to expand and I don’t see that here."
“We’ll talk!” said Cape Coral’s Business & Development Director, Sharon Woodberry.
Fischer was expressing his concerns at a roundtable focused on development of manufacturing roundtable in the City of Cape Coral. This was the city’s sixth Business and Industry Roundtable since last May.
Woodberry explained the purpose of the roundtable discussions.
"We want to make sure we have a good pulse on what's happening, what your challenges are, how the city can help you...The city offers some incentive programs that you might want to be interested in. The idea is that we want to be able to partner with our businesses and help them grow."
One of the biggest challenges for the manufacturers is infrastructure. Woodberry talked about how the City can help if those improvements aren’t already in place.
"We do have what’s called a business infrastructure grant," she said. "Those funds are specifically for site development costs, it’s for foundations, it’s for grading, it’s for your impact fees and permitting costs that come your way. It’s for extending utilities--so all of those things to get your site ready."
Southwest Regional Manufacturing Association Executive Director Rob Harris shared several concerns for manufacturers considering a move to Cape Coral.
"There are some things that are roadblocks for them to want to move here. So one is still like what does your skilled labor look like and that’s being addressed. Ok, so that’s good. The second thing which I don’t think it gets into at a city level but it does at a county level around the state is the tangible personal property tax. So when you own equipment it doesn’t matter how old your equipment is, you’re paying tax on that as long as you own it, every year."
City Manager Michael Ilczyszyn shared how the city might be able to assist with the tax burden.
"We have some grants that will cover capital, will recapture of grants that we can run out you know 5, 10, 15 years and I was just thinking about making that tax an eligible reimbursement to help incentivize."
The discussion turned to other factors impacting companies considering a move to Cape Coral, as well as existing businesses. The topics ranged from affordable housing options, and a manufacturing employee pipeline through the school system, to leveraging existing resources, such as CareerSource and the Southwest Regional Manufacturing Association.
So, how to get more business is a multi-level challenge that is not unique to Cape Coral. But it sounds like Cape Coral’s city management is looking for creative ways to make it easier to do just that.
Karen Moore is publisher of Southwest Florida Business Today and special to WGCU.
