By B.C. Manion
Pasco County Administrator John Gallagher believes the county he has led for two decades is on the verge of a major turning point.
“I’ve been county administrator here forever and I can tell you this is probably the most exciting time in my tenure here,” Gallagher told members of the Pasco Alliance of Community Associations at its monthly meeting in Land O’ Lakes last week.
“For years and years, it was nothing but houses,” Gallagher said.
The county had some image issues, too, he said. “People in the south thought of Pasco County as those guys with no shoes on, no teeth.”
But during the past couple of years, the county has been streamlining its operations, investing in its infrastructure and offering incentives for businesses to relocate to Pasco, Gallagher said.
The Pasco Economic Development Council has been taking big-time real estate people and big-time engineering companies on tours of the county and they’ve been favorably impressed, he said.
“They were shocked by how good the infrastructure was here, how good the roads are,” Gallagher said.
“People started saying, ‘You know, Pasco County may be a good place to move our business. It may be a nice place for my employees to live, to raise a family.’”
A couple of years ago, T. Rowe Price announced that it would be opening a satellite campus at Sunlake Boulevard and SR 54.
The economy put that project on hold and it’s not clear when the plan will come to fruition.
Meanwhile, “Raymond James came in and bought about 60 acres of land in Wiregrass,” Gallagher said.
“We gave them a lot of incentives because in this business you have to give incentives,” Gallagher said.
The Pasco County Commission approved millions of dollars in financial incentives in September in an attempt to entice Raymond James Financial to create a campus in Wiregrass Ranch.
The internationally known financial services company, based in St. Petersburg, would build two 100,000-square-foot buildings. The company would bring 750 jobs to the county by 2024, with 100 of those jobs beginning in 2014.
Raymond James also wants to reserve up to 1 million square feet of office space for future expansion on all, or a portion of the property and adjacent lands.
The company is doing due diligence to examine geotechnical, environmental and other aspects of the property to ensure it is compatible with the project.
Luring Raymond James would be a giant step to setting a new tone for Pasco County, Gallagher said. It could entice other large companies to follow, he said.
