Bank in the Former Ice House Getting a New Owner
USAmeriBank, which renovated the former Purity Ice building on Florida Avenue, is merging with Valley National Bank of New Jersey.
Business
Citizens Bank & Trust Building Sold for $7.2 Million
The glass-paneled, six-story Citizens Bank & Trust building overlooking Lake Morton has been sold to The Geneva Group, a Deerfield Beach real estate investment company, for $7.2 million.
Sykes’ Lakeland Expansion Proved Pivotal
Sykes Enterprises’ (website) workforce of 940 in two Lakeland centers dwarfs the staff at its Tampa headquarters. The company’s 2012 decision to place 600 employees in a Griffin Road facility — Sykes’ largest — prompted other large employers to come to Lakeland, economic development people here say. Sykes specializes in outsourcing telephone customer support.
News Release: Draken Ranks 90 on Inc. 500 List of Fastest Growing Private Companies
The company (site), based at Lakeland Linder Airport, operates decommissioned military aircraft and assists the U.S. and allies in aerial combat training.
Some Changes at The Morning Paper This Week
- The page width slimmed down from 12 inches to 11 inches, undoubtedly related to the recently implemented and hopefully lucrative contract to print the Orlando Sentinel.
- The Business section moved from the back of the Sports section to its own section front, a good move.
- UPDATE: With Madison Fantozzi leaving to become director of creative communications at Polk State College, Eric Pera is taking over the education beat for now. No word on whether it will become his full-time beat. “No final decisions have been made,” Editor Lenore Devore says.
Did anybody notice other changes?
Joe P. Ruthven: ‘Super Salesman for Lakeland’
A lengthy profile traces the 90-year-old patriarch’s path from rural childhood to Navy and college days to opening a Memorial Boulevard tire store and finally to a real estate career pioneering Lakeland’s warehousing boom.
Lakeland Grad Student Sniffing for Florida Hops
The head of UF’s Institute of Food and Agriculture Sciences writes in The Orlando Sentinel that one of his master’s students, Santa Fe High grad Sean Kryger, is training testers to grade hops by smell as part of an effort to develop a new Florida crop to serve the state’s beer industry.