East Polk County Info

East Polk County Info

Coca-Cola - The Coca-Cola packaging plant in Auburndale opened in 2003 with one production line. When the current $100 million expansion is completed, it will have seven production lines. When finished later this year, a $100 million expansion of Coca-Cola's Main Street packaging plant will add more than 100 new jobs to Polk County's economy. Already the plant is running two of the three new production lines, one devoted to Minute Maid's Simply Orange. The plant now employs 320 people, including 90 new jobs added this year. The new jobs pay an average annual wage of $43,800 including benefits. The Auburndale plant is adding a third new packaging line to open later this year, bringing the total to seven lines from a single line when it opened in 2003.

6/10 Corporation - Inland Fiber & Data Technical Park is home to about 20 technological firms that operate around documents and e-mail. Included are Polk County, Verizon, T-Mobile, Time Warner Telecom, Emergency Management, Sprint Nextel and Elephant Outlook. Inland Fiber takes up about four city blocks in downtown Winter Haven and will be home to one of the University of South Florida Polytechnic's incubators. Why inland and why Winter Haven, "Because we're away from the coasts, we're attractive to data center tenants," said President, Bud Strang. All of our infrastructure, backup power and fiber-optic networks are outside flood zones. We're also centrally located. There aren't many places that offer all these amenities in one place. A lot passes through this particular place."

PSC from PCC - Polk Community College is changing its name to Polk State College and a new PSC logo has been approved. The new name reflects the addition of baccalaureate offerings at the college. "Our new name shows we've added opportunities," PSC President Eileen Holden said. She emphasized that the college's primary mission to provide two-year, employment-focused degrees will remain the same. This new chapter at PSC began last June when the State Legislature passed a bill establishing the State College Pilot Project for nine community colleges, including PSC. PSC's proposed bachelor of applied science supervision and management program has three areas of concentration: Business administration, which will prepare students for jobs such as chief executive, business operations specialist and marketing or sales manager. Program classes will begin in January 2010.

RussMatt Baseball - Local business owners brought in $20-24 million from the RussMatt Baseball Central Florida Invitational which was held for the first time this year in Polk County. Overall, 215 college baseball teams came to Polk County and played 807 games during this year's invitational, February 22-28. Auburndale hosted many of the RussMatt invitational games at its new Lake Myrtle Sports Complex off Berkley Road. RussMatt Baseball recently signed a 10-year contract with Polk County Tourism and Sports Marketing to hold its invitational in the area.

Davenport Distribution Center - The new $5.4 million center will serve 70 stores, but has capacity to serve double that number. Mattress Giant distribution center will begin operating in Davenport in the Park 27 Distribution Center II. The distribution center measures 83,864 square feet and resulted after the closing of centers in Orlando and Largo as part of the company's efforts to consolidate operations. The Davenport location will take inventory from suppliers then distribute those products to 70 stores from Sarasota to Daytona to Ocala. Mattress Giant has 123 stores in the state and a total of 360 stores nationwide.

Frostproof Distribution Center - "The Friendly City" of Frostproof so impressed the United States largest distributor of plumbing supplies that the town is now the home of its Southeast regional distribution center. Ferguson Enterprises Inc. was in the market for a centralized location in Florida when it came upon 86 acres for sale in the center of the Sunshine State. The company broke ground last August to construct the 545,000-square-foot center that begins shipping in October. Ferguson is ranked by trade publications as the largest distributor of plumbing supplies and pipes, valves and fittings and the third-largest distributor of heating and cooling equipment. The distribution center will employ 100 clerical and warehouse workers.

Vigoro Fertilizer - There's a southerly wind of change blowing through Winter Haven bringing with it what city officials see as a more pleasant entrance to Winter Haven as one crests the Lulu-Shipp canal bridge on U.S. Highway 17. The owner of the former Vigoro fertilizer plant property and the Orlando-based firm Benge Development are working with the city to create a mixed-use development that, when completed, will offer an aesthetically pleasing blend of office and retail establishments and multi-family homes. According to the plan, up to 720 residential units or 566,280 square feet of commercial development can be developed on the approximate 20-acre site.

Lake Eva Park - This eight-acre park is a $28 million dollar community project. Lake Eva Park is well equipped with an aquatic center, banquet hall, tennis/basketball courts and a beautiful walking trail on Lake Eva. The banquet hall will be the largest in East Polk County. The hall could accommodate any event up to 1,400 people and has many views of sunsets on beautiful Lake Eva. City manager, Ann Toney-Deal announced the celebration opening of the park on July 4th, this year.

Winter Haven Municipal Airport - Entrance to the 13,000 square-foot terminal is from U.S. 92, about a quarter-mile from the terminal facing 21st Street Northwest. The new building has a pilots lounge, new offices, two conference rooms and a restaurant. The runway, terminal building and parking lot cost $8 million with 80 percent of the funding coming from the state Department of Transportation.