Water Street Tampa on track to meet Super Bowl benchmarks

The Tampa Bay area’s largest hotel complex will be finished in time for Super Bowl LV in 2021 in Tampa.

Construction is ahead of schedule for the new JW Marriott, which broke ground earlier this year, said James Nozar, CEO of Strategic Property Partners, the Jeff Vinik-Cascade Investment’s company that’s developing Water Street Tampa, the 9-million-square-foot, $3.5 billion project that’s transforming downtown Tampa.

The new hotel is across the street from the Tampa Marriott Waterside Hotel and Marina, where Nozar spoke at the opening session for the Dreamit-Bisnow Innovation Summit.

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Kobie Marketing lays off workers

Kobie Marketing Inc., one of the largest marketing firms in the Tampa Bay area, has laid off 25 employees.

“Kobie has experienced considerable growth in the past several years. To continue to provide the best loyalty solutions for our clients and meet our business needs, it was necessary to make modifications to our structure,” Bram Hechtkopf, CEO, said in a prepared statement.

The company ranked No. 2,586 on the Inc. 5000’s 2018 list of fastest-growing private companies, with $70.3 million in 2017 revenue and a three-year revenue growth of 164 percent

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Business briefs: Buckhorn on corporate relocations, best places to work for women

- A decade after the recession, Tampa is undergoing a transformation and it’s about more than bricks and mortar, said Mayor Bob Buckhorn.

Tampa is in conversations, around the country, that it’s never been in before, Buckhorn said. “We are in the conversation for almost every corporate relocation or expansion that’s being contemplated. That didn’t happen before, but it’s happening now.”

- Five Tampa Bay area companies made Fortune Magazine’s new list of Best Places to Work for Women.

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