St. Pete economic development reorg puts focus on jobs

There’s a reason the newly created Economic and Workforce Development Department within the city of St. Petersburg’s City Development Administration has “workforce” in its name.

That’s because Sophia Sorolis, director of the department, plans to make jobs for city residents a  part of every transaction involving the department.

Sophia Sorolis, manager, Economic and Workforce Development Department, City of St. Petersburg

Sorolis, who has served as economic development manager for 11 years, was named director and Rick Smith, a city planner, was named manager, when the City announced the creation of the department earlier this month. Both report to Alan DeLisle, city development administrator.

The new department will focus on neighborhood and downtown real estate development, small business entrepreneurial development, business retention and expansion, and workforce development.

DeLisle said it was the right time to create the new department because of all the public-private partnerships that are occurring, including expansions by Jabil Inc. (NYSE: JBL) and Raymond James Financial Inc. (NYSE: RJF)  in Carillon, the Manhattan Casino in south St. Petersburg and the Phillips Development and Realty project in the Skyway Marina District.

Also key is Grow Smarter, a job creation and talent attraction initiative that targets five industries: marine and life sciences, specialized manufacturing, financial services, data analytics, and creative arts and design, as well as Mayor Rick Kriseman’s emphasis on workforce development.

“To me, economic and workforce development are one and the same. If you are creating jobs you should have a system in place to connect that to city residents,” DeLisle said.

It’s been in the background, Sorolis said.

“Now we’ll focus on it more and will try to make it a part of every transaction that we do,” she said.

She cited a Grow Smarter program for companies with fewer than 50 employees and in a target industry.

“If they hire a person at an appropriate wage and keep them for 12 months, they are eligible to get a bonus paid to them. That has a lot of traction with smaller entrepreneurial companies who can’t utilize state incentives. Smaller tech companies have been using it quite a bit,” Sorolis said.

Another program is St. Pete Works, a website where people can post resumes and employers can post jobs. It started as a program for residents of the South St. Petersburg Community Redevelopment Area, but it’s available to anyone, she said.

“We’re trying to brand our workforce activities under that and make it accessible for all our residents,” Sorolis said.

Alan DeLisle, city development administrator, City of St. Petersburg

About 30 to 40 South St. Petersburg CRA residents have connected to employment opportunities through St. Pete Works in the past three or four months, DeLisle said.

Last year, there were 3,000 net new jobs created in St. Petersburg, and Sorolis said that would be a baseline to measure success in future years.

“On the workforce side, success will be measured by the number of positions going to St. Pete residents and residents of the South St. Petersburg CRA,” she said. “On the economic development side, there a lot of great projects in the pipeline that are coming on line — Jabil, UPC Insurance, and hopefully more that will be transformative for the city.”

One thing DeLisle hears consistently from new and expanding companies is that St. Petersburg is a place where employees can be productive.

 “This is a creative place. More and more companies are recognizing that and saying we want to be here because we think our company will be the most productive it can be, and its workers will be creative,” he said. “We heard that from UPC, we heard that from Raymond James, we heard that from Jabil. We’re hearing it from these smaller startup companies.”

The new Economic and Workforce Development Department has 11 employees, and will have 12 employees when fully staffed. It has a budget of $2.9 million for fiscal year 2019.

Economic and Workforce is now the fifth department to fall under the City Development Administration. Others are Planning (formerly Planning and Economic Development), Transportation and Parking Management, Real Estate and Property Management, and Enterprise Facilities.