Jabil Inc., the St. Petersburg-based tech company, will be building a new $500 million facility in Rowan County, North Carolina. When the company announced last month that it would build a new manufacturing facility in the Southeast United States, St. Pete was considered a contender. North Carolina governor Josh Stein confirmed the location June 30. The new site will employ 1,181 people full time.
Popular breakfast diner Frog Pond has reopened in St. Pete Beach, inside the Mad Fish restaurant at 5200 Gulf Blvd., and will serve breakfast and brunch from 7:30 a.m. until 1:40 p.m. daily. The storm-damaged Frog Pond location at 16909 Gulf Blvd. in Redington Beach also reopened Tuesday. The breakfast staple was founded in 1982, and a downtown St. Petersburg location opened in April 2022.
Dutch Bros. Coffee will open its first Pinellas County location at 2250 East Bay Drive in Largo. The coffee chain has a cult following on the West Coast and entered the Tampa Bay market in 2023. Dutch Bros. will occupy a 967-square-foot building with a double drive-thru in Keene Plaza.
St. Petersburg Fire Rescue will distribute free lifejackets for children, door alarms and vouchers for swim lessons and CPR classes from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. today at the Lake Vista Pool. The agency partnered with Johns Hopkins All Children's Hospital's Safe Kids program, the Juvenile Welfare Board and St. Petersburg Parks and Recreation to host the water safety event at 1450 60th Ave. S. Attendees will receive education and resources for children and caregivers, and water safety items while supplies last.
Pastor Andy Oliver has billed the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office $10,000 for using the Allendale United Methodist Church's parking lot to stage 13 vehicles June 17. A social media post states that the invoice reflects "damage and disruption" caused by the unauthorized vehicles. While the church, known for messages supporting its progressive activism, will likely not receive payment, it will donate any proceeds to legal services for immigrants.
Naked Farmer in downtown St. Petersburg, the farm-to-table, fast-casual restaurant's first location, will close by mid-July for extensive renovations. The city approved construction permits in late June. Naked Farmer opened on the ground floor of the 200 Central office in May 2020 and now operates eight other locations statewide.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed the state's new budget of $117.4 billion into law Monday at a public ceremony in Wildwood. The budget for Fiscal Year 2025-2026, which goes into effect today, comes in at about $4 billion less than the state's current adjusted budget, and is nearly $600 million less than the Legislature's proposed budget, after DeSantis used his line-item veto power to cut spending projects. For budget details, click here.
Educational Media Foundation (EMF), a Christian media conglomerate, will enter the Tampa Bay market by the end of the year. Beasley Media Group announced that it has agreed to sell 98.7 The Shark (WPBB-FM), a station it has owned and operated since 2014, to EMF. The companies did not disclose the terms of the sale. The station rebranded from sports programming to classic rock in 2018.
Approximately 500,000 people attended St. Pete Pride's celebrations throughout June. The St. Pete Pride Festival Day and Parade event attracted roughly 350,000 people. The organization hosted over 200 local vendors and utilized 60-70 volunteers.
St. Petersburg-based Neptune Flood, a nationally recognized private flood insurance provider, has teamed up with specialty insurer Palomar Holdings, Inc. in a strategic partnership. This will allow Neptune to leverage its AI technology and serve as Palomar’s exclusive managing general agent for flood insurance. Throughout a transitional period, Palomar agents will begin to implement Neptune’s platform.
According to the National Hurricane Center, there is a 20% chance of a tropical system developing near or over the Florida peninsula by the end of this week. In a social media post Sunday, local meteorologist Paul Dellegatto said storm models "are not particularly aggressive," and the "main threat would likely be heavy rainfall."
Largo city officials have confirmed that firefighter Brandon Stoffel was fired following an internal investigation into his behavior at recent "No Kings" rallies in the area. A viral social media video showed a man, purportedly Stoffel, using slurs against the LGBTQ+ community. Officials told WFTS that his actions were "not consistent with the standards and the trust the community expects and deserves."
