Pinellas County is now accepting applications for two vacancies on its Historic Preservation Board. Commissioner Charlie Justice also has an appointment position available. Board members serve a three-year term that begins on Jan. 1, 2022. Service on the board is voluntary, and the board is comprised of nine members and two alternates. Each member of the county commission nominates one member, and the commission jointly nominates two at-large members and two alternates. Preservation Board members must be community advocates, municipal representatives and historic preservation professionals with expertise or knowledge of the historic preservation field. Applications can be found on the county website and are accepted until 3 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 12.
Those crossing the Corey Causeway bridge may experience delays for a few weeks, as the City of St. Pete Beach has announced a temporary lane reduction until Nov. 11. Westbound traffic on the causeway between Pasadena and St. Pete Beach is now reduced to one lane while a county contractor replaces a broken reclaimed water pipe. The pipe is attached beneath the bridge, and contractors are using barges for the project, which may also impact waterway vessels. The lane closure extends from Matthews Road to Sun Island Drive and will remain closed around the clock until contractors remove the pipe. The county has notified both the Florida Department of Transportation and the U.S. coast guard. Once finished, the Pinellas County Utilities project will provide reclaimed water service to about 4,300 customers south of the bridge in Pasadena, St. Pete Beach, and Tierra Verde.
On Thursday, the St. Pete City Council approved in a 6-1 vote, with Councilman Robert Blackmon being the sole no vote, for the disposition of city-owned property on the southwest corner of 6th Ave. South and 22nd Street South in the area known as The Deuces. The approved lease agreement is between the City of St. Petersburg and The Sankofa Vision Group LLC for the leasing of commercial space. The Sankofa facility is being designed to accommodate as many as 58 traditional and micro spaces for retail, office and food service tenants as well as entertainment venues. A digital and creative tech incubator is also part of the plan and is expected to help bridge start-ups into the city’s emerging venture capital pipeline. Sankofa will return to the city with a guaranteed maximum price for the right-of-work of Fairfield Avenue and then the overall cost of the project.
"Loves Shines," an mural art installation by Ya La'Ford at 330 Beach Drive, will be illuminated during a ceremony at 6:30 p.m. Saturday. The community project mural was commissioned for the 2021 SHINE Mural Festival.
Clearwater-based KnowBe4, Inc. (NASDAQ: KNBE), a provider of the world's largest security awareness training, announced that it has entered into a material definitive agreement to acquire California-based SecurityAdvisor for approximately $80 million. The purchase will be paid through a combination of cash and stock with both upfront and earnout components. The acquisition is expected to close during the fourth quarter of 2021. The acquisition will create a new category for KnowBe4. The innovative SecurityAdvisor technology utilizes integrations with over 50 leading vendors in the cybersecurity ecosystem to identify and correlate human behavior-driven security alerts. The new category of security would be called Human Detection and Response, or HDR. "The future integration of KnowBe4’s existing security awareness platform with real-time user behavior activity and micro-learning will be a new milestone in defending against social engineering attacks," the release read.
The Tampa Bay Rowdies look to close out another successful regular season against the Miami FC tonight. The match begins at 7:30 p.m. in Al Lang Stadium and will feature a matchup of two playoff teams. Miami FC recently clinched a spot in the playoffs but will have their work cut out for them against the Atlantic Division champs. The Rowdies are almost unbeatable inside the friendly confines of Al Lang Stadium, winning 12 of 15 matches in St. Pete this season.
Target Freight Management Inc., a leading freight logistics company based in Pittsburgh, is opening a new office in Tampa. The addition of the Tampa office brings Target Freight to six locations nationwide. “We searched multiple markets and found Tampa to be the most plentiful in terms of potential employees who had the best mix of experience, talent, and a strong desire to work,” Tim Carey, EVP of Strategy at Target Freight Management, said in a news release. “Some of our new Tampa Bay hires have previous experience in flatbed hauling or B2B sales, which is always helpful. But what really stood out to me was how quickly they developed a team mentality and a positive energy as they worked with our training team to help solve our clients’ ever-changing supply chain problems.” The Tampa Bay employees will augment the company’s real-time freight logistics, sales and customer service efforts. The new Tampa office also includes space for a future expansion.
The Pinellas Suncoast Transit Authority will be applying for a $15 million federal grant toward growing its electric bus fleet. The entire project includes 12 electric buses and charging stations along with associated technologies, which will cost $18 million. While the grant, if approved, would cover a large chunk of the project, PSTA will request to use revenue collected through the tolls in the state to cover the financial gap. A PSTA representative said they expect this to be a highly competitive grant. PSTA is also seeking other grants for additional projects. For its bus rapid transit SunRunner line, PSTA already received a commitment for $2.7 million for operations and a study of the line when it rolls out in 2022. PSTA has applied for an additional $1.8 million for the SunRunner project. PSTA has also applied for a $25 million grant through the RAISE grant, formerly known as BUILD and TIGER grants. The ask is for its new 75,000-square-foot, high-tech transit hub in Clearwater.
Tampa Bay-based cybersecurity leader ReliaQuest is strengthening its commitment to training the next generation of cyber talent. The firm is expanding its partnership with 3DE, a non-profit dedicated to re-engineering high school education. The partnership started in 2019 and included over 300 students across three local high schools. The expanded program adds four Tampa Bay high schools with ReliaQuest as the case challenge for its tenth-grade students. This marks the first time high schools from Tampa Bay worked locally with ReliaQuest on a cybersecurity curriculum, according to ReliaQuest's announcement. "We think about the talent shortage in cybersecurity as a skills transfer issue,” ReliaQuest CEO Brian Murphy said in the release. "There are enough people ready to raise their hand and help with this issue, we need to better equip them with the right skills. Working with 3DE we can use real-world examples to engage high school students and inspire them to start a career in cybersecurity. The curriculum will be available in Chamberlain High School and Hillsborough High School. Additional 3DE locations include Dunedin High School, St. Petersburg High School, Lake Worth High School, Osceola High School and others.
Denise Davis-Cotton, Director of the University of South Florida’s Center for Partnerships in Arts Integrate Teaching (PAInT) program, has been named principal investigator of an $8.5 million grant. The grant was awarded by the U.S. Department of Education to strengthen educational arts programming across the country. Titled Race, Equity, Arts and Cultural History (REACH), the project seeks to establish a national model to strengthen arts education that other schools can replicate. The project will be funded over five years, and the grant is the largest ever awarded to the Sarasota-Manatee Campus.
Tampa-based startup Minimise, an energy conservation management firm, has awarded Johnson Controls (NYSE: JCI) as Minimise' national subcontractor for the Design and Installation of Energy Efficiency as a Service (EEaaS) projects developed by Minimise. The news comes as Minimise raised $600 million to date to produce projects globally.
