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Sebring Airport's Business Park Prepares For Growth

Jasmina Meyer/Highlands Today

From left: Phil Lockwood and Andrew Doughty brainstorm on how to rig a ferry tank to an Air Cam aircraft to get extended range from 300 to 600 miles, recently at Lockwood Aviation Inc. located in the Sebring Airport and Commerce Park.

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By BILL RETTEW JR.

Highlands Today

Published: September 21, 2008

SEBRING - While it is the only fully serviced business park in Highlands County, the Sebring Regional Airport Industrial Park became a magnet to attract businesses, and in turn, create jobs and stimulate the local economy.

The 2,000 acre industrial park, southeast of Sebring and just north of Lake Istokpoga, has a $500 million a year financial impact and is where 450 to 500 employees choose to work.

Mike Willingham is the executive director at the SRA Industrial Park, the home of a general aviation airport, Sebring International Raceway and more than two dozen businesses.

Willingham took over the reins at the airport and park in 1991. Only a couple of businesses operated then at the site dotted with dilapidated shells left behind by former businesses.

During Willingham's second week at the helm, the airport was unable to make payroll.

"My job was made very easy," quipped Willingham. "There was no way to go but up."

Since then, the number of SRA employees has dropped from 20 to just eight, and the airport was chosen as the best general aviation airport in the state in 2007 by the Federal Aviation Administration.

Willingham said on Wednesday that he loves his job so much he'd work for nothing if he could afford to.

"Where else could a guy go and play with fast cars, jet airplanes and railroad cars," said Willingham. "It's a little boy's dream."

The property is much more than a busy working airport. Willingham is well known for saying he oversees a real estate development that also has a runway.

Willingham gave much of the credit to the success of the SRA to the board of directors.

Through partnerships with local land owners, Willingham, the SRA board and the Highlands County Economic Development Commission hope to add more than another 8,000 acres to what would become what Willingham said was another town, or the "ultimate mixed-use development."

Within 10 to 15 years, as many as 100 commercial and 50 cargo flights a day might make Sebring an international financial powerhouse.

Highlands Today talked to Willingham and representatives of three businesses in the park in a bid to better understand why the industrial park along U.S. 98 grew and continues to attract other businesses.

Willingham Talks About the Game Plan

He calls it the "Yellow Pages Test" and Willingham used it to successfully trim the airport staff.

"If you can look it up in the yellow pages, government shouldn't be able to do it," said Willingham about the test.

The executive director is a firm believer that the private sector can better manufacturer or perform a task than an authority or government entity, and private industry should instead do that work.

One way the SRA attracts businesses is its success acquiring monetary government grants for infrastructure improvements. Business owners often choose the best financial package offered when moving.

Almost all of the park's businesses are tenants. The SRA will build to suit and even made it possible for railroad cars to ship to the back door of park businesses.

Community Redevelopment Agencies (CRAs) are typically located in communities to preserve the historic nature and integrity of existing downtown structures. The airport's CRA is different.

The Avon Park CRA, which is modeled after SRA group, uses government funding to finance infrastructure and other improvements at local businesses. They are the only two CRAs in the state not located in downtowns.

When Sebring International Raceway grew too big for its headquarters, the SRA designed and built a new building. The partnership avoided paying impact fees, and after construction the SRA was able to transfer the new facility back to the track at less cost.

Another way to attract fledgling and established business was the SRA's development of an overall master storm water management system.

With the park's storm water system already in place, several months work by tenants during the permitting process with the water district and other regulating agencies is typically reduced.

The airport will also help a new company with finances and in the past worked with bond and insurance issues for tenants.

A Business That Calls Sebring Home And Why

Phil Lockwood employs 22 workers at Lockwood Aviation.

The company is the industry leader of sales and repairs of Rotax engines, the primary power plant used in the new field of Light Sport Aviation (LSA).

Before he moved to the park in early 1993, Lockwood had already decided to locate his fledgling two-person business in Melbourne.

A change of mind by Lockwood came after Willingham offered him a last minute deal that was better than Melbourne's and included grant funding to help finance construction.

Lockwood's firm has trained about 70 local pilots who likely wouldn't have gotten the chance to become licensed pilots otherwise.

Lockwood compared the company to an "anchor," or superstore in a shopping mall. Other aviation-related companies have moved to the park after following in the shoes of Lockwood.

"We were the first ones to build a new building at the airport in 20 years," said Lockwood. "It was desolated, old buildings. We came in and invested money, built a new facility and brought in new people."

Lockwood noted that other aviation companies looked at his success, and said, "These guys are doing it, they're successful."

Genpak Keeps Growing

When Alvaro Reyes moved to Sebring with his wife from Columbia in 1993, he knew little English and was unable to work for a year.

He took a temp job at the site of what later became Genpak and studied English daily at South Florida Community College.

Reyes is now the plant manager of the 145,000 square foot facility that employs about 80 workers.

It's a good chance that when you take the leftover portion from a restaurant meal home in a foam "doggie bag" it was made at the local industrial park since Genpak is the sole manufacturer of such goods in Florida.

Reyes cited the central location that Willingham said puts the company within 150 miles of 85 percent of the state's population as a reason to locate at the park.

He also said that grants obtained in partnership with the airport authority and the cost of living in the area were real plusses to locate here.

Reyes said that it was nice to be able to work with his business neighbors in the park who meet regularly and to borrow a piece of equipment or part when needed.

Many County Residents Wouldn't Eat Gator Otherwise

Leigh Ann Wynn is the marketing director of Everglades Seasoning.

The four-person company packs seasoning products on site and Wynn said the owners hope to soon expand when grant funding becomes available.

The park has earmarked a space next door to the current plant for the exclusive use of the company when it grows.

The firm sells seasonings and sauces in many southeastern U.S. grocery stores and is a favorite with cooks of alligator meat.

The former LaBelle company was attracted and enticed to move to SRA with funding as a Rural Development Enterprise Area and with tax incentives which paid partially for infrastructure improvements and equipment purchases.

Wynn said that there is an added level of security by having neighbors.

The structure is a perfect fit and was built to exact specifications by the SRA, which is important for a seasoning company and ultimate approval by the USDA, said Wynn.

Huge Future Plans

Willingham got a twinkle in his eye when he talked about creating a new city in Highlands County that would have a global impact.

Several recent brainstorming sessions with professionals from outside the area helped plan for the proposed mixed-use development with "fresh eyes, without bias," said Willingham. "Basically we got a new perspective."

"When you look at a problem or an opportunity you're seeing the trees through the forest."

Brain-stormers and Willingham envision industrial plants, shopping centers, grocery stores, homes and a major airport, all in a walking-, biking- and public transportation-friendly community.

A pair of four-lane highways that are early in the planning stages would stretch through the Heartland and link the north of the state with the south and the east to the west coast. Willingham said the highways are necessities to create a viable "land port" and new global community in the county.

Willingham hopes to build support from others outside the county and create a coalition.

Everything - homes, businesses, shopping centers-would be more compact and closer together.

"It's too difficult to provide government services to five-acre ranchettes," said Willingham.

The executive director said residents will move to the county whether planned for in advance or not.

Planning for growth is necessary to preserve the environment and to ensure sensible growth.

"It's like pouring a pitcher of water in a mold, it flows where you tell it to go," said Willingham. "Nobody wants to be the concrete jungle. We need quality growth, but to also preserve our way of life we have."

Willingham stressed that the only future we have is one that we create ourselves.

"There's no way to manage change, we've got to create it," said Willingham. "We have to create the community that everyone wants."

Bill Rettew Jr. may be contacted at 386-5857 or wrettew@highlandstoday.com

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