Alyssa Still
Staff Writer
In 2024, the news organization Axios reported that Lakeland, Florida, is the country’s fastest-growing metro area. Some of Lakeland’s key industries are aviation, medical device packaging, healthcare and logistics, software and IT and much more. With all of the growth Lakeland has experienced in the past few years, many new businesses have opened.
One major factor for the multitude of opening businesses is Lakeland’s Catapult program. The program was developed in 2014 by the Lakeland Economic Development Council to foster the growth of start-ups. The privately funded non-profit is housed in a state-of-the-art facility in downtown Lakeland. It aids start-ups by helping startups get visibility, getting companies into physical locations, connecting start-ups with corporate communities and supplying educational opportunities.
The program supports start-ups through three different incubators: a workspace, a kitchen and a makerspace. It’s thanks to these facilities that the program has been able to support over 80 start-ups.
One company that utilized Catapult’s services is the Lakeland United Football Club. Founded in 2020, it is a post-grad soccer program for student-athletes all around the world. They operate an international bridge program that has allowed over 200 student-athletes to transfer to college soccer programs. The team has been the champion of the United Premier Soccer League Florida West Conference three times.
This program is great because it has aided many people in expanding their businesses. Lakeland is home to many large corporations, so it is great to see smaller ones being supported.
One larger corporation in Lakeland is the Detroit Tigers. They have been conducting their spring training in Lakeland for over 90 years and are contracted to continue doing so through 2044. Recently, they broke ground on a new 33 million dollar player development academy featuring new dorms, a 200-seat dining hall, recreational spaces, a large meeting room and administrative office spaces.
“Having the Tigers here now for coming up on 90 seasons presently brings in about $55 million of economic development every year to this community,” City Manager Shawn Sherrouse said to Bay News 9.
Unfortunately, not all large corporations have benefited Lakeland as much as the Tigers. With Publix creating a new information technology campus in downtown Lakeland, weekday foot traffic through downtown has drastically decreased. This meant that Ax-Caliber, a local restaurant with axe-throwing lanes and a virtual gun experience that was founded in 2020, was forced to shut down in July after it lost hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue.
“A lot of these larger businesses are great to have. We need them to sustain our city, but I think the smaller ones are the ones that keep us going,” Ax-Caliber owner Joyce Woodrow said to Bay News 9.
It is devastating that a local business was taken out by a business worth over 50 billion. Although Publix may receive special treatment because it began in Lakeland, smaller businesses should not have to be fearful of being disrupted by the favoritism of Publix.
Recently, a restaurant location has received a lot of attention for continuously switching businesses. In early 2024, Happyfastdelicious was rebranded as Andrew’s Coffee and 5 Star Seafood took over the location this summer.
The reason for the frequent changes in business have not been shared. Looking at the Yelp reviews for Andrew’s Coffee makes the situation even more confusing, with all the reviews leading up to the business’s closure in April being five stars. The last and most recent review from April was just one star and contained a list of the user’s disappointment with the establishment, ending it off by saying “Such good concepts, poorly executed. Followed them from the HappyFastDelicious days. Too many great, consistent coffee shops to deal with this spot.”
While researching, I discovered the ratio of coverage on opening businesses to coverage on closing businesses by Lakeland media sources is strange. There is a large amount of coverage on businesses as they are opening and hardly any about businesses closing. It is concerning that the closure of locally owned businesses is swept under the rug. Some may say that this is to keep the publications positively aimed, but in an area with such a rich history, it is important to cover businesses that have had positive impacts on the area.
