Lee County looking to lure Fort Myers-founded company HQ back home, bring new jobs

Lee County is looking to lure a company’s headquarters and hundreds of jobs in with your cash—$140,000 of it.

“People finding jobs there will end up paying all that back in fairly short order. So I think it’s a good thing,” said Jim Rice.

“The more we can offer families to come to this area, the better off we are,” said Roxanne Rice.

Founded in Fort Myers, Scotlynn Division USA handles companies’ shipping logistics, like keeping produce fresh on transfer trucks.

It’s a state incentive program where Lee County dollars are matched four times by the state.

“The taxpayers are protected here because no money will be paid to this company unless they do what they say they’re going to do. They don’t get the money until after they’ve paid their taxes. They’re going to generate a pretty heavy tax bill,” said Lee County Commissioner Brian Hamman.

The promise: parking their headquarters here. B ut that’s an all-out race with Indianapolis. The prize: plenty of jobs.

“We’re in competition with another city to try and attract this headquarters here. The other city has put forward their incentive package and we don’t know what’s in that,” said Hamman.

Right now this company has 170 jobs across all its locations.

If this deal goes through, they’ll add 140 jobs. That means 310 jobs right here in Southwest Florida.

“Need jobs across the spectrum from the low paying jobs to the high paying jobs,” said Rice.

They’re planning to consolidate three locations here, but where and when?

“The ball is in the court of the company right now to make their decision,” said Hamman.

We do know if they settle here, the new jobs pay around $48,000 a year.

Hamman said the building commissioner would be similar to that for Gartner or Hertz.