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Business briefs

Briefs and news of note.

By TIMES STAFF WRITER
Published July 1, 2006

AAA gives top rating to Hard Rock Cafe

The Seminole Hard Rock Cafe and Casino in Tampa has been designated as a AAA four-diamond hotel. AAA evaluates more than 55,000 properties annually, and fewer than 4 percent receive ratings of four diamonds or higher. The Seminole Hard Rock is the seventh AAA four-diamond hotel in Hillsborough and Pinellas counties.

Electronic fingerprints for realty applicants

Starting today, prospective real estate agents in Florida will be fingerprinted electronically. The old method, manual fingerprinting, often produced illegible smudges that slowed processing for applicants seeking a real estate license. The state Department of Business and Professional Regulation has contracted with Promissor, a company that offers 15 fingerprinting sites across the state. Going electronic reduces fingerprint processing to two to three days. It used to take up to six weeks.

Office rents are bargain in bay area

Housing in the Tampa Bay area isn't the bargain it once was, but you can still get a deal on office rents. Office tenants in the Tampa-St. Petersburg area pay about half what the rest of the country pays, $23 per square foot here vs. $46.68 for the country as a whole. The numbers come from the Studley Effective Rent Index. Of course, not all submarkets in the area are created equal. Downtown Tampa still has lots of slack, with 16 percent vacancy. Meanwhile, downtown St. Petersburg hums along with 5 percent vacancy, and Tampa's Westshore district is running out of room.

French nose around for trade partnerships

Dollars and scents was the unofficial theme of a trade mission this week to the Tampa Bay area. French Embassy attache Stephanie Sutton scouted investment and trade opportunities with visits to Pinellas, Hillsborough and Pasco counties. Tampa's Pilgrim Software, with clients that include France's giant L'Oreal cosmetics firm, was one stop. So was Clearwater-based Monin Inc., which makes syrups for coffee and cold drinks, and Jean Niel, a Pasco maker of food extracts. The mission was organized by the Tampa Bay Partnership, the business recruitment nonprofit serving seven counties.

Meal-assembly chain ventures outside state

Tampa-based Let's Eat, a meal-assembly chain, is opening its first store outside Florida on Wednesday. A franchisee will be opening a Let's Eat in Ellicott City, Md. The company, started in 2004, will have 15 units open by year's end. Let's Eat, which bills itself as a commercial kitchen where consumers can come and make a month's worth of meals in less than two hours, sells franchises for $25,000. It expects to have 294 locations in five years.

[Last modified July 1, 2006, 06:38:55]