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Feminine touch

The Tampa Bay area is a hot spot for growth of women-owned businesses, a new study finds.

By CHRISTINA REXRODE
Published December 19, 2006

ADVERTISEMENT [Times photo: Atoyia Deans] "What are they saying, 50 is the new 40?" says Denise Chavez, 59, who opened Chavez at Home: Gourmet Take Home Cuisine in June 2005 after a 17-year pause in her career.

When it comes to growth among women-owned businesses, Florida hogs the spotlight.

That's according to the Center for Women's Business Research, which just ranked the Tampa Bay area third among U.S. metropolitan areas for growth of businesses that are at least 51 percent owned by women. The study measured growth from 1997 to 2006.

Only two cities performed better: Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach, which tied for first. Florida cities also took No. 4 and tied for No. 5, assuring that Florida ranked first among the states for growing women-owned businesses.

That's quite a change from 2004, the last time the research center based in Washington released rankings. That year, Miami was the only Florida presence on the list of fastest-growing metro areas, tied for 10th.

Florida's splash this year is partly a de facto extension of the state's tremendous population increase.

"We're growing at a speed that the rest of the country just doesn't understand," said Chris Steinocher, the chief operating officer of the Tampa Bay Partnership. About 60,000 people move to the Tampa Bay area each year, Steinocher said. With numbers like that, "you'd have to really do something wrong with your policies" to keep businesses from forming.

Business-friendly rep

Florida's lack of a state income tax helps attract entrepreneurs. Also, Steinocher said, state policymakers have realized over the past decade the importance of attracting business-minded residents, not just retirees and tourists.

Case in point: The Tax Foundation, a nonpartisan research group in Washington, ranked Florida fifth in its 2007 projections of business-friendly states.

"There are places in Silicon Valley where you can't add on to your building, you can only have so many people driving to work, you can't add parking spaces," Steinocher said. "We're adopting different policies of growth."

In the Tampa Bay area, the research center estimates, there are 9,559 women-owned employer firms, which refers to companies with paid employees. That number has increased 25 percent since 1997.

But growth alone doesn't explain why women-owned businesses in particular are sprouting up.

The bidding process for government contracts tends to favor minorities, including women, said Marcy Wilson, who bought Security Lock Systems in Tampa about five years ago. Her company won a contract for a school system because it was woman-owned.

Also, more women might want to go into business for themselves after raising their families, said Denise Chavez. She opened her business, Chavez at Home: Gourmet Take Home Cuisine, in South Tampa a year and a half ago.

"What are they saying, 50 is the new 40?" said Chavez, 59, who interrupted her career path for 17 years to raise three children. "We're sort of older than the work force wants, but we're still young and vibrant and have a lot to offer and a lot we want to do."

Room to grow

A word of warning: Though the Tampa Bay area is fertile ground for planting women-owned businesses, it still has some catching up to do in sheer quantity. It ranked 25th among the 50 metro areas surveyed in terms of the number of women-owned businesses.

Gwen Martin, the director of research at the Center for Women's Business Research, cautioned that some of Florida's dominance in this year's growth rankings is due to changes in the questions asked by the Census Bureau, on which the center bases its projections. Still, she is confident that Florida ranks as the fastest-growing state for women-owned businesses.

Part of that, she said, is simply the state's size. But demographics play a role, as well. "You've got a fairly large population over 50, which is when a lot of people start businesses," Martin said. "You also have an influx of Latinas, and women of color are the fastest-growing business segment across the country."

Christina Rexrode can be reached at (727) 893-8318 or crexrode@sptimes.com.

A state of growth

Top 10 metro areas for fastest growth in majority (51 percent or more) women-owned businesses:

1. Fort Lauderdale

West Palm Beach (tie)

3. Tampa Bay

4. Orlando

5. Miami

Phoenix (tie)

7. New York

8. Atlanta

Suffolk County-Nassau County, N.Y. (tie)

10. Virginia Beach, Va.

Top 5 states for fastest growth:

1. Florida

2. Arizona

3. Hawaii

4. Georgia

5. New York

By the numbers

9,559: Number of majority (51 percent or more) women-owned employer firms in the Tampa Bay area.

25: Percent growth since 1997.

Source: Center for Women's Business Research

[Last modified December 19, 2006, 11:48:50]