'Chain reaction' under way

With population growth, Citrus County is beginning to attract big-name retailers and restaurants.

By BRIDGET HALL GRUMET

© St. Petersburg Times, published August 13, 2000

INVERNESS -- It's becoming a familiar scene in Citrus County.

Last week, two more restaurant chains announced plans to build eateries in Citrus County: Applebee's Neighborhood Grill and Bar will build a restaurant in Crystal River, just north of the Home Depot on U.S. 19; and Beef O'Brady's will open a pub in the Inverness Regional Shopping Center on U.S. 41.

Beef O'Brady's is aiming for a November opening, and Applebee's hopes to open next January.

"The population is growing, more people are buying new homes and the Suncoast Parkway is going to put (Citrus County) on the map," said Steve Brown, vice president of development for the regional Applebee's franchise.

"And we're running out of places to put our restaurants in Tampa," Brown added with a chuckle.

Those two restaurants follow the Applebee's that opened in March in Inverness, and the two Home Depots and two Wal-Mart Supercenters that are in the works.

For years, residents and planners have wondered when Citrus County would start to attract the big-name restaurants and retailers to town.

Now it's happening.

Whether it was the point several years ago when the county's population hit the 100,000 mark or the announcement last July that Home Depot would build a store in Crystal River, something has set off a "chain reaction" in which more retail and restaurant chains are sinking their stakes into Citrus County.

It's an exciting time for consumers and a profitable time for the county's tax base. The rash of corporate interest also brings Citrus to a crossroads, and officials say the county must be careful to avoid the urban sprawl mistakes that neighboring counties to the south have made.

Economic Development Council executive director Rick Jensen says the sudden development should be a wake-up call.

"When the Parkway is done, whether it comes through Citrus or not, it's going to open the floodgates, because we've got low crime, cheap land and good schools," Jensen said. "People are going to want to move up here."

We have to make sure that we stick to the comprehensive plan," he continued, referring to the document that specifies what kind of development can go in certain places of the county. "I can't say that strongly enough."

Success paves the way

The March opening of the Applebee's in Inverness was one of the strongest of any restaurant in the Casual Restaurant Concepts franchise, which owns 20 Applebee's in the Tampa region.

"That's pretty typical of when we open in small towns," Brown said. "We make a bigger splash."

Brown would not release the restaurant's sales figures, but he said the strong opening contributed to the decision to build another Applebee's in Crystal River.

"The big concern was, if we opened two restaurants (in Citrus County), would they hurt each other," Brown said. "But we realized, from listening to our customers, that there's two separate markets out there, so one won't take away from the other."

The company has first-buy rights on a 7-acre lot just north of the new Home Depot, Brown said. He expects to file permit applications within the next few weeks, and once he gets the go-ahead from the county, Brown said it will take about 75 days to build the new Applebee's.

The restaurant will hire about 120 employees, he said.

On the other side of the county, the owners of a Beef O'Brady's franchise have signed a lease on a 3,000-square-foot storefront in the Inverness Regional strip mall. The sports bar will sit several doors down from the Big Kmart.

Beef O'Brady's franchise president Chuck Winship said he was also inspired by the opening success of the Inverness Applebee's.

"We think it's going to be a slam dunk," Winship said. "It's a great market that doesn't have a lot of competition yet, and it has a great labor force."

Beef O'Brady's has 40 Florida locations and another dozen sites, including the one in Inverness, in the works, Winship said. The Inverness pub would hire about 20 to 25 workers.

Common sense for business sense

Citrus County's sudden appeal to restaurant and retail chains comes down to the numbers. The county's population passed the 100,000 mark about three years ago, a number that is the benchmark for many businesses, real estate attorney Clark Stillwell said.

Home Depot spokesman Don Harrison would not reveal the cutoff numbers that his company uses, but he said their analysts look at population, income levels and building trends when considering a community.

"It's not rocket science so much as it is good homework and common sense that will tell you if a community can support one of your stores," he said.

It's no coincidence that Home Depot's largest market, behind California, is Florida, which has more than 85 stores, Harrison said. Florida's growing population includes young families who are fixing up their first homes and retirees who want to maintain what will likely be the last home they own, he said.

"You also have in Florida the kind of weather that allows you to work out in your yard and on your house year-round," Harrison said.

The Crystal River Home Depot will open in October. A second Home Depot will be built on State Road 44, just west of Inverness, and will open late next summer, Harrison said.

Construction will start early next year on a Wal-Mart Supercenter next to the Inverness Home Depot, spokeswoman Daphne Davis said. Wal-Mart officials withdrew a controversial proposal in June to build a supercenter in Crystal River, on a 33-acre tract of wetlands west of U.S. 19 but are reportedly looking for another site in the area.

One of the driving forces of the Florida economy is the sizable retiree population, a group that brings the same economic boom to an area as a large factory, said Ken Wieand, director of the Center for Economic Development Research at the University of South Florida.

Factories such as Pro-Line Boats, for example, bring "new money" into the county because the goods produced by local workers are sold to an international market. Service industries, such as restaurants and movie theaters, then spring up to feed and entertain the workers, Wieand said.

Retirees who settle in Citrus County also bring "new money" with them: pensions from old jobs up north, investments from Wall Street or Social Security checks. The retirees attract the same kind of service industries to meet their needs, Wieand said.

Senior citizens are a full third of the Citrus population, which is expected to grow 40 percent over the next 20 years, according to the University of Florida Bureau of Economics and Business Research.

As the county's retiree population swells, Citrus will have more "new money" to go around, and the chain retailers and restaurants will continue to come in, Wieand said.

"For the first few that come in, the gravy is going to be real good," he said. "But you may get too many restaurants moving in all at once, because they may overbuild."

Jensen said the Economic Development Council has made a point of not recruiting the service industry companies. The council had nothing to do with Wal-Mart, Home Depot, Applebee's or any other chain coming here, he said.

Jensen said the key to a solid economy is high-paying jobs that bring "new money" to the area, not low-paying retail jobs that compete with the small businesses that are already here.

"It also tends to change the character of a neighborhood when (a Home Depot) comes in," Jensen said. "I know that's just capitalism, but we don't have to encourage it."

Aside from its growing population, part of Citrus County's corporate appeal comes from its expanded infrastructure, said Gary Maidhof, the county's director of Development Services.

As the county installs more water and sewer lines, it makes it easier for companies to develop the nearby land tracts, Maidhof said. The on-going four-laning of the county's major roads also makes the county more attractive to larger companies, he said.

"But the driving force is nothing we can take credit for: It's the healthy economy," Maidhof said. "Everyone is working, and that's putting more money in the economy. The companies recognize that and are investing in these growing areas."

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