From housing to air traffic to spring training, Lakeland made investments in 2023

LAKELAND — As the year comes to a close, Lakeland officials say there's a strong sense of "calm" and stability as the city moves into 2024.

Mayor Bill Mutz said the commission's work in 2023 has built a strong foundation for Lakeland to move forward after the COVID pandemic.

"It allowed us to start to put into place some measures to deal with the impacts that occurred from COVID, and moving forward it created ways for us to do the things that mattered, to plan for the things that mattered most," Mutz said.

The mayor and City Manager Shawn Sherrouse were invited to share with The Ledger what some of Lakeland's biggest accomplishments and successes were in 2023.

Bolstering public safety

In January, the Lakeland Police Department completed the deployment of body cameras to its public-facing members who work on the streets and equipped its cruisers with license plate-reading technology. In two weeks, Assistant Chief Hans Lehman reported nearly 250,000 license plates has been scanned.

Sherrouse said the police department hired 13 additional officers during the year to increase public safety for an ever-growing population, reabsorbed the school resource officers into its daily ranks and hired a part-time cold case detective.

The city hired 12 additional Lakeland firefighters in order to provide overtime relief to the Fire Department by implementing a "Kelly Day" system, or a day off where employees would typically be scheduled to work. It was part of the firefighter union's latest three-year contract.

Mutz said it was important to him for the city to have successfully negotiated and signed longer contracts with its unions, leading to stability by all parties knowing what to expect.

"It's tweaking a lot of little things to create calm and stability," he said.

Lakeland Electric starts new era

In mid-January, Lakeland Electric's hired contractor Total Wrecking & Environmental imploded Mcintosh Unit 3, destroying the municipal utility's last coal-powered plant.

Lakeland Electric also completed an extensive study that led to a series of base rate increases: up 2.25% in April and another 2.25% in October. The utility will increase it again in October 2024. Overall, it's a 7% increase in the city's electricity rates.

"It was needed to make sure we are financially solvent," Sherrouse said.

Five of the six reciprocating internal combustion engines, commonly called RICE engines, ordered from German-based manufactuer MAN arrived in Lakeland in late October. This allows Lakeland Electric to begin assembling its new RICE plant at the McIntosh site.

One of the six RICE engines was significantly damaged when a tarp got caught on a railyard switch, causing the railroad car to topple and sending Engine 1 crashing down on an adjacent track. The manufacturer has decided to replace this engine, which is expected to arrive between March and April.

"In 2024, we will go operational with those engines," Sherrouse said. "It's part of the clean energy generation and is more in keeping with the future of how the utility is going to need to produce and distribute."

Lakeland Linder poised for rapid growth

Lakeland Linder International Airport struck two major business agreements in 2023 with the approval of City Commission.

Despite Amazon pulling back on some of its plans to build a larger cargo facility, the airport did create and paint two additional jet parking spaces for Amazon to shift two of its jets previously housed at Tampa International Airport. This has contributed to an uptick in jet flights in and out of Lakeland, as well as continued growth in the size of Amazon's cargo operations.

Lakeland residents may not realize it leads to increased revenue for the city. Amazon pays the airport, one of the city's enterprise funds, a landing fee of 85 cents per 1,000 pounds of cargo landed at the airport and a 3-cent surcharge per gallon of fuel pumped.

The City Commission also approved a 15-year, non-exclusive operating agreement with Avelo Airlines to provide commercial passenger service out of Lakeland Linder beginning in 2024. Airport Director Kris Hallstrand has said the deal will need to "crawl, walk, run" meaning service will likely start slow and grow, as demand for service to Lakeland builds as does demand among the local residents.

Keeping the Detroit Tigers around

One of the more economically profitable deals Lakeland has struck in 2023 is with the Detroit Tigers.

The Tigers have extended their commitment to hold spring training in Lakeland for another seven years in exchange for construction of new $33 million dormitory and players' facilities. This means the Detroit Tigers will be in town through Dec. 31, 2044.

"Keeping a good relationship with the Tigers, keeping them in a state-of-the-art facility and knowing we'll have them for seven additional years is very important and big economic news at the end of 2023," Sherrouse said.

In 2024, Sherrouse said he expects design of the new facilities will be completed and demolition will begin on some of the existing buildings. Construction is anticipated to begin next year.

Bringing RP Funding Center's finances under control

As Lakeland has struck business arrangements that bring in revenue, it has also worked to bring its expenditures at the RP Funding Center under control.

City commissioners gave the directive to city staff to find ways to reduce the subsidy of the venue. In fiscal year 2022, Lakeland taxpayers' paid more than $2.8 million to support the convention center's operations. The aim was to refocus on a rental revenue based model, a move that cost Lakeland its ties with the Lakeland Magic G-League basketball team and the Florida Tropics, a Major Arena Soccer League team.

Sherrouse said the final auditing of RP Funding Center's fiscal year 2023 shows that the city's subsidy was around $900,000 — well below the desired benchmark of less than $1 million. Cindy Collins was hired as the new director of the venue in late November.

New affordable housing units, even as private development slows

Lakeland is continuing to gain new affordable housing and multifamily housing units despite a general overall slowdown of private builders.

"There's this lull from developers not seizing action on approved projects and getting things out of the ground right away. This has largely been caused by the economy," Mutz said. "There's a waiting period going on at some level as people try to wait and take advantage of anticipated lower interest rates on projects."

Lakeland has continued to be rated among the fastest growing metropolitan areas, and Polk County among the fastest-growing counties in the nation.

How many have you tried? Polk's new restaurants in 2023 brought diverse eats. A few sadly closed their kitchens

The city has had 90 new affordable housing units and 370 new multifamily units built in 2023, according to Sherrouse, While those numbers are lower than recent years, Sherrouse said the city projects approximately 150 affordable housing and over 750 multifamily units to come online next year.

"We continue to try to increase the housing stock in multifamily and affordable housing, as those are needs in the community," he said.

Some of these units may come from Carter's redevelopment of the former Florida Tile site into a mixed-use development adjacent to Bonnet Springs Park that has approximately 300 multifamily apartments under construction as part of Phase One and 15,000 square feet of retail space.

Sara-Megan Walsh can be reached at swalsh@theledger.com or 863-802-7545. Follow on X @SaraWalshFl.

This article originally appeared on The Ledger: More housing, more air traffic: Lakeland made investments in 2023