Quick turnaround was key to PSL, St. Lucie County, EDC landing Costco distribution depot

PORT ST. LUCIE — If the city was going to bring a Costco distribution depot to Southern Grove, people needed to move quickly.

At stake for Port St. Lucie was 265 new jobs, and maybe upwards of 500 in the future, and a significant boon for revenues for services such as the school district and fire district, even with tax breaks factored in.

The city of Port St. Lucie, St. Lucie County and the county Economic Development Council turned around the courting and approval of the Costco project in record time, just 116 days from the earliest conversations to an approved site plan, according to EDC Senior Vice President Wes McCurry, who said the accomplishment is emblematic of recent economic-development work in St. Lucie County and its cities.

Quick process becoming the norm here

"About three- to four-month timeline to get to site-plan approval is not unheard of. It's probably what we've been averaging on these economic-development projects," McCurry said.

In fact, it was just 75 days from application to approval of a site plan in early December for the code-named "Project Everest," a turnaround McCurry called "astounding." Once that site plan was approved, McCurry said, the company behind the project could feel confident it would come together.

About a month later, Port St. Lucie had approved selling 133 acres to Sansone Group, which has developed much of Southern Grove, and the city and county had approved tax breaks and other incentives for Costco.

Fast turnaround key to landing Costco

The quick turnaround was key to landing the international wholesaler, as it was rapidly outgrowing its current regional depot in West Palm Beach, Sansone national director of industrial development Jeff Greenwalt told City Council members Jan. 8. Urgency, Greenwalt said, was stressed from his first conversations with Jennifer Davis, director of the city Community Redevelopment Agency, which occurred in early August.

"I called Jennifer Davis and said, 'Hey, we have an opportunity, but we need to move very quickly,'" Greenwalt said.

Unique process for Port St. Lucie

The city's ability to meet a strict deadline is a credit to its unique process, McCurry said, which allows for concurrent reviews of the various stages of a developer's application.

"Another thing that's a little bit unique to the city that a lot of other locales don't do is they allow for concurrent reviews, so you can submit all of those plans together at the same time and get them all reviewed concurrently as you're going through the process," McCurry said. "It saves a lot of time."

The city also allows expedited reviews for projects in certain targeted industries, McCurry said, and the Costco development fell into those industries.

"The expedited process here is pretty attractive to a lot of companies once they find out about it, and it's pretty unique throughout the nation I would say," McCurry said.

Timeline of Costco approval

In this case, the first pre-application meeting was held Aug. 10. Four days later, the first amendments were submitted to the city's comprehensive plan and for the Southern Grove Development of Regional Impact plan. Between then and the end of the year, a number of other amendments were made to city plans, running concurrently with other stages of the project's approval.

On Sept. 20, a site plan and subdivision plot were submitted. Less than three weeks later, on Oct. 11, it was recommended for approval by the site-plan review committee. On Dec. 4, the City Council approved the site plan, and on Jan. 8 it approved the necessary land sale and incentives, as the company's identity was revealed.

The next day, the county approved similar tax breaks.

Many of these incremental steps on their own can take four to six months in some places, McCurry said, but in the case of Costco, the whole process took about six months from the first conversations in August to the January approvals.

The process was completed faster than even another Southern Grove occupant, FedEx, which took about 100 days to go from submitting an application to site plan approval, McCurry said.

Pro job creation local governments

The speed with which the city, county and economic Development Council can move on projects is a testament to their openness to job-creating opportunities, and is a sign that companies want to move to an area well-positioned between major population centers in central and south Florida, McCurry said.

"The county and the cities here are very business friendly and pro-development when it comes to job creation, and will move things through the process quickly, which is really not the norm throughout the nation," McCurry said. "These projects in a lot of other locations take years to get to the point of being able to break ground, and here we're able to move pretty quickly."

Marketing key for EDC

Though the process for individual projects can be quick, the wider process of economic development still can be a long one, said Maureen Saltzer, communications director for the EDC.

"I think it's important to understand the things that happen that allow these things to happen," Saltzer said, pointing to the marketing work the EDC has performed throughout the county over decades. "We are constantly marketing. That's part of what we do just so that we will pop up on somebody's radar."

More: Costco plans to move distribution center to Port St. Lucie from West Palm Beach

More: County passes Costco tax breaks; new job wages would be 121% of countywide average

Getting a national organization such as Sansone involved in Southern Grove was "hugely important," Saltzer said, not just to landing Costco, but to the whole of the city's "jobs corridor." Sansone's developments at Southern Grove include large Amazon and Cheney Brothers facilities in addition to FedEx and the 192 acres slated for the Costco distribution depot.

"They're talking to the big boys everywhere. They can call up and they can talk to a counterpart at a Costco or an Amazon or whatever and say 'Hey, you might want to take a look at a property out here in St. Lucie County,'" Saltzer said.

Costco construction timeline

The Costco project — located between SW Village Parkway and Interstate 95, north of Amazon, FedEx and Cheney Brothers — is expected to break ground in the next six months and take about one year to complete, Davis said.

City officials have said they continue working to bring a Costco warehouse store to Port St. Lucie, even with one under construction in Stuart and slated to open spring 2025.

Wicker Perlis is TCPalm's Watchdog Reporter for St. Lucie County. You can reach him at wicker.perlis@tcpalm.com and 504-331-0516.

This article originally appeared on Treasure Coast Newspapers: See how the Costco depot got approved by Port St. Lucie in record time