
A great day for baseball! On April 1, The CFDC was pleased to again host site selectors, developers and economic development partners from across the region for a Detroit Tigers Spring Training Game.

Polk County’s oldest city is preparing for the future in many ways; Fort Meade is addressing infrastructure and recreational needs, working to attract new businesses to the area and involving its residents in important decisions. The two people at the helm are relative newcomers to Fort Meade; City manager Jan Bagnall and assistant city manager […]

Press release originally from Bonnet Springs Park. Learn More. The Ruthvens are pleased to announce a gift of $1 Million to The Carol Jenkins Barnett Endowment, to fund The Ruthven Family Playground at Bonnet Springs Park. The Ruthvens are one of Central Florida’s oldest locally owned commercial real estate firms, specializing in developing and leasing […]

Eagle Lake is keeping with the trends of the rest of the county, growing more and more every day. This growth, especially in the housing market, is keeping construction companies busy, and that’s just fine with City Manager Tom Ernharth. “For a long period of time, Eagle Lake has been struggling with no identity. With […]

Press release originally from Baycare | Winter Haven Hospital. Winter Haven Hospital has added a second surgical robot to meet a growing demand for its surgical services. The hospital first began its robotics program in December of 2010 with a da Vinci® Si™. Then upgraded to the state-of-the-art da Vinci® Xi™ in 2019 and recently […]

Harold “Reggie” Baxter and Bob Adams already had long, successful careers when they combined their talents in 2019. Center State Development became another success story for the partners. The development company based in Winter Haven prepares land to sell to national home builders. They buy raw land, entitle it, engineer it, permit it and do […]

In 2017, business partners Michelle Ledford and Allen Reed seized a business opportunity they haven’t looked back on since. They acquired their former marketing agency, renaming Madden Brand Agency to MADE, a boutique branding and marketing agency in Lakeland. “It was an opportunity to continue building on our own strong reputation, define our own brand […]

Ranked as the fastest-growing county in Florida, Polk County continues to top the charts. Polk County continues to make population growth news and new statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau confirm it. The county is now ranked as the fastest-growing county in Florida and the fifth fastest-growing county in the country. Polk’s population grew 3.35%, […]

ICYMI, March 19th marked Bank of Central Florida’s 15th Birthday. When Bank of Central Florida first opened its doors 15 years ago, no one expected the economic downfalls that would follow. The Great Recession of 2008 hit just a year later and then after 2020, the world saw the coronavirus pandemic, the war in Ukraine […]

Wauchula State Bank, a family-owned community bank, has been serving Central Florida businesses for nearly a century. After a two-year search, the bank recently opened its newest branch in the heart of Downtown Lakeland. “When we opened our first Polk County location in downtown Winter Haven in 2016, we already had quite a following in […]