Industrial market improvement spurs job growth

In a Pompano Beach industrial building, more than 140 newly hired workers are cutting and stitching, rigging and packing parachutes for the U.S. Defense Department in a spacious plant opened by a St. Paul, Minnesota, company.

New mom-and-pop ventures, mostly modest manufacturers and assembly operations — are leasing small warehouses in lower priced industrial parks in western Palm Beach County.

And sewing machines are humming in a Hialeah warehouse, churning out bullet-proof vests and other protective gear for the U.S. Marine Corps.

These scenes may not represent more than a several hundred jobs, but there’s emerging evidence that South Floridians are going back to work — one warehouse at a time.

Neil Merin, chairman of NAI/Merin Hunter Codman in West Palm Beach, said his recent study of industrial areas north of Delray Beach and west of Florida’s Turnpike, revealed a recent influx of diverse, entrepreneurial industries. The small-scale businesses go west because space is affordable there.

“We saw lots of little businesses that had set up. People making sports plaques; people making furniture; people making party supplies for bar mitzvahs or weddings. Small entrepreneurs were filling up space out there,” he said.

“We saw retail continuing to fall out there, but their industrial market had been gaining occupancy over the last 24 months — significantly,” Merin said. “We were seeing down to single-digit vacancy rates throughout that entire area of west Palm Beach County.”

Descending On Broward

In Broward, Pompano Beach beat out three other Florida cities in getting parachute manufacturer BRS Aerospace to sign a five-year lease with renewal options for 124,894 square feet at Superior Commerce Park off Powerline Road.

BRS has an initial $19 million contract with the Department of Defense to make supply parachutes, mostly for the Army, said Larry Williams, the company’s president and chief executive officer.

“We looked carefully at a place in Tampa, and we looked at a place in Fort Myers and a place in the Hialeah area,” Williams said.

“The corridor here, as well as in Tampa, was advantageous because of the availability of the work force. At its peak it’s very possible we’ll go up to as many as 500 people here. We wanted to make sure we have enough people we can draw from to do that.”

Since it began operation in October, the company has hired 140 people and is adding 10 jobs per week in anticipation of additional contracts.

Williams said the building fit the company’s special needs for open floor space.

“These parachutes are so big, we need a lot of space. We sew them and put them together, pack them in a deployment bag. You have to pack it so when it goes to the military, its ready to be deployed. You have to make sure it is packed properly to deploy correctly. That part is highly skilled.”

Any hiring is welcome. According to the Florida Agency For Workforce Innovation, Broward County’s unemployment rate was 9.3 percent in March, compared with 9.8 percent a year earlier. The jobless rate in Palm Beach County was 10.3 percent, against 11.3 percent for March 2010.

Miami-Dade has one of the highest levels of unemployment in the state. In March, the jobless rate was 12.3 percent, compared with 11.9 percent in the same period of 2010.

At 11.2 percent, Florida’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate was 2 points higher than the national average and low that 11.3 percent a year earlier, according to the Labor Department.