According to a University of Central Florida (UCF) economic forecast, Floridians have reason to be optimistic in 2015.
After a year of solid job growth, declining unemployment and high consumer confidence, the Sunshine State’s economy is expected to continue to strengthen this year.
The state experienced back-to-back months in November and December of lower unemployment at 5.7 percent—the lowest seen in the state since April 2008. The state’s average is comparable to the nationwide rate of 5.5 percent.
UCF predicts the unemployment rate will continue to drop with the addition of thousands of jobs, especially in the construction and professional/business services industries as well as the transportation, warehousing and utilities sectors.
The Florida TaxWatch Research Institute indicates that the state is expected to perform better than the U.S. and world economies this year. Additionally, despite Florida’s ongoing high foreclosure activity, TaxWatch says the state’s housing market is expected to continue on its path of recovery through 2015.
Central Florida, particularly the Orlando area, is “a star in the state forecast for jobs,” according to the Orlando Sentinel.
“The pace of growth in Central Florida will be faster than what we see statewide,” UCF economist Dr. Sean Snaith is quoted by the newspaper as saying. “The Orlando metro area is, by our forecast, the fastest-growing metro area in the state for jobs. That is fueled by the I-4 projects, Wekiva Expressway, SunRail, robust population growth, new companies here and, yes, the expansion of tourism again.”
International Drive, for example, is “booming with projects like the I-Drive 360 retail and entertainment complex, Universal Orlando is adding a new hotel and downtown Orlando is getting a new soccer stadium,” the Sentinel reports. “The Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts has added a new attraction to downtown, and companies like Deloitte and Verizon in Seminole County and Voxx International in Orange are adding higher-paying jobs to the area with new facilities.”
‘Upscaling’ in the middle
As the economy recovers, the retail marketplace is becoming all the more competitive, as the Sentinel reports that Central Florida supermarkets are fighting for “upscale dollars.” And grocers considered traditional or “in the middle,” are leading the effort.
Florida’s own Publix and Winn-Dixie, for instance, both have refreshed stores in the area to showcase fresh produce, prepared meals and cooking stations—taking aim at specialty grocers like Whole Foods, The Fresh Market and even Trader Joe’s.
Publix, which released stellar full year 2014 financial results in early March, continues to open stores across its Southeast footprint. This store on Fourth Street North in St. Petersburg was one of 32 new Publix stores opened in 2014.
Lakeland-based Publix, for instance, debuted a revamped 60,000-s.f. store in Winter Park in November, “boasting an international selection of olives, antipasti, hummus and cheese,” according to the newspaper.
Even retailers like Walmart and Target have increased their premium offerings, providing more organic and natural items as well as some prepared foods.
Still, specialty grocers aren’t sitting idly by.
Trader Joe’s is set to open its newest Central Florida store April 10 at 8323 W. Sand Lake Road at Parkside at the Dr. Phillips shopping center in southwest Orlando. The store will be 9,800 s.f. Meanwhile, The Fresh Market plans to open in Melbourne, marking the North Carolina-based grocer’s seventh Central Florida store, the Sentinel says.
Mary LePage prepares lunches to go at Winn-Dixie. Winn‑Dixie has remodeled its Heathrow store in Lake Mary. Many grocers are offering more upscale sections. Despite its recent remodels, Winn-Dixie’s parent company, Jacksonville-based Bi-Lo Holdings, plans to close six stores on or before April 22, including Winn-Dixie locations at West Waters Avenue in Tampa and Cortez Road in Bradenton, as well as a Brunswick, Georgia, store. Additionally, Bi-Lo sites in Savannah and Garden City, Georgia, and Easley, South Carolina, will shutter.
(Photo: George Skene, Orlando Sentinel)
Additionally, construction is under way on a 40,000-plus-s.f. Whole Foods Market at University Station in Sarasota. It has operated a store on First Street in downtown Sarasota since 2004, according to the Herald-Tribune. The new proposed Whole Foods, expected to open in 18 months to two years, would compete with The Fresh Market, which operates at University Town Center.
Joining Whole Foods at University Station will be Wawa, the Pennsylvania-based convenience store chain that has opened more than 60 stores in Florida since summer 2012. The company opened a store at 701 First Street E. in Bradenton in December. Other stores are planned in Manatee County and three in Sarasota County, which includes the one at University Station shopping plaza.
Lazy Delivery expands to Orlando, considers brick-and-mortar stores its warehouses
A grocery delivery service that began in Gainesville just more than a year ago has since expanded, most recently to Orlando, where it launched in September.
Lazy Delivery was founded by Manuel Zelaya, his brother Daniel Zelaya and their friend Marc Charbel.
Daniel Zelaya
Daniel Zelaya says business is good and the team looks to expand further. It also currently operates in Jacksonville and will launch soon in the Tallahassee market.
“We’re chugging along and trying to expand statewide,” says Zelaya, who serves as the company’s marketing director.
While the business may appear similar to other grocery delivery services, like Instacart, it’s different, according to Zelaya.
“Grocery delivery has been attempted many times before and has more often than not failed because grocery companies try to establish infrastructure in the cities that they expand to. They build warehouses and they build distribution centers and they have to buy trucks. It’s just very costly—there are a lot of overhead costs,” he tells The Shelby Report.
“Our model just basically employs anyone who wants to become a personal liaison, much in the way that Uber employs drivers or hires them by the job. We have a team of personal liaisons in each of our cities, more than a dozen now in each city just constantly wanting to run deliveries…”
The personal liaisons shop for the groceries and deliver them, making them the “link between the store and the door for the customer,” Zelaya says.
To order, customers create an account at lazydelivery.com and provide a credit card. They can then develop their shopping list and schedule a time for their delivery (same-day is available).
“Once the recipient information is in and the delivery has been dispatched, the recipient gets a link so they can actually view it in real time, on a map, where their personal liaison is,” Zelaya says. “They can see them while they’re shopping at the store, they can see when they’re on their way, they can see when they’ve arrived—so they can monitor the progress of the delivery.”
The customer’s credit card is charged once the groceries are delivered. For about $80-$100 worth of groceries, the delivery fee tends to average between $10 and $15.
Lazy Delivery currently does not have any official partners with regional or national chains as Instacart has. Rather, the company will pick up groceries from any store the customer requests.
It has partnered with a local Latin food retailer in the Gainesville area and even has some partnerships with area restaurants.
“We will shop anywhere our customers want, anywhere our customers send us to,” Zelaya says. “In large part, a lot of the partnering is for promotional reasons and it benefits us and the store because the stores we partner with, we promote over the national stores. However, we will go to any store—partner or non-partner. We do a lot of deliveries from Publix, from Winn-Dixie, from Target—which are stores we do not currently have official partnerships with. We’ll go anywhere, and that’s part of the beauty of our system, because there have been other attempts at grocery delivery from other companies that only focus on partner stores.”
Zelaya points out that Lazy Delivery is “going to help brick-and-mortar stores survive and compete against the likes of Amazon and eBay and these other gigantic corporations.
“We believe that every brick-and-mortar store is our own local warehouse and that’s where we go to source our products and then deliver them,” he says. “We’re empowering them. We’re contributing to their bottom line by purchasing at their stores. And we’re also promoting them when we partner with them.”
Zelaya notes that companies like Amazon and Instacart are not yet delivering groceries in Lazy Delivery’s markets.
“…If Amazon were to ever launch grocery delivery, say, in one of our service cities, we’ll be competing directly with Amazon and we’ll be fighting for the likes of the brick-and-mortar stores and we’ll be advertising the brick-and-mortar stores, which also have their own benefits. One of those big benefits is a lot of the brick-and-mortar grocery stores tailor their products to the local needs of the local community and a lot of regional, cultural and ethnic foods and such. I know that for a fact because I’m Cuban American and, growing up in Miami, a lot of the food down there is Cuban food. It just makes sense that we don’t need to build our warehouses and (stock) Cuban supplies or Cuban food because every store already carries them.”
Lazy Delivery actually began as a grocery delivery service for students at the University of Florida, where Manuel Zelaya and Marc Charbel were students (24-year-old Daniel is a 2013 Yale graduate). It grew quickly, with parents even ordering for their students. Orders came from parents out of state as well, and the team recognized a need for the service outside of the Gainesville campus. Orders have grown beyond groceries, too.
“We’ve seen demand in interesting places,” Daniel Zelaya says. “We obviously originally thought that this was going to be about groceries but, basically, we’re anyone’s local courier at a low-cost price, with reliable service and very speedy delivery.
“…For example, toward the end of last year, we had students on campus use it for other items, such as headphones. While studying for exams, students needed headphones and they didn’t want to go to the store to buy them, so we went and picked up headphones at Best Buy and delivered them right on campus at the library.
“We’ve delivered medicine for people from CVS and Walgreens and other pharmacies. We’ve delivered school supplies. We’ve delivered T-shirt boxes. We’ve delivered all kinds of things beyond groceries. While we started delivering just groceries, we’ve basically established this infrastructure that can really send a personal liaison to any store to pick up any item that will fit in their car and deliver them.”
Zelaya says Lazy Delivery is good for anyone looking to save time, hence the company’s tagline, “Time on your fingertips.”
“With the power of your fingertips, you can literally click on our website on your mobile phone, place an order in less than five minutes and you’re done—you have groceries on the way and you control time and you’ve bought yourself a couple more hours to your day,” he says.
In addition to busy young professionals and parents, Lazy Delivery also has found business from the disabled community and, to give back to those with disabilities, is launching the Delivery Foundation, a nonprofit that will raise money to provide Lazy Delivery’s service free of charge to residents with disabilities and others who have difficulty physically getting to the store.
“We’ve gotten an increasing number of calls from family members with people in hospitals, and that’s a whole new ball game, too,” Zelaya adds. “There’s so much room for improvement and so much room for growth in our model. And if we can give back in some way we want to, and we definitely think we can help by having this official charitable arm.”
*Editor’s note: This market profile story by Kristen Cloud appears in the April 2015 print edition of The Shelby Report of the Southeast.