Building and operating a business in Immokalee comes with built-in economic advantages, not the least of which is a wide-range of tax savings.

Immokalee businesses saved over $65,000 last year in taxes that would have been paid to the State of Florida. 

But the companies - from local businesses to national chains - got credit for the taxes or avoided them outright because Immokalee is a state-designated Rural Enterprise Zone. 

The enterprise zone is just one of the special designations that Immokalee provides for entrepreneurs and business owners. 

Immokalee is also a federally-designated HUBZone (Historically Underutilized Buziness Zone) as well as a Free Foreign Trade Zone. And, in addition to the state and federal designations, Collier County also provides a list of business incentives to Immokalee entrepreneurs. 

Companies benefiting the state tax breaks through the Immokalee Enterprise Zone includes Immokalee vegetable packer Florida Specialites, Immokalee housing developer Eden Gardens and the American Discount Pharmacy as well as national companies like CVS Pharmacy, Walgreens Pharmacy, the Auto Zone and Family Discount Stores. 

The businesses benefited from savings on jobs credits, building material credits, business equipment purchases and other Enterprise Zone programs and tax breaks. 

Read more about Immokalee's Enterprize Zone here or call the Immokalee Community Redevelopment Agency: 239-252-2310. 

All this is just one of the reasons Immokalee is Florida in the 21st Century! 

 Bringing reliable and ubiquitous high-speed Internet to Florida's interior counties and communities is a major economic goal of the 21st Century. 

And that search engine just received a big boost of power through the award of a $24 million grant from the U.S. Department of Commerce to the Florida Rural Broadband Alliance, a coalition of Florida counties and communities - including Immokalee - in the Sunshine States' heartland. 

The Florida Rural Broadband Alliance FRBA) is an arm of the Florida's Heartland Regional Economic Development Initiative (FHREDI) in which the Immokalee Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA) participates. Immokalee Internet guru and community volunteer Birgit Pauli-Haack of Pauli Systems, Inc., represents Immokalee on the broadband alliance's board of directors. 

The grant, which is part of the Obama Administration's Recovery Act Investments Stimulus Package, will help pay for the infrastructure needed to bring reliable high-speed Internet for education, health care and public safety services, economic development and a nearly limitless variety of other uses.

In short, the project will open the Florida Heartland communities to the rest of the world and bring the world into Florida's Heartland, including Immokalee which is Florida in the 21st Century. 

Read more about the grant here. 

Read more about FHREDI here. 

Read here about Florida's Freshwater Frontier. 

 A new connector road for trade and commerce in Immokalee has been on the drawing board for some time, now, but the actual path is yet to be determined. 

The purpose of the road will be to connect Immokalee - and specifically the Immokalee Regional Airport and Trade Port - to Interstate 75 to both the west and the south. 

The route to the south is easy: right of ways have already been established for State Road 29. But the westerly route is the subject of some debate with some suggested routes reaching the Immokalee Regional Trade Port via a connector to State Road 82 and reaching around the northern and eastern flank of the airport before connecting to State Road 29 to the south. (See the green trace line on the right-hand map in the photo to the left.) 

But that route passes through well-known Florida Panther territory and the Conservancy of Southwest Florida weighed in last week to support a western route that would connect to the airport through its western flank to New Market Road. (See the red trace line on the center map in the photo to the left.) 

The Conservancy presented its plan to the Immokalee Community Redevelopment District's advisory board and will also advocate its position with the Florida Department of Transportation, which will ultimately make the route decision. 

The CRA advisory board agreed last week to continue to study the various proposals and lead the community in public discussions to help FDOT decided a final route. 

Click on the photo or here for a larger view of the maps. 

 From a pioneering Immokalee family, Carrie E. Williams became the newest member of the advisory board of the Immokalee Community Redevelopment Agency, on Wednesday.

Williams, selected for a board seat in July, comes to the advisory panel from years as a member of the Immokalee Master Plan & Visioning Committee. 

Part of a fourth generation farming family in Florida, she has worked in her family’s farming business for 18 years and oversees the daily operations of the farm, groves and ranch. Any yes, she has even been known to drive a tractor when needed!

Ms. Williams’ heart has always belonged to the land and she is most at peace when she is outdoors riding on the woods with her children and friends. Williams is active in many organizations and serves on the Board of Director for both the Immokalee Chamber of Commerce and the Children’s Advocacy Center.  

She is a graduate of the University of South Florida where she earned her Bachelor of Science degree in Sociology. She is a 2002 Alumnus of Leadership Collier and also has her real estate license which she utilizes by working part-time for Southern Land Realty in Labelle, Florida.

The CRA advisory board also selected Wednesday another future member, Melissa Martinez, who will take her board seat in September. 

Martinez is an Immokalee native and daughter of farm workers. She is a graduate of Immokalee High School and became  the first member of her family to attend college. She earned her associates degree in business in January and is currently working on a bachelors degree with a major in human services and management. She also works for Immokalee Housing and Family Services.