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Mosaic headquarters nears completion

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BY YVETTE C. HAMMETT

yhammett@tampatrib.com

Published: October 21, 2009

LITHIA - Businesses in the FishHawk Ranch area threw a warm welcome recently for their newest corporate neighbor: Mosaic Co.

Mosaic, the world's largest producer of concentrated phosphate and potash, is building its new headquarters in Circa FishHawk in an environmentally friendly building that will house about 400 employees. The headquarters should be up and running at full throttle by late March.

About 60 businesses attended the welcome reception for Mosaic.

To show support for its new neighborhood, Mosaic has donated $100,000 to the FishHawk Youth Sports Association, which maintains a new Hillsborough County sports complex nearby.

The company, which distributes worldwide, is relocating its headquarters to Circa FishHawk after conducting a study that showed a great number of its employees live in eastern Hillsborough County, company spokesman Russell Schweiss said.

"It's a pretty big contingent of employees who have been traveling to Pierce (near Mulberry), Fort Lonesome, Riverview and Tampa," Schweiss said. Already, he said, some employees from Lakeland are looking to relocate to the FishHawk area to be closer to work.

For human resources director Robert Baker, it could be a matter of a 20-minute bike ride or a five-minute drive.

Although it doesn't take him long now to drive to his office in Riverview, it sometimes takes an hour to get home in rush-hour traffic, he said.

"The first thing I have to do is buy a bike," Baker joked. "Start small."

With FishHawk developer Newland Communities planning a village center for Circa FishHawk within the next two years, even lunch will be convenient.

Newland senior vice president Rick Harcrow said the village center will include shops, offices and restaurants, connected to the new Mosaic headquarters by a walkway.

Eventually, Circa FishHawk will have 1,800 homes on the 710-acre tract, just south of FishHawk Ranch.

For the village center, which will be a walkable, mixed-use hub much like Hyde Park or Westchase, Mosaic is the anchor, Harcrow said.

The $20 million headquarters building will be gold LEED certified by Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, recognized by the U.S. Green Building Council if a developer designs, constructs and operates a building using five key areas of human and environmental health.

Reporter Yvette C. Hammett can be reached at (813) 627-4763.

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