31 minute read
Florida Public Utilities Company Business Information, Profile, and History
401 S. Dixie Highway
West Palm Beach, Florida 33401
U.S.A.
Company Perspectives:
FPU is a publicly traded utility company, which since 1924 has provided safe, reliable and competitively priced energy as well as value added services to 90,000 customers in growing markets throughout Florida.
History of Florida Public Utilities Company
Florida Public Utilities Company (FPU) is a small but growing publicly traded energy company, providing electricity, natural gas, and propane to some 91,000 customers in a number of Florida communities. Traditionally FPU has been a conservatively run company, an approach that has allowed it to pay a dividend for more than 50 consecutive years, but has also led to only modest growth over the past half-century. In recent years, however, a new management team led by CEO John "Jack" T. English has launched an expansion effort, especially in the propane business. The West Palm Beach, Florida-based company is listed on the American Stock Exchange.
Formation of Company: 1920s
FPU was founded in 1924 as Palm Beach Gas Company. With 14 miles of gas mains, the company served 1,300 customers located in Palm Beach, West Palm Beach, and Lake Worth, Florida. While gas companies in the 1800s had focused on lighting, with the rise of electricity in the early years of the 20th century, gas companies turned to cooking and heating applications. Early in the 1900s, gas ranges began replacing coal ranges because gas was a more efficient fuel that resulted in less waste. Moreover, gas required no hauling or clean-up like coal. Gas used to heat homes offered these same advantages and more: Units were smaller, quicker to heat a room, and required far less maintenance. Palm Beach Gas was just one of a multitude of small gas companies that cropped up to meet a community's cooking and heating needs, producing its product in local plants. Typically, gas was made by reducing coal to coke in a retort house, which was then piped to another facility where it was purified by lime. The gas was then piped to an immense tank called a gasholder or "gasometer," from which it would be delivered to customers through the company's network of mains. This method of producing gas would remain essentially unchanged and predominant until natural gas provided by wells in the southwestern United States began to be distributed throughout the country by a vast network of pipelines.
In 1926 Palm Beach Gas became part of Consolidated Electric and Gas Company, a public utility holding company. A year later Palm Beach Gas acquired Gas Service Co. of Key West and added its gas manufacturing plant, prompting a change in name to Florida Public Utilities Company. FPU made another purchase in 1929, picking up Pensacola Gas Company and another gas-making facility.
During the 1930s FPU adjusted its business mix. In 1931 it shut down the Pensacola plant and three years later sold the Pensacola Gas business to Gulf Power Co. The Key West operation was then divested in 1938. On the other hand, FPU expanded beyond gas during this period. In 1935 it acquired Southern States Power Company, operating in Marianna and Fernandina Beach, Florida. The deal brought with it electric and water utilities, as well as ice assets. While FPU would remain in the electricity and water businesses, ice would be phased out as electric refrigerators replaced iceboxes.
Post-World War II Move into Propane
In April 1945 FPU underwent a change of ownership when Jesse L. Terry bought the company from Consolidated Electric and Gas Company. In July 1946 he took FPU public. Another major development during the post-World War II period was the 1949 creation of Flo-Gas Corporation, which supplied bottled propane gas to customers who lived too far from FPU mains. But a much bigger development in the gas industry was beginning to take place during this time: the rise of natural gas.
Natural gas, which is found like other petroleum products trapped within Earth's strata, became a viable product in the Southwest in the 1930s, and in fact had been used for centuries. But natural gas was no better than manufactured gas because it was only available in its immediate area, limited to a local network of mains. That situation changed with the improvement of pipeline technology made necessary with the advent of World War II. Even before the United States entered the war, the government began preparing the country for its participation. A vital consideration was the protection of the petroleum products that a modern army, and economy, depended on. Given the success German submarines enjoyed during World War I in disrupting shipping, it was deemed essential that the country build a pipeline system to deliver fuels underground. The idea of establishing a pipeline system in the southeastern United States had been in the exploratory stages during the 1930s, but the prospect of war was the key factor in making the concept a reality. After the war the pipeline system was expanded, and in the 1950s natural gas provided by wells in the southwestern United States began to be distributed throughout the country. In Florida the primary reason for the introduction of natural gas during the 1950s was to fuel electric power plants. But eventually, residential gas customers were also converted from "town gas" to natural gas. FPU made the transition in 1959, when it began selling natural gas in Palm Beach County. Local gas plants now became obsolete and were gradually closed in the 1960s. But the property on which the plants had been located became a matter of concern for gas companies as local governments began forcing them to clean up leftover contaminants, a problem that FPU would face as well.
Although it held onto its water company operating in Fernandina Beach, FPU concentrated on building its natural gas assets during the 1960s. In 1965 it acquired Sanford Gas Company and inherited some cleanup problems that would only come to the surface years later. In 1967 it added Deland-based Florida Home Gas Company and its natural gas system. In addition, FPU sold off its Marianna water business to North Florida Water Company in 1967. The company now settled into a long stretch of conservative management, a period of more than 30 years in which FPU made no acquisitions and simply operated the assets in hand. It was generally the lowest cost provider in Florida and consistently turned a profit, maintaining an uninterrupted string of years in which it paid a dividend.
FPU also benefited from having consistent management, with only four presidents heading the company from its founding until 1998. Leading them through the critical years of the 1980s and 1990s, when the gas industry moved toward deregulation, was Franklin Charles Cressman, Jr., who spent his entire working career at FPU. Even before he graduated from the University of Florida's School of Engineering in 1960, Cressman worked part-time as a meter reader and serviceman during summers and vacations. He worked his way up through the company and in 1985 was named president and chief operating officer. He became CEO in 1991. In addition, Cressman served as a member of the Florida Natural Gas Association for over 20 years, including a stint as president. He retired in 1998 at the age of 65 and died three years later from lung cancer.
Aggressive New Leadership in Late 1990s
Replacing Cressman as CEO was 54-year-old Jack English, who also enjoyed a long tenure at FPU. A native of Long Island, English earned undergraduate and graduate degrees in electrical engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology before joining the company in 1973 as division superintendent in the Northeast Division. He was named vice-president of the company in 1991, made senior vice-president in 1993, and a year before Cressman retired, English took over as president and COO. Although on one level English maintained the company's continuity in management, he recognized that FPU would have to become more aggressive in order to remain successful. In 2000 the company expanded its propane business to its northeast Florida territories, but more importantly it began to map plans for the future. FPU hired consultant Decision Processes International and created a 13-person management team that by the end of the year determined a corporate strategy for the next five to seven years. Initially the team planned to build upon its infrastructure to offer additional products, but it soon became apparent that FPU was simply too small and lacked the capital required to launch major new products and services. Instead, FPU elected to expand on its customer base: Rather than sell more products, it would sell more of the same products to more energy customers, whether they be residential, commercial, or industrial. In the end, FPU planned to become a total energy company instead of a mere supplier of gas and electricity.
While management was developing its new strategy in 2000, FPU played an unwitting role in a hostile corporate takeover attempt. The United States' largest power plant developer, AES Corp., was attempting to gain control of CA Electricidad de Caracas, Venezuela's largest power company, which was caught off guard by the unsolicited bid. In an attempt to ward off AES, Electricidad bought a 9.9 percent interest in FPU at a cost of $7 million. Because the Venezuelan company now owned more than a 5 percent stake in a U.S. power company, the maneuver hindered AES, which would now have to gain SEC approval before completing the deal. Electricidad made it clear that it had no intention of seeking control of FPU. Despite this clever ploy, however, Electricidad eventually succumbed to the inevitable and was swallowed up by AES, and FPU returned to relative obscurity.
A major part of FPU's new business strategy was to grow its propane business, to become in the words of its CEO the "Publix of propane." The goal was to acquire one propane company each year. English's first move in this effort was the 2001 purchase of Z-Gas Company, Inc., which had 1,100 customers in Nassau County in northeast Florida. A few months later, FPU also added the Nassau County propane business of Atlantic Utilities. In 2002 FPU acquired another propane business, purchasing Nature Coast Gas, Inc., an Inglis, Florida-based company with more than 1,300 customers. After completing the acquisition,
As FPU formulated its new growth strategy, it had no intention of expanding on its water business, which was generating close to $3 million in annual revenues. When the City of Fernandina Beach in 2002 offered to buy the water division, management jumped at the opportunity to focus its efforts on energy while at the same time gaining more money to make further acquisitions. The two parties reached an agreement in December 2002 and closed the deal in March 2003. FPU received a total of $25 million, of which $19.2 million was in cash and the balance in future considerations.
FPU held off making any further acquisitions in 2003, instead devoting its energies to reorganizing the Nature Coast Gas unit. The company also sought state approval to combine its two electric divisions, a precursor to a rate increase request. In addition, FPU took a number of steps in 2003 to cut costs. It established a customer payment processing center in its Northwest Florida Division to better automate the customer payment process, a system that not only saved money but freed up customer service representatives to spend more time with customers, in keeping with the goal of improving customer service to help facilitate internal growth. Also to this end, the company introduced new customer service training programs. Other cost-saving efforts in 2003 included a switch in medical insurance brokers and the company's auditing firm.
FPU also began to display a more aggressive posture under English. In 2002 the company came into conflict with Peoples Gas System. In 1991 the two companies had established a territorial agreement that divided Palm Beach County between them, but 11 years later Peoples Gas became upset when FPU built a gas line extension into Juno Beach, an area that Peoples Gas believed was its territory. They reworked their agreement, but found themselves in conflict again in 2004, as both vied to supply gas to a 6,000-acre site in Palm Beach County, the future home of The Scripps Research Institutes' Florida expansion, where thousands of potential customers would be found in the form of new biotechnology companies, other businesses, and homes. The research center was not scheduled to open until 2006 at the earliest, and no matter how state regulators ruled on which gas company was to serve the area, it was clear that the days of FPU simply minding its own knitting were well in the past. In 2004 Fortune magazine named FPU as one of the 100 fastest growing small companies in the United States, slotted at number 77, as revenues grew from $88.5 million in 2002 to $102.7 million in 2003. There was every reason to believe that FPU's management team was taking steps to continue moving up in the rankings.
Principal Subsidiaries: Flo-Gas Corporation.
Principal Competitors: Chesapeake Utilities Corporation; JEA; TECO Energy, Inc.
Related information about Florida
pop (2000e) 15 982 400; area
151 934 km²/58 664 sq mi. State in SE USA,
divided into 67 counties; the ‘Sunshine State’ or ‘Peninsular
State’; discovered and settled by the Spanish in the 16th-c; ceded
to Britain in 1763, and divided into East and West Florida; given
back to Spain after the War of Independence, 1783; West Florida
gained by the US in the Louisiana Purchase, 1803; East Florida
purchased by the US, 1819; admitted as the 27th state of the Union,
1845; seceded, 1861; slavery abolished, 1865; re-admitted to the
Union, 1868; capital, Tallahassee; other chief cities,
Jacksonville, Miami, Tampa, St Petersburg, Fort Lauderdale; a long
peninsula bounded W by the Gulf of Mexico and E by the Atlantic
Ocean; rivers include the St Johns, Caloosahatchee, Apalachicola,
Perdido, St Marys; C state has many lakes, notably L Okeechobee
(fourth largest lake wholly within the USA); highest point in
Walton County (105 m/345 ft); the Florida Keys Islands
stretch in a line SW from the S tip of the state, all linked by a
series of causeways; the NW is a gently rolling panhandle area, cut
by deep swamps along the coast; the S is almost entirely covered by
the Everglades; the SE coast is protected from the Atlantic by
sandbars and islands, creating shallow lagoons and sandy beaches; a
warm sunny climate, but occasional danger of hurricanes (eg
widespread damage caused by Hurricane Andrew in 1992); many famous
resorts (Palm Beach, Miami Beach); the Everglades National Park,
Walt Disney World entertainment park, John F Kennedy Space Center
at Cape Canaveral; the nation's greatest producer of citrus fruits;
second largest producer of vegetables; sugar cane, tobacco, cattle
and dairy products; processed foods, chemicals, electrical
equipment, transportation equipment, wood products; phosphate and
other minerals; one of the fastest-growing parts of the country; an
important area for retirement homes; large Hispanic population
(especially from Cuba).
references
Florida is a U.S.
state located in the southeastern
United States. It
was named by Juan Ponce de León, who landed on the coast on April 2, 1513, during Pascua Florida (Spanish for "Flowery Easter," referring to the
Easter
season).
Geography
Florida is situated mostly on a large peninsula between the Gulf of Mexico, the
Atlantic Ocean,
and the Straits
of Florida. It is near the countries of the Caribbean, particularly the
Bahamas and Cuba.
At 345 feet (105 m) above mean sea level, Britton Hill is the highest point in Florida and
the lowest highpoint of any U.S. state. Lake County holds the
highest point of peninsular Florida, Sugarloaf
Mountain, at 312 feet (95 m).
Areas under control by the National Park Service include:
- Big Cypress National Preserve, near Lake
Okeechobee
- Biscayne National Park, near Key Biscayne
- Canaveral National Seashore, near Titusville
- Castillo de San Marcos National Monument, in St.
Augustine
- De
Soto National Memorial, in Bradenton
- Dry
Tortugas National Park, at Key
West
- Everglades National Park
- Fort Caroline National Memorial, at Jacksonville
- Fort Matanzas National Monument, in St.
Augustine
- Gulf Islands National Seashore, near Gulf
Breeze
- Timucuan Ecological and Historic Preserve, in
Jacksonville
See also List of Florida state parks
Boundaries
The state line begins in the Atlantic Ocean, traveling west, south, and north
up the thalweg of the
Saint Mary's River. At the origin of that river,
it then follows a straight line nearly due west and slightly north,
to the point where the confluence of the Flint River
(from Georgia) and the Chattahoochee River (down the Alabama/Georgia line) used
to form Florida's Apalachicola River. The seasons in Florida are actually
determined more by precipitation than by temperature with mild to cool,
relatively dry winters
and autumns (the dry
season) and hot, wet springs and summers (the wet season). The hottest temperature ever
recorded in the state was 109 °F (43 °C), set on June 29 1931 in Monticello. The coldest was ?2 °F (?19 °C), on
February 13 1899, just 25 miles (40 km) away,
in Tallahassee. These thunderstorms, caused by collisions
between airflow from the Gulf of Mexico and airflow from the Atlantic Ocean, pop up in
the early afternoon and can bring heavy downpours, high winds, and
sometimes tornadoes. The
storm is believed to have been similar in composition to a hurricane, and even brought
storm surges of six
feet or more to regions of the Gulf coast.
Although some storms have formed out of season, hurricanes pose a threat
during hurricane season, which lasts from June 1 to November 30. Hurricanes Charley (August 13), Frances (September 4?5), Ivan (September 16), and Jeanne (September 25?26) cumulatively cost the
state's economy US$42 billion. Later, Hurricane Katrina
(August 25) passed
through South
Florida and Hurricane Rita (September 20) swept through the Florida Keys. Hurricane Wilma made
landfall in Florida in the early morning of October 24 as a Category
3 hurricane, with the storm's eye hitting near Cape Romano, just south of
Marco
Island, according to National Hurricane
Center.
Florida was the site of the second costliest weather disaster in
U.S. history, Hurricane Andrew, which caused more than US$25 billion in
damage when it struck on August 24, 1992.
In a long list of other infamous hurricane strikes are the 1926
Great Miami
Hurricane, the Lake
Okeechobee Hurricane of 1928, the Labor Day
Hurricane of 1935, Hurricane Donna in 1960, and Hurricane Opal in
1995.
Environmental issues
Florida is the fifth-largest producer of greenhouse gases among
the 50 U.S. states. Much of Florida, being only a few feet above
sea level now, would be underwater if the sea level rose
dramatically due to the continued melting of glaciers, parts of the Antarctic ice shelf, or Greenland's cover of ice. Of
the many indigenous people, the largest known were the Ais, the Apalachee, the Calusa, the Timucua and the Tocobago tribes. Juan Ponce de
León, a Spanish conquistador, named Florida in honor of his "discovery"
of the land on April 2
1513, during Pascua Florida, a Spanish
term for the Easter
season. French Huguenots founded Fort Caroline in modern-day Jacksonville in
1564, but this fort was conquered by forces from the new Spanish
colony of St. Augustine the following year. The local leaders
(caciques) demonstrated
their loyalty to the Spanish by converting to Roman Catholicism and
welcoming the Franciscan priests into their villages.
The area of Spanish Florida diminished with the establishment of
English colonies to the
north and French colonies
to the west. The English weakened Spanish power in the area by
supplying their Creek
Indian allies with firearms and urging them to raid the
Timucuan and Apalachee client-tribes of the
Spanish. On March 3
1845, Florida became the
27th state of the United States of America. On January 10 1861, before the formal outbreak of
the Civil
War, Florida seceded from the Union; On
June 25, 1868, Florida's congressional
representation was restored. font-size: 95%;">
Presidential elections results
Year
|
Republican
|
Democratic
|
| 2004 |
52.10%3,964,522
|
47.09%
3,583,544
|
| 2000 |
48.85%2,912,790
|
48.84%
2,912,253
|
| 1996 |
42.32%
2,244,536
|
48.02%2,546,870
|
| 1992 |
40.89%2,173,310
|
39.00%
2,072,698
|
| 1988 |
60.87%2,618,885
|
38.51%
1,656,701
|
| 1984 |
65.32%2,730,350
|
34.66%
1,448,816
|
| 1980 |
55.52%2,046,951
|
38.50%
1,419,475
|
| 1976 |
46.64%
1,469,531
|
51.93%1,636,000
|
| 1972 |
71.91%1,857,759
|
27.80% 718,117
|
| 1968 |
40.53%886,804
|
30.93% 676,794
|
| 1964 |
48.85% 905,941
|
51.15%948,540
|
| 1960 |
51.51%795,476
|
48.49% 748,700
|
The basic structure, duties, function, and operations of the
government of the State of Florida are defined and established by
the Florida
Constitution, which establishes the basic law of the state and
guarantees various rights and freedoms of the people. The legislature enacts bills,
which, if signed by the governor, become Florida Statutes.
The Florida
Legislature is comprised of the Florida Senate, which has
40 members, and the Florida
House of Representatives, which has 120 members. The current
Governor of
Florida is Republican Jeb Bush, brother of U.S. President George W. The Tampa area, once a
major center of Democratic union support, is now almost evenly split between
registered Republicans and Democrats, making it part of the
important I-4
Corridor swing region. The Walt Disney World
Resort, a mega-resort consisting of four theme parks, more than twenty
hotels, water parks, shopping centers, and other attractions, is an
important tourist attraction located in Lake Buena
Vista. Together, Walt Disney World, and other theme park
resorts such as Universal Orlando Resort and SeaWorld, are an important driver of the Central
Florida economy.
Other major industries include citrus fruit
and juice production, banking, and phosphate mining within the Bone Valley region. The
state did not have a state minimum wage law until November 2, 2004, when voters passed a
constitutional amendment establishing a state minimum wage and
mandating that it be adjusted for inflation every six months.
Historically, Florida's economy was based upon cattle farming and
agriculture (especially sugarcane, citrus, tomatoes, and strawberries). font-size: 95%;">
Historical
populations
|
Census
year |
Population
|
|
| 1830 |
34,730
|
| 1840 |
54,477
|
| 1850 |
87,445
|
| 1860 |
140,424
|
| 1870 |
187,748
|
| 1880 |
269,493
|
| 1890 |
391,422
|
| 1900 |
528,542
|
| 1910 |
752,619
|
| 1920 |
968,470
|
| 1930 |
1,468,211
|
| 1940 |
1,897,414
|
| 1950 |
2,771,305
|
| 1960 |
4,951,560
|
| 1970 |
6,789,443
|
| 1980 |
9,746,324
|
| 1990 |
12,937,926
|
| 2000 |
15,982,378
|
Race and ancestry
The largest reported ancestries in the 2000 Census were German (11.8%), Irish (10.3%), English (9.2%), American (8%) and Italian (6.3%).factfinder.census.gov/servlet/SAFFFacts?_event=Search&geo_id=&_geoContext=&_street=&_county=&_cityTown=&_state=04000US12&_zip=&_lang=en&_sse=on&pctxt=fph&pgsl=010
Before the American Civil War, when slavery was legal, and during the Reconstruction era that followed, African Americans made
up nearly half of the state's population.fisher.lib.virginia.edu/collections/stats/histcensus/Historical
Census Broswer at the University of Virginia (URL accessed 26
August 2006). Their proportion declined over the next century, as
many moved north in the Great Migration while large numbers of northern whites
moved to the state. Today, large concentrations of black residents
can be found in northern Florida (notably in Jacksonville,
Gainesville and Pensacola), the Tampa Bay area, and South Florida (where their numbers have been
bolstered by significant immigration from Haiti and Jamaica).
Florida's Hispanic
population includes large communities of Cuban Americans in
Miami and
Tampa, Puerto
Ricans in Tampa and Orlando, and Central American migrant workers in inland West-Central
and South Florida. The Hispanic community continues to grow more
affluent and mobile: between the years of 2000 and 2004, Lee County in southwest Florida, which is largely suburban in
character, had the fastest Hispanic population growth rate of any
county in the United States.www.news-press.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060309/NEWS01/603090396/1075
Whites of all
ethnicities are present in all areas of the state. There is a large
German population in
Southwest
Florida, a sizeable and historic Italian community in the
Miami area, and
white Floridians of longer-present generations in the culturally
southern areas of inland and northern Florida. Haitian Creole
is the third most spoken language at 2.2 percent, followed by
German at 0.6
percent and Italian at 0.4 percent.
Article II, Section 9, of the Florida
Constitution provides that "English is the official language of
the State of Florida." Florida's current religious affiliations are
shown in the table below:
-
Christian,
82%
-
Protestant, 54%
- Baptist,
19%
- Methodist, 6%
- Presbyterian, 4%
- Episcopal, 3%
- Lutheran, 3%
- Pentecostal, 3%
- Other Protestant, 16%
- Roman Catholic, 26%
- Other Christian, 2%
- Jewish,
4%
- Other Religions, 1%
- Non-Religious, 13%
Education
Florida's public primary and secondary schools are administered by
the Florida Department of Education.
Florida's public-school revenue per student and spending per $1000
of personal income usually rank in the bottom 25 percent of U.S.
states. Governor Jeb
Bush has been criticized by many Florida educators for a
program that penalizes underperforming schools (as indicated by
standardized
tests, most prominently the FCAT) with fewer funding dollars. www.sptimes.com/News/050801/State/Bush_s_trustees_mostl.shtml
In 2002, former governor and then U.S. Senator
Bob Graham (Dem.) led
a constitutional-amendment ballot referendum designed to
restore the board-of-regents system. -->
Transportation
Highways
Florida's interstates, state highways and U.S. Highways are maintained by the Florida
Department of Transportation.
Florida's interstate highway system contains 1,473 miles
(2,371 km) of highway, and there are 9,934 miles
(15,987 km) of non-interstate highway in the state, such as
Florida state
highways and U.S.
Highways.
Florida's primary interstate routes include:
- I-4, which
bisects the state, connecting Tampa, Lakeland, Orlando, and Daytona
Beach, having junctions with I-95 at Daytona Beach and I-75
at Tampa.
- I-10, which
traverses the panhandle, connecting Jacksonville,
Lake
City, Tallahassee and Pensacola, having junctions with I-95 at
Jacksonville and I-75 at Lake City.
- I-75, which
enters the state near Lake City (45 miles west of Jacksonville) and
continues southward through Gainesville,
Ocala,
Tampa's eastern suburbs, Bradenton, Sarasota, and Fort Myers to
Naples,
where it crosses the "Alligator Alley" as a toll road to Fort
Lauderdale before turning southward and terminating in
Hialeah/Miami Lakes having junctions with I-10 at Lake City
and I-4 at Tampa.
- I-95, which
enters the state near Jacksonville and continues along the
Atlantic Coast through Daytona Beach, Melbourne/Titusville,
Palm Bay,
Vero
Beach, Fort Pierce, Port Saint
Lucie, Stuart, West Palm Beach, and Ft. Lauderdale before
terminating in Miami, having junctions with I-10 at Jacksonville and
I-4 at Daytona Beach.
Florida's secondary interstate routes include:
- I-110, a spur from I-10 into downtown
Pensacola.
- I-175, which connects I-275 to southern downtown
St.
Petersburg.
- I-195, an extension of Miami's Airport Expressway
(S.R.
a spur eastward from I-95 to Miami
Beach.
- I-275, a sixty-mile (100 km)www.kurumi.com/roads/3di/i275.html
westward loop from I-75 north of Ellenton, over the
Sunshine
Skyway Bridge, through St. Petersburg, to Tampa
International Airport and downtown Tampa, reconnecting with
I-75 in Tampa's northern suburbs.
- I-295, a partial beltway around Jacksonville that will
loop completely around the city by 2007.
- I-375, which connects I-275 to northern downtown St.
Petersburg.
- I-395, an extension of Miami's Dolphin Expressway
(S.R.
a spur eastward from I-95 to Miami Beach.
- I-595, which connects I-75, I-95, Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport and
Port
Everglades.
Florida has several toll roads, totaling 515 miles (830 km) of the state
highway system. Major toll roads include:
- I-75, as it passes through the Everglades between Naples and Fort Lauderdale
has been grandfathered as a toll road from its original
construction as S.R. 84
- Florida's
Turnpike, which begins at Interstate 75 south of Ocala and
continues southeast through Orlando, Port Saint Lucie, and south
through the western suburbs of Fort Lauderdale and Miami to
Homestead
For more information about the myriad secondary toll expressways
in Florida, see articles detailing roads maintained by the Florida Turnpike
Authority, the Miami-Dade
Expressway Authority, and the Orlando-Orange County Expressway Authority.
Intercity rail
In 2000, voters approved a constitutional amendment to construct
a high-speed rail system to interconnect Florida's major cities.
The Florida
High Speed Rail Authority, originally formed to implement the
high-speed-rail amendment, has vowed to find a way to implement the
system without the amendment.
Amtrak service exists in
Florida: Sanford, in Greater Orlando, is the southern terminus of the
Amtrak Auto
Train, which originates at Lorton, Virginia, south of Washington, DC. Orlando
is also the eastern terminus of the Sunset Limited, which
travels across the southern United States via New Orleans,
Houston, and
San Antonio
to its western terminus of Los Angeles.
Florida is served by two additional Amtrak trains (the Silver Star and the Silver Meteor), which
operate between New York City and Miami. Miami has an automated guideway people-mover system, as
well as a 22-mile metro
system, and most cities have bus service.
Airports
Florida's major international airports, which processed more
than 15 million passengers in 2005, are Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport
(22,390,285), Miami International Airport (31,008,453), Orlando
International Airport (34,128,048) and Tampa
International Airport (19,045,390).
Secondary airports, with annual passenger traffic exceeding 5
million in 2005, include Jacksonville International Airport (5,741,652), Palm Beach
International Airport (West Palm Beach) (7,014,237) and
Southwest Florida International Airport (Fort Myers)
(7,518,169).
Other smaller, regional airports with commercial service (with
passengers served in 2005, where available) include those at
Daytona Beach (615,841), Fort Walton
Beach, Gainesville (345,788), Key West,
Melbourne (466,367) ,Naples,
Panama City (382,551), Pensacola
(1,638,605), Sarasota-Bradenton (1,337,571), St. Petersburg-Clearwater (596,510) and Tallahassee
(1,129,947). Sanford (1,649,237) is primarily served by international
charter airlines.2005 North America Airports Traffic
Statistics URL retrieved September 15, 2006
Metropolitan areas
Florida has nineteen Metropolitan
Statistical Areas (MSAs) defined by the United States Office of Management and Budget
(OMB).
|
Metropolitan
Statistical Areas |
2005
Population |
|
Cape Coral-Fort Myers Metropolitan Statistical
Area |
549,442 |
|
Deltona-Daytona Beach-Ormond Beach Metropolitan
Statistical Area |
494,649 |
|
Fort Walton Beach-Crestview-Destin Metropolitan
Statistical Area |
188,939 |
|
Gainesville Metropolitan Statistical Area |
256,985 |
|
Jacksonville Metropolitan Statistical Area |
1,277,763 |
|
Lakeland Metropolitan Statistical Area |
541,840 |
|
Miami-Ft.Lauderdale-West Palm Beach Metropolitan
Statistical Area |
5,422,200 |
|
Naples-Marco Island Metropolitan Statistical
Area |
317,788 |
|
Ocala Metropolitan Statistical Area |
304,926 |
|
Orlando-Kissimmee Metropolitan Statistical
Area |
1,861,707 |
|
Palm Bay-Melbourne-Titusville Metropolitan
Statistical Area |
531,970 |
|
Panama City-Lynn Haven Metropolitan Statistical
Area |
161,721 |
|
Pensacola-Ferry Pass-Brent, Florida Metropolitan
Statistical Area |
439,877 |
|
Port St. Lucie-Fort Pierce Metropolitan
Statistical Area |
381,033 |
|
Punta Gorda Metropolitan Statistical Area |
154,030 |
|
Sarasota-Bradenton-Venice Metropolitan Statistical
Area |
673,035 |
|
Sebastian-Vero Beach Metropolitan Statistical
Area |
130,043 |
|
Tallahassee Metropolitan Statistical Area |
334,886 |
|
Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater Metropolitan
Statistical Area |
2,589,637 |
Important cities and towns
City Population > 700,000
City Population > 300,000
City Population > 200,000
- Hialeah
- Orlando
- St. Petersburg
City Population > 100,000
- Cape Coral
- Clearwater
- Coral Springs
- Fort Lauderdale
- Gainesville
- Hollywood
- Miami Gardens
- Pembroke Pines
- Miramar
- Palm
Bay
- Port Saint Lucie
- Pompano Beach
- Tallahassee
City Population > 75,000
- Boca Raton
- Brandon
- Davie
- Deltona
- Kendall
- Lakeland
- Melbourne
- Miami Beach
- Plantation
- Sunrise
- West Palm Beach
|
City Population > 50,000
- Boynton Beach
- Bradenton
- Daytona Beach
- Deerfield Beach
- Delray Beach
- Fort Myers
- Fountainbleau
- Kendale Lakes
- Kissimmee
- Largo
- Lauderhill
- Margate
- North Miami
- North Miami Beach
- Palm Coast
- Palm Harbor
- Pensacola
- Sarasota
- Spring Hill
- Tamarac
- Tamiami
- Town 'n' Country
- Weston
City Population > 25,000
- Altamonte Springs
- Aventura
- Apopka
- Bartow
- Bonita Springs
- Coconut Creek
- Cooper City
- Coral Gables
- De
Land
- Dunedin
|
- East Lake
- Egypt Lake-Leto
- Fort Pierce
- Greater Carrollwood
- Greenacres
- Hallandale Beach
- Homestead
- Jupiter
- Kendall West
- Key
West
- Lake Magdalene
- Lake Worth
- Lauderdale Lakes
- Lehigh Acres
- North Fort Myers
- North Lauderdale
- Ocala
- Ocoee
- Oakland Park
- Ormond Beach
- Oviedo
- Palm Beach Gardens
- Panama City
- Pinellas Park
- Plant City
- Port Orange
- Port Charlotte
- Riviera Beach
- Royal Palm Beach
- Sanford
- South Fort Myers
- Titusville
- University
- Wellington
- Westchester
- Winter Haven
- Winter Park
- Winter Springs
|
Professional sports teams
Club
|
Sport
|
League
|
| Jacksonville Jaguars |
Football |
National Football League |
| Tampa
Bay Buccaneers |
Football
|
National Football League
|
| Miami
Dolphins |
Football
|
National Football League
|
| Orlando
Magic |
Basketball |
National Basketball Association |
| Miami
Heat |
Basketball
|
National Basketball Association
|
| Tampa
Bay Lightning |
Ice
hockey |
National Hockey League |
| Florida
Panthers |
Ice hockey
|
National Hockey League
|
| Tampa
Bay Devil Rays |
Baseball |
Major
League Baseball |
| Florida
Marlins |
Baseball
|
Major League Baseball
|
| Orlando
Predators |
Arena
football |
Arena
Football League |
| Tampa Bay
Storm |
Arena football
|
Arena Football League
|
| Brevard County Manatees |
Baseball
|
Minor
League BaseballFlorida State League
|
| Clearwater Threshers |
Baseball
|
Minor
League BaseballFlorida State League
|
| Daytona
Cubs |
Baseball
|
Minor
League BaseballFlorida State League
|
| Dunedin
Blue Jays |
Baseball
|
Minor
League BaseballFlorida State League
|
| Fort
Myers Miracle |
Baseball
|
Minor
League BaseballFlorida State League
|
| Jacksonville Suns |
Baseball
|
Minor League Baseball
|
| Jupiter
Hammerheads |
Baseball
|
Minor
League BaseballFlorida State League
|
| Lakeland
Tigers |
Baseball
|
Minor
League BaseballFlorida State League
|
| Sarasota
Reds |
Baseball
|
Minor
League BaseballFlorida State League
|
| St. Lucie
Mets |
Baseball
|
Minor
League BaseballFlorida State League
|
| Tampa
Yankees |
Baseball
|
Minor
League BaseballFlorida State League
|
| Palm
Beach Cardinals |
Baseball
|
Minor
League BaseballFlorida State League
|
| Vero
Beach Dodgers |
Baseball
|
Minor
League BaseballFlorida State League
|
| Miami FC |
Soccer |
USL First
Division |
| Ajax
Orlando Prospects |
Soccer
|
USL Premier Development League |
| Bradenton Academics |
Soccer
|
USL Premier Development League
|
| Central Florida Kraze |
Soccer
|
USL Premier Development League
|
| Cocoa
Expos |
Soccer
|
USL Premier Development League
|
| Palm Beach
Pumas |
Soccer
|
USL Premier Development League
|
| Bradenton Athletics |
Soccer
|
W-League |
| Central Florida Krush |
Soccer
|
W-League
|
| Cocoa
Expos |
Soccer
|
W-League
|
| Central Florida Strikers |
Soccer
|
Women?s Premier Soccer League |
| Miami
Surf |
Soccer
|
Women?s Premier Soccer League
|
| Orlando
Falcons |
Soccer
|
Women?s Premier Soccer League
|
| Palm Beach
United |
Soccer
|
Women?s Premier Soccer League
|
| South
Florida Breeze |
Soccer
|
Women?s Premier Soccer League
|
| Tampa Bay
United |
Soccer
|
Women?s Premier Soccer League
|
| Florida
Everblades |
Ice hockey
|
East Coast Hockey League |
| Florida
Seals |
Ice hockey
|
Southern Professional Hockey League |
| Jacksonville Barracudas |
Ice hockey
|
Southern Professional Hockey League
|
| Pensacola Ice Pilots |
Ice hockey
|
East Coast Hockey League
|
Orlando, Florida (Name TBA)
|
Basketball
|
American Basketball Association |
| Palm
Beach Imperials |
Basketball
|
American Basketball Association |
| Pensacola
Aviators |
Basketball
|
American Basketball Association |
| Jacksonville Jam |
Basketball
|
American Basketball Association |
| Tampa
Bay Strong Dogs |
Basketball
|
American Basketball Association |
Spring training
Florida is the traditional home for Major League Baseball spring
training, with teams informally organized into the "Grapefruit League."
As of 2004, Florida
hosts the following major league teams for spring training:
Club
|
Location
|
| Atlanta
Braves |
Walt Disney World
|
| Baltimore
Orioles |
Fort Lauderdale
|
|
Chronology
- Key Dates:
-
1924: Company is formed as Palm Beach Gas Company.
-
1927: Name is changed to Florida Public Utilities Company.
-
1946: Company is taken public.
-
1949: Flo-Gas Corporation is formed to supply propane.
-
1959: Company moves from manufactured gas to natural gas.
-
1998: Jack English is named CEO.
-
2002: Nature Coast Gas, Inc. is acquired.
-
2003: Water interests are sold.
Additional topics
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