Mayor Bob Buckhorn named Bemetra Simmons to serve as a commissioner on the board of the Tampa Housing Authority.

Simmons is Hillsborough market president at Branch Banking & Trust and was a Tampa Bay Business Journal Up & Comer in 2013.

BB&T (NYSE: BBT) is among the largest banks in Tampa Bay, and had 14 offices and $635 million in deposits in Hillsborough County as of June 30, 2014, the most recent date for which the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. has information available.

Simmons also serves… …read more

Florida’s economic downturn, which was longer and more severe than the rest of the nation, is mostly in the rear-view mirror, according to University of Central Florida economist Sean Snaith.

That’s encouraging news for the estimated 800 people a day who move to the state, looking for opportunity, and the business community where many of those new residents hope to find work. It’s also a big change from just a few years ago, wrote Snaith, director of the Institute for Economic Competitiveness… …read more

The upscale apartment developments in the works around Tampa’s urban core are risky propositions, no matter how you slice it — but perhaps less risky right now than ever before.

In this week’s edition of the Tampa Bay Business Journal, we take a look at Tampa’s apartment market and whether it’s heading for a peak. Read that story here.

In the luxury apartment market, developers are betting on record-high rents — numbers that Tampa only began to see last fall in the newly built Crescent Bayshore.

Data… …read more

Downtown Tampa’s Skypoint condominium tower is commanding impressive sales prices, but just as important as the numbers are the driving forces behind them.

A penthouse unit that sold for $650,000 two years ago recently traded for $895,000. A two-bedroom unit sold Friday for $481,000 — the highest price for a two-bedroom unit, outside of that penthouse, since the original developer was selling the units in 2007.

Brenda Daly, an agent with Smith & Associates, is seeing the beginning of a trend… …read more

Tampa Bay Lightning defenseman Mattias Ohlund has sold off a waterfront home on Davis Islands for $3.35 million, according to a Hillsborough County deed filed Wednesday.

The buyers were Jerry and Gloria Rose. The sale closed May 28, according to the deed.

Ohlund and his wife, Linda, paid $2.95 million for the home on Ladoga Avenue in 2009. A Lightning spokesman said Thursday that an injury had prevented Ohlund from playing for some time and that he recently moved back to his native Sweden.

Property… …read more