WAKULLA COUNTY, FL — Wakulla County commissioners have approved several key components of Project Safety, a manufacturing facility valued at more than $20 million set to be built at Opportunity Park in Crawfordville.
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The board approved a public-private partnership agreement with Point Blank Enterprises, a lease agreement for the facility, a $10 million revolving line of credit through Ameris Bank, and a construction bid for All State Construction.
Point Blank Enterprises, a South Florida-based company, is the largest manufacturer of protective equipment and body armor in the country. The company designs hard armor for law enforcement and military customers around the world.
The facility is expected to bring more than 300 new jobs to Wakulla County — and not all of them will be in manufacturing.
"We're also going to have our order fulfillment center, which is where we bring in ballistics and carriers and stuff that make up the body armor from all of our other facilities and so, and that's going to be there. We're also going to have offices there, so we're going to need HR and IT, and, you know, everybody that's involved in that customer service, folks, you know. So it's going to be a whole myriad of jobs," Hoyt Schmidt, President of Commercial Business at Point Blank Enterprises, said.
Many Wakulla County residents who attended Monday's commission meeting said they are not opposed to the jobs the facility would bring, but raised questions about how the county plans to pay for it.
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Resident Carrie Hughes raised concerns about rising cost estimates.
"The initial cost estimate was just over $21 million in the December 2024 grant proposals, and now it shows the latest estimate is 25 so that's a little over 19% increase in just every a year. So there's no hard costs that I could find in the documents presented, and we're about to take all this loan. So it cost seems to be a moving target without a cap at this point, which is concerning," Hughes said.
One of the biggest concerns centered on the $10 million line of credit and its potential impact on taxpayers.
"Projects like what's proposed were point-blank are usually offered in large cities that can handle a higher risk and have deeper reserves than Wakulla does,” said Carrie Hughes.
The county plans to use 3 different grants totaling more than $21.5 million to fund the facility: $3.5 million from the Florida Job Growth Grant Fund, more than $4.5 million from the Florida Commerce Rural Infrastructure Program, and $13.5 million from the Triumph Gulf Coast Fund, which was established following the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill. The $10 million line of credit is intended to help get construction started, with the grant money used to pay it back.
Commissioner Ralph Thomas said the loan functions as a cash-flow bridge — not a long-term cost to taxpayers.
"We have a percentage of that is supposed to come here for the sole purpose of economic development and to drive jobs. And so this is a textbook example of what that money was set up for. And so our goal is to utilize that money. We did have to borrow 10 million, but what that's for is just to make sure we can cash flow," Thomas said.
Thomas pointed to a similar approach the county has used before.
"A few years ago, we got about $120 million in state grants. Well, that money has to be funded up front, so our board approved up to $100 million loan. Now we never borrowed the entire 100 million, but we would borrow 30 million, and then we would complete a project with that 30 million we get reimbursed from the state. So this is the exact same thing. We're going to borrow this $10 million in case we need it. So we can front any cost, submit receipts to the state, to BP, to get reimbursed," Thomas said.
The county also acknowledged that if Florida Job Growth Grant Fund requirements are not met, it could lose around $3.5 million. Officials say they have been meeting with Florida Commerce to prevent that from happening.
Residents also questioned whether the 300 promised jobs would go to Wakulla County residents.
"So where are these 300 people coming from that are gonna be working here? If we don't have people already to work in two industries here, and one of them again is a state job, that has very good benefits,” said Stephanie Mosely
Schmidt said it is in Point Blank's direct interest to hire locally.
"Obviously, I understand the concern, and our concern also was, you know, we have to ramp up to 300 jobs within five years of the completion of the building, and that's our agreement. And what we don't ramp up to, we have to pay back the grant money, so we're on the hook for that not Wakulla. And so it is in our interest to make sure we ramp up to 300 jobs, and that will come primarily from Wakulla," Schmidt said.
Representatives with Point Blank plan to visit Wakulla Academy to explore how the two organizations can work together to build a local pipeline of workers.
Two of the grants were presented to Wakulla County when Governor Ron DeSantis visited in June to announce the project.
Schmidt said Point Blank will work with the county to share information about open positions at the facility at some point in the future. While no official construction start date has been set, commissioners hope to break ground later this year.
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