Tallahassee will continue leaning into the Florida stereotype of being a hotspot for retirees.
Choose Tallahassee is focused on bringing more baby boomers to the city. They gave a presentation to city commissioners on Tuesday outlining the program’s successes and to ask for more investment.
See the Choose Tallahassee website here.
The project is funded by public and private institutions. The City of Tallahassee put in $20,000 to help fund two years of the marketing program in 2011.
Four years later the organization’s Chair Dave Bruns jokingly told city commissioners, “We’ve given you a 50 percent discount, four years for the price of two”
Of course money from the city is not their only form of funding. The group has brought in $100,000 from donors.
In addition to The City of Tallahassee, Capital City Bank, Tallahassee Memorial Healthcare, Capital Health Plan, the Leon County Board of County Commissioners and a number of smaller donors have contributed to the project.
The progress report makes an interesting claim: ” even if only three-tenths of one percent of those retirees [baby boomers] relocated to Tallahassee, they would add at least $1 billion per year in income to our local economy”
Let’s take a look at that.
It sounds like a very small percentage, but out of the 75.4 million baby boomers that tiny three tenths of a percent is 226,200 people which tops Tallahassee’s current population of 188,107. To bring in that $1 billion the size of Tallahassee would have to more than double. This is unlikely, but we can use these numbers to estiamte the local economic impact of the Choose Tallahassee program.
The progress report shows that more and more baby boomers have been moving to Tallahassee.
Using Florida Driver’s license data, the group provided information that showed people over 60 years old moving to Tallahassee, since Choose Tallahassee began in 2011, has increased by approximately 70%. Records show that 461 people over 60 moved to Tallahassee from out of state in 2014.
If their $1 billion figure is correct, relocating baby boomers have added more than $6.6 million to the local economy since the project began in 2011.
While the report was upfront with its projections and estimates, it stresses the importance of finding better measurements to describe what is driving baby boomers to the city and how many have actually decided to relocate.
The city voted unanimously to keep funding the program pledging $10,000 over two years in hopes of drawing more retirement-age people to Tallahassee.
Choose Tallahassee Gets City Funding to Attract Aging Baby Boomers added by Staff on
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I moved here for a second career and retirement in Florida. I’ve been here 3 years and can tell you, I can’t wait to retire somewhere else. The healthcare is substandard, there is nothing to do, it’s cold, and oh, the hidden taxes for services I get no benefit from. Forgot my kids and grandkids can’t afford to fly to visit.
When’s the first 55+ neighborhood going to be built?
The punch in the face to the retirees that move here is the hidden property taxes in the utility bills and the wasteful spending of the local government.
When they find out that a decent beach is over 2 hours away and the long summers are terribly hot and humid void of any breeze — and a lack of culture — they will regret moving here!
A big reason the City wants retirees is very simple; the career making job market in this town is very poor and a retiree does not require a job yet brings money to the economy.