There were 158,654 people working in Leon County in February compared to January’s revised employment number of 156,764. The size of the workforce in February was 166,9120, up from the 165,083 reported in February.

End of year reports show that Leon County finished 2025 with an average unemployment rate of 4.1% with an average of 158,233 people employed and an annual average workforce of 165,000.

Year Over Year Comparisons

The Leon County Jobs Report, provided below, shows the number of people working in February 2026 was 1,220 less than in February 2025. The February labor force – those looking for jobs – came in at 166,912 which was 1,285 more than reported one year ago.

The February unemployment rate of 4.9% is up from the 3.5% reported one year ago. At the state level, the February unemployment rate of 4.8% was up from the 3.5% reported one year ago.

The chart below shows the monthly level of jobs in Leon County over the last 37 months with a 12-month average trend line. The highlighted numbers relate to employment levels for the month of February back to 2023.

There were 58 permits issued in March 2026, compared to 46 permits issued one year ago. There were 37 permits issued last month, February 2026.

The 3-Mnth Avg. data (Jan. – Mar.), which smooths out the month-to-month volatility, shows a 2.6% decrease in the number of permits issued over the same 3-month period one year ago.

The 3-Mnth Avg. data show a 2.4% increase in monthly average permit value during this period. The 3-month average permit values increased from $12.7 million in March 2026 to $13.0 million in March 2026.

The chart below shows the number of permits issued each month for the last 37-month period. A 3-Month Ave. line is also included. The highlighted numbers relate to permits issued in the month of March back to 2023.

The chart shows that the 3-month average declining trend that began in June 2025 has been reversed. However, the year-to-date (YTD) numbers through March show 2026 permits (123) lagging permits issued during the start of 2025 (143).

The attendees heard presentations detailing trends across the retail, industrial and office sectors. The overall message: Tallahassee’s commercial economy is stable but showing limited momentum.

Ed Murray, president of NAI TALCOR, described the local economy as neither booming nor declining, but largely flat. He suggested the city should continue leaning into housing development — particularly near universities — to meet demand from students and young professionals seeking walkable neighborhoods.

“There are 40,000 students at FSU, and there are probably 15,000 beds around campus,” Murray said, noting that lifestyle preferences are driving demand for new residential projects.

Office Market Shows Limited Growth

Commercial brokers reported roughly 100,000 square feet of vacant office space among approximately 850,000 square feet of downtown inventory spread across nine buildings. While some tenant movement is occurring, most activity involves companies relocating in search of more favorable terms.

John McNeil, a principal with NAI TALCOR, said a key indicator of sluggish growth is the absence of new construction. “Not a single new office building has been completed since our last market update in 2025,” McNeil said. “Maybe we’re not growing jobs at a rate that’s fast enough.”

Murray agreed, calling the lack of new office development a sign of a flat employment market.

Retail Remains a Bright Spot in Certain Areas

Retail development continues to show the strongest demand, particularly in Midtown and northeast Tallahassee. Restaurant space remains especially attractive to national and regional tenants due to relatively quick turnover and consistent consumer demand.

Interest is also growing near the campuses of Florida State University and Florida A&M University, where food and beverage concepts are expanding along West Tennessee and Gaines streets.

Two shopping centers — Carriage Gate in northeast Tallahassee and Miracle Plaza in Midtown — are fully leased, reflecting sustained retail demand in established commercial corridors. Murray noted that new major shopping centers have been built resulting in many national brands constructing stand-alone locations.

Murray Addresses Challenges, Politics

Despite positive indicators in certain sectors, Murray cautioned that the broader economy remains constrained by slow job growth and uncertainty. “We’ve got all the hardware you need,” he said. “We have great universities, great people, great infrastructure. Our problem is the inability to connect the pieces and make us great.” He described the local economy as “bouncy,” meaning businesses are delaying major decisions while monitoring state and global economic pressures, particularly during an election year.

Ahead of the 2026 election cycle, Murray said elected leaders should avoid what he called “negative chaos,” aka negative self-talk. He added all sides of the political spectrum engage in that, especially during an election year, which can damage long term business interests.

The tourist development tax is a 5 percent levy on short-term lodging that funds tourism marketing, cultural grants, sports event recruitment and visitor infrastructure. Such programs generated an estimated $1.43 billion in local economic impact and supported more than 12,000 jobs last year. The revenue complements the County’s broader economic development investments without drawing on property tax dollars.

“Record collections aren’t just a line on a spreadsheet; they represent real jobs, real paychecks and real investment flowing into Leon County because visitors are choosing to come here,” Leon County Commission Chairman Christian Caban said. “That’s economic development funded by visitors, not property taxpayers.”

According to the release, February collections have nearly tripled over the past decade, rising from roughly $331,000 in February 2015 to $821,622 this year. The month’s record is part of a broader trajectory: the County posted record annual tourist development tax collections in fiscal year 2025, with overall economic impact growing 8.4 percent and surpassing the County’s five-year Bold Goal of $5 billion one year ahead of schedule. Even the COVID-19 pandemic, which drove February 2021 collections down 45 percent, proved only a temporary setback — the County surpassed pre-pandemic levels by fiscal year 2022 and has posted year-over-year growth every year since.

“This record is the direct result of the County’s sustained investment in our tourism marketing and the nearly 120 local events we support through our grant programs each year,” Leon County Administrator Vincent S. Long said. “When our tourism economy grows, every Leon County resident benefits.”

February’s strong performance comes ahead of the spring season, typically among the strongest collection periods of the year, driven by legislative session visitors, Springtime Tallahassee and spring sporting events .

“February’s tax collections highlight the sustained appeal of Tallahassee-Leon County as a premier destination for travelers seeking unique experiences,” said Kerri L. Post, director of Leon County Tourism. “These positive figures underscore the strength of our local tourism economy and the effectiveness of our collaborative marketing efforts to showcase the community’s depth and charm.”

Bed tax revenue funds programs that benefit residents and visitors alike. In the current grant cycle, the Tourist Development Council awarded $794,800 to support nearly 120 local special, legacy, art and cultural, and sporting events . The tax also funds tourism marketing through the Leon County Division of Tourism/Visit Tallahassee and cultural programming through the Council on Culture and Arts. Last year, Leon County welcomed nearly 2.6  million visitors who collectively supported more than 12,000  local jobs.

Tourist development tax reports are prepared monthly by the Leon County Tax Collector and reviewed by the Tourist Development Council. To learn more about the Leon County Division of Tourism, visit VisitTallahassee.com or LeonCountyFL.gov/Tourism. For more information, contact Mathieu Cavell, Leon County Community and Media Relations, at (850) 606-5300 or CMR@LeonCountyFL.gov.

The recent declining trend comes after a 4-year period when taxable sales increased by 21.1%, up from $886M in June 2021 to a $1.073B annual rate in June 2025.

At this year’s event, attendees will hear from industry experts as they share current market trends, new developments, and offer a forecast of what’s to come in the commercial real estate sector.

Why Attend?

Stay up to date on the latest commercial real estate trends and market data.
Network with fellow professionals, business owners, and decision-makers.
Discover new projects and developments shaping Tallahassee’s commercial landscape.
Build lasting relationships that can drive future success.

Event Details:

Date: March 30, 2026
Time: 4:30 PM – 7:30 PM
Location: The Moon Event Center, Tallahassee, FL
We hope you will join us at this exclusive event!

Agenda
4:30 PM – 5:30 PM
Drinks and Networking

5:30 PM – 6:30 PM
Tallahassee Market Update

6:30 PM – 7:30 PM
Stay and Talk To Our Professionals and Network

The release noted that “Danielle is a seasoned healthcare communications and marketing leader with deep roots in the Tallahassee community. She brings extensive experience helping healthcare organizations grow, transform, and connect meaningfully with patients and stakeholders.”

Most recently, Danielle served as Senior Marketing Director for Diagnostic Services at Quest Diagnostics. Many in our community will also remember her impactful nearly decade-long tenure at TMH, where she led marketing, communications, and media relations.

Danielle holds a degree in economics from the University of Vermont and a healthcare marketing certificate from the Society for Health Care Strategy & Market Development. She has proudly called Tallahassee home for more than 20 years with her husband and their two sons.

Relative to 2025, the Passenger Traffic Report shows year-over-year passenger counts in February were down 0.6% for American Airlines and up 9.1% for the Delta Group. Impacting the numbers was the fact that Silver Airways ended service in June 2025. Jet Blue ended service in November 2024.

The graph below shows the annualized number of passengers for the last 37-months. The highlighted numbers on the graph indicate the annual traffic during the month of November over the last four years. The annual rate of passengers at TIA in February 2026 – 893,630 – is down 7.14% when compared to one year ago (962,354). The annualized number of passengers is calculated by summing the previous 12 months of traffic.

At the state level, Florida sales tax revenues increased 12.0% in January when compared to last year.

The Taxable Sales Report below shows that Leon county’s aggregate spending over the last 12-months ($5.4872 billion) was 3.8% less than the aggregate 12-month spending reported in January 2025 ($5.7037 billion).

At the state-level, annual spending as of January 2026 increased 0.20% when compared to annual spending one year ago.

The chart below compares the growth rates in aggregate spending for the previous 12-months in Leon County for the month of January over the last four years.

Florida State University researcher Paul Bupe is developing an interactive intersection safety system, a project for which he must analyze thousands of satellite images, fisheye camera photos and maps — more than 1.7 million unique objects each with its own metadata.

To handle all that data, he uses Amazon Web Services, or AWS.

Bupe earned seed funding for AWS through an internal FSU program last year and accessed the tools through a partnership with FSU Information Technology Services.

Bupe recently shared his experiences at the FSU-AWS Researcher Showcase and Awards, a celebration of research excellence and an opportunity for the FSU community to learn more about the high-powered research tools available through the partnership.

 “Without AWS, we wouldn’t have been able to make this research happen,” said Bupe, who works with FAMU-FSU College of Engineering Associate Professor Moses Olugbenga on PREDISS, a Predictive Intersection Safety System project.

Bupe and Olugbenga used Amazon’s cloud computing tools for data storage, object detection, autolabeling and other tasks. Their goal is to improve safety at intersections by predicting collisions between vehicles and pedestrians with enough time to allow for interventions to stop a crash.

Through the partnership, they were able to access more computing power on their schedule to train their own models to handle millions of objects.

“In AI and machine learning, data is the most valuable thing,” Bupe said. “This gave us the capabilities that truly allowed for innovation.”

Other researchers from the Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering and the Department of Computer Science who have used AWS in their work shared their experiences with fellow researchers at the event.

“Our goal as a technology provider and an industry partner is to help accelerate researchers’ work at a low cost,” said AWS Senior Leader Michael Curry. “As one of our presenters said, ‘I don’t need this to be a six-month project. I want it to be a six-day or six-week project.’ They’re trying to accelerate that time to science, and that is what this technology is helping to accomplish.”

“This partnership is a powerful example of how Florida State is delivering on the strategic vision of President McCullough by investing in the technology infrastructure that drives cutting-edge research,” said Associate Vice President & Chief Information Officer Jonathan A. Fozard. “Removing traditional compute barriers and broadening access to secure cloud and AI tools allows our researchers and scholars to move faster, design transformative research and secure the large-scale grants that empower long-term impact.”

The FSU Office of Research and FSU Information Technology Services recognized 11 researchers from across campus as 2026 FSU/AWS Research Acceleration Fund Awardees for their exceptional creativity, impact and technical excellence in leveraging AWS cloud computing to advance scientific discovery. Winners came from departments across campus: social work; computer science; educational psychology and learning systems; geography; urban and regional planning; scientific computing; health, nutrition and food science; civil and environmental engineering; and communication science and disorders. Each received up to $20,000 in AWS credits.

“Modern research is increasingly data-intensive. Whether we are talking about quantum materials, generative AI or predictive safety systems, the lab is no longer just a physical space — it is a digital one,” said Vice President for Research Stacey Patterson.

Cloud computing tools help researchers turn those piles of information into impactful discoveries.

“This partnership demonstrates the art of the possible,” Patterson said. “Our goal is simple but ambitious: we want to provide FSU researchers with a world-class environment that accelerates discovery.”

Under its lease agreement with Leon County, Domi must submit an annual report detailing incubator programs, membership and economic impact. The nonprofit operates Domi Station, a 7,700-square-foot county-owned warehouse that once housed election equipment. The facility opened in 2014 as part of a public-private partnership that included Florida State University and Florida A&M University.

The county leases the property to Domi at a below-market rate in exchange for incubation management services. Under a lease renewed in 2022 and effective through 2027, Domi pays a $1 annual base rent plus maintenance reimbursements. In FY 2025, the organization paid $2,041 in rent and maintenance costs.

According to the report, businesses supported by Domi generated $7.9 million in overall economic impact between Oct. 1, 2024, and Sept. 30, 2025. Member companies reported $2.53 million in revenue, contributed nearly $214,000 in state and local taxes, and created or retained 32 jobs. Since 2020, Domi members have generated a cumulative $466 million in economic impact.

The incubator served 70 coworking members during the fiscal year, provided 147 mentor sessions and supported 38 startups through its incubation program. Sixteen companies expanded beyond Domi’s direct support. Domi also hosted or organized 52 events, including 28 virtual sessions that drew more than 500 attendees.

Since its formation as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit in 2013, Domi has received $533,000 in county investment for facility improvements, fiber installation and programming support, including pandemic recovery funds. To date, the incubator has supported more than 396 startups and small businesses and served nearly 1,000 coworkers.

County economic development officials say collaboration with Domi will continue in FY 2026, with expanded referrals, technical workshops and strategic support aimed at strengthening Leon County’s entrepreneurial ecosystem.

The January 2026 median sales price ($345,000) is down 5.6% when compared to January 2025 ($332,500).

The chart below shows that the Tallahassee MSA 3-month average median sales price has been trending down since September 2025 when the average sales price was $346,500. Based on the January 2026 numbers, since September 2025, the 3-month average sales price has declined 3.37% to $334,800.

The number of transactions decreased from one year ago. There were 201 transactions in January 2026, down 2.9% from the 209 transactions recorded one year ago.

At the state level, Florida’s January 2026 median sales price ($405,000) was down 1.2% when compared to January 2025. Transactions were up 5.9%.