Industries — St. Petersburg, Florida

St. Petersburg's economy, as documented by the St. Petersburg Area Economic Development Corporation (SPEDC), is anchored by financial services, advanced manufacturing, marine and life sciences, healthcare, and a growing technology sector. With a population of 260,646 as of the U.S. Census Bureau ACS 2023, the city ranks as the fifth-largest in Florida and supports an employment base that is notable within the state for its concentration of corporate headquarters and research institutions. Three Fortune 500 companies—Raymond James Financial, Jabil, and Foot Locker—maintain global headquarters in St. Petersburg, a distinction the SPEDC notes makes the Tampa Bay metro area second only to Miami in Florida for Fortune 500 headquarters concentration. The city's 260 miles of shoreline, documented by the SPEDC, are integral not only to its character but to a marine and environmental science sector that the SPEDC describes as the largest such concentration in the southeastern United States. This breadth of industries—from multinational manufacturing to federally affiliated oceanographic research—reflects an economic repositioning that gained momentum over the final decades of the twentieth century and has accelerated since the 2010s.

Raymond James Financial, founded in St. Petersburg in 1962, is documented by the SPEDC as the first major financial services firm established outside Wall Street. As of the SPEDC's published data, Raymond James holds more than $1.7 trillion in client assets and employs more than 20,000 workers worldwide, with its global headquarters and a major operational campus in St. Petersburg. The firm's presence has made financial services one of the city's defining industries, attracting supporting firms in wealth management, insurance, and fintech.

Jabil, a global electronics contract manufacturer, maintains its headquarters in the Gateway/Carillon area north of downtown. The SPEDC homepage documents Jabil as a Fortune 500 company operating more than 100 facilities across 25 countries and employing more than 140,000 workers worldwide. Jabil's operations span advanced manufacturing in aerospace, defense, healthcare, and consumer electronics—sectors the SPEDC identifies as core to the city's advanced manufacturing cluster.

In 2024, Foot Locker announced the relocation of its global headquarters to St. Petersburg, as reported by Florida Construction News. This addition brought the city's Fortune 500 headquarters count to three, placing it alongside only Miami in Florida for that designation, per the SPEDC.

The SPEDC identifies five primary industry clusters in St. Petersburg: financial services, advanced manufacturing, marine and life sciences, healthcare, and technology and data analytics.

Financial services, led by Raymond James, encompasses a broad ecosystem of investment advisory, insurance, and related professional services firms that have grown alongside the anchor company. The SPEDC documents this cluster as one of the city's most established economic drivers.

Advanced manufacturing is anchored by Jabil and is characterized by production in aerospace, defense, and healthcare device segments, distinguishing it from commodity manufacturing. The SPEDC notes the presence of a Maritime and Defense Technology Hub within the city's Innovation District as a formal organizing structure for this cluster.

Marine and environmental science represents one of St. Petersburg's most geographically distinctive sectors. The SPEDC documents St. Petersburg as home to the largest concentration of marine and environmental science professionals in the southeastern United States. This cluster is grounded in the University of South Florida's College of Marine Science, the Florida Institute of Oceanography, and multiple federal and state research agencies, all of which operate in or adjacent to the Innovation District along the Tampa Bay waterfront.

Healthcare is anchored institutionally by Johns Hopkins All Children's Hospital—which the SPEDC identifies as the top-ranked children's hospital in Florida—and by Bayfront Health. These institutions also function as research partners within the Innovation District's collaborative network.

Technology and data analytics represent the city's most recent growth cluster. The SPEDC documents active growth in this area, supported by the Innovation District's convening infrastructure and the presence of research universities.

The St. Petersburg Innovation District, established in 2016 as a public-private partnership, occupies roughly one square mile south of downtown. According to the St. Pete Catalyst, the district includes more than 50 member organizations. The SPEDC identifies its anchor institutions as the University of South Florida St. Petersburg campus (including the College of Marine Science), Johns Hopkins All Children's Hospital, Bayfront Health, the Poynter Institute for Media Studies, the Maritime and Defense Technology Hub, and the Dalí Museum—whose inclusion reflects the district's intentional integration of arts and cultural institutions alongside research organizations.

The district hosts the annual State of Science event, held at USF St. Petersburg and Johns Hopkins All Children's Hospital, which ilovetheburg.com describes as a public showcase of the district's research and technology work across marine science, healthcare, and defense-related fields. The Florida Institute of Oceanography operates within this geography, conducting oceanographic and environmental research that leverages St. Petersburg's waterfront position on Tampa Bay, one of the most studied marine estuaries in the southeastern United States.

The district's public-private structure, documented by the St. Pete Downtown Partnership, creates formal membership ties between research universities, hospitals, federal agencies, defense contractors, and cultural institutions—a model that the SPEDC presents as a distinguishing feature of the city's industrial development strategy.

Beyond its large corporate anchors, St. Petersburg's industrial landscape includes significant small and mid-size business activity organized across identifiable geographic corridors. The Gateway/Carillon employment corridor, situated north of downtown along the U.S. 19 corridor, is documented by the City of St. Petersburg as supporting more than 2,700 businesses and 60,000 employees. Raymond James Financial and Jabil are both anchored in this corridor, alongside a wide range of professional services, retail, and light manufacturing operations.

In South St. Petersburg, the City administers the South St. Pete Community Redevelopment Area Microfund Program, which targets small business development in a historically underserved area of the city. According to The Weekly Challenger, the program assisted 196 small businesses in 2024 and allocated more than $1.5 million in that year. The program is administered by the City of St. Petersburg as part of its broader equity-centered economic development framework, articulated under Mayor Ken Welch's stated priorities since his inauguration in January 2022.

The labor force context for these businesses, as reported by the U.S. Census Bureau ACS 2023, includes a citywide unemployment rate of 4.9 percent and a labor force participation rate of 72.8 percent. Among residents 25 and older, 26.1 percent hold a bachelor's degree or higher, a figure that reflects the educational profile of a workforce serving financial services, healthcare, and research-intensive industries.

In 2024, Foot Locker's announced relocation of its global headquarters to St. Petersburg represented the most significant corporate headquarters development in the city in recent years, as reported by Florida Construction News. The relocation elevated the city to three Fortune 500 headquarters, a threshold that the SPEDC notes is significant within the Florida business landscape.

Also in 2024, the city faced substantial disruption from back-to-back hurricanes. Hurricane Helene struck on September 26, 2024, followed by Hurricane Milton on October 9, 2024, which as a Category 3 storm made landfall near Siesta Key. Milton's winds, exceeding 100 mph, destroyed all but six of Tropicana Field's roof panels, as documented by WFLA. The City of St. Petersburg subsequently obligated approximately $55 million for roof repairs, per St. Pete Rising. On December 5, 2024, the St. Petersburg City Council voted unanimously to terminate the previously signed $6.5 billion redevelopment agreement with the Tampa Bay Rays and developer Hines for the 86-acre Historic Gas Plant District site, leaving the redevelopment of that central land holding unresolved.

In Mayor Welch's 2025 State of the City address, as reported by Florida Construction News, the city recorded $1.4 billion in new construction citywide. The administration also announced the St. Pete Agile Resilience Plan, a $750 million resilience infrastructure investment pipeline aimed at climate hardening. As of March 2026, WUSF reported that Mayor Welch confirmed the city intends to begin developing the Historic Gas Plant District after 2028, a site whose redevelopment carries both economic significance—as a large infill parcel adjacent to downtown—and civic weight given its history as a displaced Black neighborhood.