Greenhouses may skip St. Lucie

When Doug Morgan died of a heart attack at an Atlanta airport in December, it rattled his start-up hydroponics company, Pure Produce Greenhouses Inc.

Yet his death was not what prompted the Pompano Beach firm to reconsider its year-old plans to build greenhouses on 20 acres at St. Lucie County's fledgling research park west of Fort Pierce.

The real reason: hurricane season.

Bedeviled by thoughts of a Category 5 hurricane's flooding Florida's east coast, the firm's surviving founder, Ron Tuttle, is scouting better-protected regions across the country as sites for the vegetable greenhouses and research labs.

As an alternative to the St. Lucie County Research and Education Park, spots he is eyeing include an area north of Panama City at an elevation of about 300 feet.

"We've already gone up and visited the place once or twice," Tuttle said, declining to name a specific location in Florida's Panhandle.

Though Pure Produce intends to build wind-resistant greenhouses, Tuttle said he worries about the flood damage a major storm could cause, even miles inland.

"We've tried to make it as hurricane-proof as possible with designs. But good heavens, if we get hammered with a Category 5, there are going to be some consequences," he said.

Larry Daum, St. Lucie County's economic development manager, said he talked with Tuttle on Monday and told him that natural disasters pose a threat anywhere in the country.

"It's there, and it could happen. Just as if you go to the West Coast, there's this thing called earthquakes," Daum said. "I think you just try and prepare for it the best you can."

Pure Produce is a good fit for the park, which is home to a U.S. Department of Agriculture horticultural research laboratory, Daum said.

The county has been working for more than a year to lure private businesses to the 1,800-acre park, and Pure Produce emerged as one of two early prospects.

A hydroponics firm there could help accelerate government-led research at the park, said Anita Neal, director of the St. Lucie County Cooperative Extension.

Tuttle and Morgan announced early last year that they planned to build a $17.5 million cluster of hurricane-resistant, climate-controlled vegetable greenhouses at the park off Kings Highway.

Morgan also had talked with local officials about building greenhouses on another 600 acres at the Cloud Grove development in northern St. Lucie County, Daum said. Those plans are on hold, too.

Tuttle wants to see how threatening the 2006 hurricane season looks before making a final decision.

"We want to be there," he said of St. Lucie County, "but we just simply have to wait and see what is going to transpire this summer."

By EVE SAMPLES