While much of the activity has taken place in major metropolitan areas, one of the largest projects under construction is in Marianna, a rural community in Northwest Florida.

Family Dollar Stores Inc. picked the Jackson County site for a $50 million distribution center that will serve 800 of the company’s discount stores in Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi and Louisiana.

The 907,000 square foot facility will employ more than 400 people when it becomes operational early next year..

Family Dollar looked at 80 sites before narrowing its decision to Marianna and Cordele, Ga., said Tom Lawton, a site consultant.

“Some companies, particularly in the case of Family Dollar, place a great premium on the chemistry they develop with local community leaders,” Lawton said. “They want to know that there are competent people who can take the bull by the horns when they’re not around.”

Other key factors working in Florida’s favor were transportation, the labor market and more than $6 million in financial incentives offered by federal, state and local agencies.

“The two most important criteria were transportation infrastructure and work force availability,” said Charlie Gibson, executive vice president of supply chain for Family Dollar. “The company was favorably impressed by both sites, but Florida’s aggressiveness and labor availability were the overarching reasons behind our decision.”

In Orlando, cable giant Adelphia Communications took the first call at its new customer service center in Orange County earlier this year after the site beat out Yuma, Ariz., in a national search.

“The main factor was our recruiting ability in Orlando,” said Jorge Tovar, director of Adelphia’s National Sales Center. “We just felt the opportunity to recruit people was a bit stronger here with such a well-educated work force.”

Another factor was the affordable real estate.

“It’s not the cheapest, but it’s very competitive,” Tovar said. “Orlando is also a multiethnic, multinational area, which is helpful in recruiting a bilingual staff.”

The call center will employ 450 people later this year.

State Farm Insurance is expected to bring hundreds of new jobs to the Jacksonville metro after the Illinois-based insurer announced it will move positions from a variety of locations across the United States to four existing locations — Jacksonville, Bloomington, Ill.; Murfreesboro, Tenn.; and Birmingham, Ala.

There’s no timeline for the relocations and no exact count on how many positions will be added at each location, said Bruce Billings, a corporate human resource manager for State Farm.

Billings said key factors in choosing Jacksonville as one of the four sites was an available labor market, a high quality of life and company’s existing presence in the community.

State Farm currently has about 900 employees at it Jacksonville Operations Center.

“There’s a reasonable cost of living here and a strong labor market,” Billings said. “Since we’ve been in Florida since 1934, we’re a well-known, reputable and stable company where people want to work.”

Merrill Lynch, a Jacksonville fixture since 1992, will add 125 positions from its New York and New Jersey offices. Florida’s skilled work force, access to universities and the state’s business-friendly environment were key reasons for the expansion, said Bill Briddy, a spokesman for Merrill Lynch.

Further south, along the Atlantic seaboard, Scripps Research Institute is establishing a major science center in Palm Beach County, focusing on biomedical research, technology development and drug design.

The expansion is expected to boost Florida’s biosciences industries, just as the existing Scripps campus in La Jolla, Calif., has stimulated similar growth in Southern California.

“Scripps has been approached a number of times to expand to locations throughout the country and around the world, but this was the first time that all the elements were right,” said Keith McKeown, vice president of communications for Scripps. “It was a combination of the inducement of funds from the state, the available land in Palm Beach County and the idea of being in at the beginning of creating a new biomedical industry in Florida.”

According to McKeown, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush contacted Richard Lerner, president of Scripps, about jump-starting the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries in Florida, saying Bush wanted to use all of his federal economic development dollars on one project.

“He convinced the Florida legislature to provide $310 million to cover startup costs, and also provided the funds to cover the cost of building a 364,000 square feet facility on 100 acres in Palm Beach County,” McKeown said.

Scripps is required to have at least 545 employees by 2011, but McKeown saw little reason why that number couldn’t be even greater.

In La Jolla, Scripps employs 3,000 people and is responsible for attracting nearly 500 biomedical companies to the region, 200 of which are located within 15 miles of the Scripps campus.

“It took us 20 years to do that in Southern California,” McKeown said. “Since we’ve done it before, we expect to reach those same kinds of numbers much faster in Florida.”

Firms Expand in Miami

In nearby Miami, Alienware recently increased its operations as the computer maker continued to make market-share gains.

“Alienware is a fast-growing company and Miami has a very good IT infrastructure, which helps facilitate our growth needs,” said Nelson Gonzalez, CEO of Alienware.

Alienware designs and manufactures high-performance computers that cater to different markets.

The company considered sites in New Mexico and Nevada before deciding on Miami.

“When we looked at all the other locations we felt that even though those states had very good incentive packages and readily available industrial space, wages would’ve been slightly higher than those of Miami for manufacturing jobs,” Gonzalez said.

Miami also provided Alienware with a convenient shipping location to Latin America and Europe.

“Miami being a large metropolitan city and a portal into Latin America and Europe had the distribution centers readily available,” Gonzalez said. “Having distribution centers, or hubs, close to us enables us to scale efficiently and not have to manage inventory, which is very costly.”

More than 750 multinational corporations call the Miami metro home, attracted by the city’s easy worldwide access, skilled work force and pro-business environment.

Kraft Foods International Inc. will relocate its Latin American regional headquarters to Coral Gables in the Miami metro from Rye Brook, N.Y.

Kraft Foods markets many of the world’s leading food brands in more than 150 countries, including Kraft cheese, Maxwell House and Jacobs coffees, Nabisco cookies and crackers, Oscar Mayer meats, Philadelphia cream cheese, and Post cereals.

Kraft will have a capital investment of more than $2 million in Miami-Dade County.

The company is expected to create nearly 100 full-time jobs within the first two years of operation and plans to occupy about 35,000 square feet of office space.

The Beacon Council, Miami-Dade County’s economic development partnership, assisted Kraft Foods International with a Qualified Target Industry Tax Refund.

Kraft’s decision to move its Latin American regional headquarters to Miami makes sense. Miami has been voted the Best City to do Business in Latin America by AmericaEconomia magazine for three consecutive years.

“The move of our regional headquarters to the Miami area brings us closer to our markets in Latin America, which enables us to focus even greater energy on delivering superior products and service to consumers in the region,” said Gustavo Abelenda, group vice president and president, Latin America Region for Kraft Foods. “We are pleased with the cooperation and support we have received from the city of Coral Gables. We look forward to becoming an active member of the community.”

Meanwhile, Skytruck Co. will locate its aviation manufacturing operations at the Florida Tradeport in Immokalee, Fla.

With a commitment to create 30 new jobs in Collier County during the next five years and a proposed capital investment of $4.5 million, Skytruck is eligible to receive $90,000 in incentives under the Collier County Job Creation Investment Program.

The company also qualifies to participate in the county’s Fee Payment Assistance Program, which will provide an incentive in an amount not to exceed the impact fees of the proposed development plan, estimated at $120,000.

Skytruck works in collaboration with Polish company PZL-Mielec, which makes a variety of agricultural and fire-fighting planes, passenger and cargo commuters, and trainer aircraft.

Current plans call for rough or “green” planes that are manufactured in Poland to be flown to the Florida Tradeport where Skytruck will add the finishing elements, including avionics and interior systems.

USAA, a large insurance and financial services company, will add about 280 employees at its Tampa Bay metro location by the end of the year.

USAA is a San Antonio, Texas,-based member-owned financial services company that markets to current and former members of the U.S. military and their families. It employs 21,000 workers, including 1,600 in New Tampa.

The company said increased customer demand for insurance and other financial service products prompted the hiring.

The first priority will be to hire 44 employees during the next three months to handle insurance claims. An additional 240 people will be needed over the balance of the year to fill entry-level claims and customer service positions.

The Tampa office serves Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina and Tennessee..