The Lakeland Economic Development Council’s primary role is to create jobs by attracting and helping industry expand in the Lakeland, Florida area, a city with more than 250,000 residents. The LEDC provides real estate resources and relocation assistance to new industries and existing companies, as well provide demographic and workforce information on Lakeland to prospective companies, real estate brokers and site consultants. The LEDC is a private, non-profit community based membership organization with 150 member companies. The financial support and investment of our members is the key to our existence and success. The LEDC was one of the first EDCs in the country to list all available industrial and office buildings in the Lakeland market on our website, www.lakelandedc.com in the late 1990s. In addition, the LEDC has a comprehensive inventory of every industrial/warehouse building in the Lakeland market, which comprises more than 600 buildings and more than 28 million square feet. Development Activity Between 1989 and 2011, Lakeland has absorbed more than 41,000,000 square feet and created over 23,000 jobs with more than $1 billion dollars in capital investments.