Home Depot's growing reach into the contractor supply business has produced two new developments in Florida.

According to SP Times, the Atlanta-based home improvement retailer struck a deal to gobble up another lumber yard, 350-employee Forest Products Supply Inc. in Sarasota.

Meantime, state government and city leaders in Orlando are trying to fill a honey-pot with up to $250-million in tax incentives to lure Home Depot's Supply Division headquarters after the recently-acquired Hughes Supply Inc. there is integrated into its new corporate parent, according to an Orlando Sentinel report.

Based on unnamed sources, the report said the players involved with negotiations are mum because they signed confidentiality agreements. They also reported the incentive package could add up to more than $400-million over several years.

Rather than lose thousands of Hughes jobs now that one of the city's two Fortune 500 companies is part of Home Depot Inc., Orlando leaders and state economic development officials are trying to preserve them and land up to 3,000 more jobs for what Home Depot hopes to transform into a $23-billion to $27-billion business unit by 2010.