Interstate 4 feels a little shorter these days.

This asphalt ribbon once served as a reminder of the many miles separating the Tampa Bay area and Metro Orlando. Today, however, business and political leaders in both regions are looking at the highway as a bridge between two growing communities.

"You've got two fine public universities, more hotel rooms from Orlando to here than I think anywhere else in the world, tourism, industry, sports teams,'' said Russ Sloan, president of the St. Petersburg Area Chamber of Commerce. "We've got all the ingredients.''

You don't have to look hard to see signs of cooperation between the Tampa Bay area and Metro Orlando. The issue sits high on the agenda for economic development groups in both areas, including the Tampa Bay Partnership, the umbrella organization for economic groups here.

Leaders have begun to regularly attend each other's meetings. Last year, the Orlando Regional Chamber of Commerce held its annual retreat and planning program in St. Petersburg, introducing its members to business people and politicians.

Welcome To 'Orlampa'? People driving south from Orlando toward Lakeland may have seen the small sign developer Kermit Weeks has posted on his property identifying the "Future Site of Downtown Orlampa.''

It is not a sign of the future.

Economic development leaders say they don't want to merge the Tampa Bay area and Metro Orlando into one homogenous metropolis. Nor do they want to create a new political entity encompassing Orlando, Lakeland, Tampa, St. Petersburg and Clearwater.

The goal, they say, is to improve regional cooperation and coordination between the two areas, drawing on each region's economic identity to foster growth.

"Regional cooperation has proved successful in other parts of the country," said Otis White, president of Civic Strategies Inc., an Atlanta-based firm that advises cities and regions on public policy issues.

For example, San Francisco and San Jose worked together to solve transportation problems, creating a highly mobile work force for the two areas that could take advantage of the technology boom of the late 1990s, he said.

Washington, D.C., and Baltimore also cooperate on a number of issues, he said, including transportation and a recent Olympic bid.

The new spirit of cooperation between the Tampa Bay area and Metro Orlando can be traced to two recent initiatives - one, an ongoing success; the other, a well-funded failure.

The success story is the Florida High-Tech Corridor Council Inc. The failure: the Florida 2012 Olympic effort.

The High-Tech Corridor was born from one of the first major efforts to improve regional cooperation - saving an important Orlando employer - said Randy Berridge, the council's president.

In 1995, AT&T Microelectronics - now Agere Systems - was weighing two options for its Orlando-based semiconductor production plant: expand the existing facility, at a cost of $700 million, or build a facility in Spain and move operations there.

Expanding in Orlando would mean 700 new jobs, Berridge said. A move to Madrid would cost some 1,000 jobs, he said.

When it looked like AT&T was leaning toward Spain, the presidents of the University of Central Florida in Orlando and University of South Florida in Tampa banded together, committing research money and resources, and sparking a two- region effort to convince AT&T it should stay.

The effort worked.

"That was what made the difference,'' Berridge said. "The company, quite frankly, did not have that commitment or that level of expertise in Madrid.''

Agere recently announced it would lay off some 200 workers in the Orlando area. That leaves the company with about 800 employees there.

Keeping Agere led to the creation of the Florida High-Tech Corridor Council Inc. in 1996.

"Everything with AT&T was done on a reactive basis,'' Berridge said. UCF President "John Hitt and [former USF President] Betty Castor's vision was that we function as a team proactively.''

Government Aid

The newly formed council got support and money from the Florida Legislature. Its mission: foster research in high-technology industries, link economic development organizations from across the corridor, and attract, retain and grow a high-tech work force.

In its first five years, the council has pumped $25 million through the universities into 250 research and development projects in the Tampa Bay area and Metro Orlando. That investment spurred an additional $55 million in corporate and government grants.

"Think of the power when you add all of this together,'' Berridge said.

The regional cooperation fostered by the high-tech corridor is a boon for businesses.

Nancy P. Crews, president of Custom Manufacturing & Engineering Inc. in St. Petersburg, said her company teams up with USF and UCF for research and development.

Being in the corridor also means her company can draw upon a trained work force, and is located near many companies it does business, she said.

"I think that [the corridor] is important from a number of different facets,'' Crews said. "It's a natural magnet for high-tech employees.''

Custom Manufacturing builds instruments and monitoring devices for military and civilian vehicles. It recently won a Small Business Administration award for developing a power management system for military use that knows which devices to switch off, and which must remain on, when there's not enough electricity to go around.

Honeywell Space Systems in Clearwater also benefits from being part of the high-tech corridor, said senior staff design engineer Kenneth Heffner.

"I don't think we can just live in Pinellas County,'' he said. "We wouldn't want to work in a vacuum, and if we did, it would cost us more to work in that vacuum.''

Olympic Effort

Florida's Olympic ambitions didn't pan out, but planning for the 2012 summer games forced Tampa Bay and Orlando area leaders to the table again. The issues for discussion: high-speed rail, other transportation, hotel rooms, event planning, government coordination, logistics and, of course, the myriad Olympic venues that would need to be built.

As a result, the relationship between the two regions is more sophisticated and mature now than it would have been if no one had attempted to bring the Olympics here, Sloan said.

"The 2012 effort opened a lot of people's eyes to regional cooperation,'' he said. "It accelerated - by a generation - breaking down those barriers.''

Leaders from the Tampa Bay area and Metro Orlando are still trying to discover what each area has to offer the other. They're often working with myths and preconceptions that aren't true: Orlando has a Mickey Mouse economy. St. Petersburg is populated entirely by retirees.

"We've got to start sharing much more intensive data,'' said Don Upton, president of Tampa-based Fairfield Index Inc., an economic development consulting firm.

"Here we are, sitting side by side,'' Upton said, "but what we know about each other is no better than what we'd know about Charlotte [N.C.] or Austin,'' Texas.

Upton interviewed business leaders in both areas this year, and presented his findings at the Tampa Bay Partnership's most recent leadership retreat. The consensus from both areas is that people want to work toward more regional cooperation.

"After working on the High-Tech Council and the 2012 Olympics bid," people said, "We finally had a chance to interact with each other, and we liked what we saw. We would like to be in the room more often,'' Upton said.

Reporter Dave Simanoff can be reached at (813) 259-7762.