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Economic Yearbook 2007
NORTHWEST: Playing off its Strengths
Northwest Florida is playing up its military strength.
Regional Trends
BIOTECH: Okaloosa County business and military leaders unveiled plans in January for the 98-acre Emerald Coast Technology & Research Campus just outside the west gate of Eglin Air Force Base. "This is our little Silicon Valley,'' says Okaloosa- Walton College Vice President David Goetsch. ... In February, Green Circle Bio Energy, a Florida-based subsidiary of Swedish corporation JCE Group, announced it's building a $100-million wood pellet plant in Jackson County for generating electricity in Europe. ... In March, the Andrews Institute for Orthopaedics & Sports Medicine in Gulf Breeze -- the $40-million product of a sports surgeon's skills and vision -- capped construction with the opening of a research center, creating a place for the region's life sciences businesses to showcase their work. "Life sciences will be our big growth area for the next 20 years -- it plays off the strengths that are already here," says Al Wenstrand, executive director of Florida's Great Northwest, a Destin-based 16-county economic development agency. "Most of what we will see deals with medical device manufacturing or with the software side of medical technology, areas supported by what's going on in the aerospace industry.''
ENERGY: On the horizon: Additional wood-based alternative energy projects, including conversion of cellulose to ethanol -- "this really has the ability to revive the timber industry in the region,'' Wenstrand says. ... And Green Circle, says President Olaf Roed, expects to build more plants in northwest Florida. "We want to be a major player in the renewable energies.''
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St . Joe Innovations
Among this year's out-of-the-ordinary from landowner St. Joe Co.:
? A prebuilt house assembled in a day. The home, constructed at WaterSound in Walton County, is a Haven Homes off-site built model using factory-made components. It will be a featured Idea House in Southern Living magazine.
? A fast-round golf course with six holes and three sets of tees. The course, designed by professional player Davis Love III , will open at WaterSound this spring.
? A town center design with interpretations by six architects. Six buildings, representing individual takes on the region's indigenous architecture, will begin opening this summer at WindMark Beach in Gulf County.
? A restoration project returning woods to the way Hernando DeSoto found them in 1539. St. Joe is converting industrial pine forest to the region's original forestlands at a 7,000-acre site at Breakfast Point in Bay County, where the National Audubon Society is partnering with St. Joe to build a state-of-the-art nature center.