East Central Florida

ECONOMIC LIFE

Aviation/Aerospace/Defense

• Brazil-based Embraer will expand its footprint at Melbourne International Airport with an assembly plant and related facilities for its twin-engine Legacy 500 and 450 executive jets, adding 250,000 square feet and 600 jobs.
• The Boeing Company and U.S. Air Force plan to bring their X-37B orbital test vehicle program to Kennedy Space Center, where a former shuttle hangar will be re-purposed to enable landing, recovery, refurbishing and re-launching of the 29-foot-long unmanned space vehicle at a single site.
• Lockheed Martin’s Orlando-based Missiles & Fire Control group has snagged a $200-million Department of Defense contract to develop new hardware for testing and deployment of advanced naval combat missiles.
• North American Surveillance Systems Inc., a global leader in rotary and fixed-wing aircraft modification, has consolidated operations at Space Coast Regional Airport in Titusville; 20 jobs are expected.

Technology

Ranked among Techie.com’s 10 “Most Promising Tech Hubs of 2014,” Orlando continues to spawn technology growth:

• 3-D imaging company Photon-X is relocating its corporate headquarters from Alabama to Kissimmee with plans to create 100 jobs.
• Tampa-based mobile application and software development firm AgileThought has expanded to Orlando with a 2,585-sq.-ft. office and 15 new jobs.
• Frontier Communications Corporation will add 17,650 square feet and 139 jobs to its customer contact center in DeLand.
• Orlando-based PowerDMS, developer of cloud-based secure document management systems, plans to add 65 jobs through 2017.

Tourism

With 18.6 million visitors in 2013, Disney’s Magic Kingdom in Orlando remained the most visited theme park in the world, while Universal Studios Orlando posted the biggest year-over-year attendance increase — a whopping 14%. In 2014:

• Disney completed Fantasyland improvements and broke ground for its new Avatar attraction slated to debut at Disney’s Animal Kingdom in 2017.
• Universal opened “Diagon Alley,” its second Harry Potter-themed attraction, to huge crowds in July.
• SeaWorld marked its 50th anniversary with the opening of the multi-path drop slide “Ihu’s Breakaway Falls” at its Aquatica water park.
• Elsewhere, Kennedy Space Center, where the retired Atlantis Space Shuttle went on public display in summer 2013, continued to draw record attendance, as did Daytona International Speedway, where work on a $400-million upgrade remains on schedule for a 2016 completion.

Tags: Business Florida