March 28, 2024

Business Florida 2013 - The Regions

East Central Florida

Daytona Beach, Melbourne, Orlando, Titusville

| 9/20/2012

ECONOMIC LIFE

Aviation/Aerospace
The space shuttles no longer fly, but Cape Canaveral remains busy with a steady stream of military and communication satellite lift-offs. And now that facilities and skilled personnel are free for new assignments, many stalwart aviation/aerospace firms are growing:

• At Kennedy Space Center, NASA and Lockheed Martin are teaming up to produce a spacecraft capable of traveling 15 times farther than the orbit of the International Space Station; here, too, The Boeing Company plans to locate its Commercial Crew program headquarters and manufacture its Crew Space Transportation-100 (CST-100) spacecraft, creating approximately 550 jobs in the process.

• Brazilian executive jet manufacturer Embraer is constructing the 67,000-sq.-ft. Embraer Engineering and Technology Center USA adjacent to its existing Embraer Executive Jets Division Headquarters at Melbourne International Airport.

Life Sciences/Healthcare
Soon to join existing tenants Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute, the Cancer Research Institute of MD Anderson Orlando and University of Central Florida’s College of Medicine at Lake Nona “Medical City” in east Orange County are Nemours Children’s Hospital and the University of Florida Research and Academic Center in fall 2012 and, in 2013, the Orlando Veterans Affairs Medical Center.

In downtown Orlando, Florida Hospital and Sanford-Burnham Institute have jointly opened the Translational Research Institute for Metabolism and Diabetes (TRI), a state-of-the-art facility aimed at personalizing the treatment of diabetes and obesity.

Hospitality/Tourism
Orlando’s three major theme parks are in expansion mode:

• At Universal Orlando: A new ride through the lab/home of Despicable Me opened in July 2012, and a fourth on-site hotel — the 1,800-room Cabana Bay Beach Resort — is scheduled to open in 2014.

• At SeaWorld Orlando: “Antarctica: Empire of the Penguin,” which promises an “immersive” visitor experience — life on the ice through a penguin’s eyes — is scheduled to open in spring 2013 as part of the park’s largest-ever expansion.

• At Walt Disney World: A new and improved Fantasyland featuring new rides and more fairy tale princesses is taking shape, and the 2,000-room, $350-million Art of Animation Resort welcomed its first guests in summer 2012.

Elsewhere, Daytona International Speedway is talking potential redevelopment, and tourism at the Cape will get a boost when the $100-million Atlantis space shuttle exhibit opens at Kennedy Space Center in summer 2013.

Tags: Central, Business Florida

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