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East Central

Extending over seven counties, East Central offers some of Florida’s natural best: 118 miles of Atlantic coastline on one side, green rolling hills and a chain of lakes on the other. And with a workforce of close to 1.9 million, four commercial airports and one seaport, this region is heavily business-minded.

East Central made its mark on the world with fantasy flights at theme parks and real rocket flights from Cape Canaveral. Today, a half-century since men first walked on the moon and Walt Disney envisioned EPCOT, tourism and technology remain primary economic drivers here.

While tourist hot spots like Las Vegas and New York City were logging visitor counts of 42 and 63 million respectively in 2017, Orlando was on its way to becoming the first U.S. city to break the 70 million mark. The very name “Orlando” is synonymous with theme park fun. Disney, Universal and SeaWorld have massive operations here, all of which are continuing to expand.

At SeaWorld’s Aquatica water park, the 60-foot-tall Ray Rush water slide/raft ride began operations in May, and Infinity Falls, said to be the world’s tallest river rapids ride, opened in October. Meanwhile, the new Toy Story Land is up and running at Disney’s Hollywood Studios, and Universal Orlando has opened its Fast & Furious: Supercharged ride as well as a sixth on-site hotel.

While the theme parks typically get the bulk of tourist attention, some uniquely Florida attractions along this region’s Atlantic coast pull in visitors too. In Brevard County, the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex logs about 1.5 million tourists each year who come to see the Saturn V rocket that helped propel astronauts to the moon and the Space Shuttle Atlantis. Just up the coast in Daytona Beach, attractions include the iconic beach itself and Daytona International Speedway, famous for NASCAR’s Daytona 500 and Coke Zero 500 races and the “24 Hours of Daytona” endurance event.

Behind the most visible manifestations of Orlando’s booming tourist industry, companies with niche tourism interests are also hard at work.

In June 2018, the timeshare company Wyndham Destinations announced it will open its first global headquarters in Orlando and create 200 jobs. And Orlando-based Skyline Attractions, maker of a dueling, looping two-car coaster that is said to offer the speed and loops of a big roller coaster, but at a lower price and with a much smaller footprint, debuted its first Skywarp coaster in summer 2018 at Six Flags Discovery Kingdom in Vallejo, Calif.

As important as tourism is to Orlando, so is technology to Brevard County, or what is commonly referred to as Florida’s Space Coast. Since birthing America’s aerospace industry in the 1950s, this slice of East Central has become a hotbed of high-tech innovation and activity. This region boasts 48 engineers per 1,000 workers, more than any other Florida metro or, for that matter, any of the nation’s 25 most populated metros. Milken Institute ranks Brevard County 1st in Florida and 6th in the U.S. for the most highly concentrated high-tech economy. And this economy is not just about the development of computer hardware and software or cellphone apps; it’s about satellites and deep space exploration too.

The space shuttles may no longer fly, but NASA remains this region’s heavy-hitter with regard to space access. And coming alongside to aid in the development of new technologies are numerous private aerospace companies.

Perhaps the most prominent is Elon Musk’s SpaceX, which launched its unmanned Falcon Heavy to Mars in February 2018 with a Tesla aboard and hopes of one day taking passengers to the Red Planet. In June, Musk announced plans for a SpaceX campus at Kennedy Space Center to include a launch-and-landing control center, a 133,000-sq.-ft. hangar and a rocket garden.

Also gaining attention along the Space Coast is Blue Origin, created by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, which began moving into a portion of its massive rocket factory at KSC’s Exploration Park in December 2017. Full occupancy of the facility is expected by the end of 2018, with first launch of the New Glenn rockets to be built here by 2021.

And at OneWeb Satellites, where work continues on a $70-million satellite assembly facility at Kennedy Space Center, plans are being made to open an antenna assembly, storage and testing facility at the Port Canaveral Logistics Center in Titusville. OneWeb aims to produce small satellites that will beam broadband internet to anyone with a small access terminal.

Tourism and technology may look very different on the outside, but both require good connections to succeed. East Central has them by air and by sea.

The region boasts four international airports — Orlando International, Orlando Sanford, Orlando Melbourne and Daytona Beach. With 46.1 million passengers in 2017, Orlando International became Florida’s busiest airport and 11th busiest in the nation. Driving the increase was the addition of international carriers such as Norwegian Air, Edelweiss, Aeromexico and Interjet.

Port Canaveral remains the world’s second busiest cruise port, with an anticipated 4.6 million passengers in 2018. It is also Florida’s third largest port by operating revenues, which are expected to exceed $100 million in 2018. Some of the world’s largest and most sophisticated cruise ships call here, and to better accommodate these mega-vessels, the port is building a $150-million cruise terminal complex.

In 2017, nearly 6 million tons of cargo moved through Port Canaveral, a 9% increase over the previous year. For 2018, the port projects cargo-related revenue to reach $9.2 million, due in large part to growth in petroleum-related shipments.

Another new cargo source: space-related shipments. In January 2018 the port committed to the development of a “spaceport” for SpaceX, Blue Origin and other commercial space companies. Plans call for creating a dedicated area for transferring rockets and equipment to nearby commercial space facilities and providing berth space for marine vessels transporting space mission components.

Also growing in East Central are several small companies with focused IT interests. These include:

Some of the very reasons tourists love East Central Florida also make this region a great place to live. With 118 miles of Atlantic coastline, including Canaveral National Seashore and the nearly 1,000 inland bodies of water that give Lake County its name, East Central is packed with plenty of natural beauty to enjoy. Check out the lemurs, rare albino alligators and other peculiar creatures at Wild Florida in Kenansville. Wander through Merritt Island National Refuge and marvel at the bald eagles, armadillos and otters. Join a sanctioned turtle-hatching expedition after dark. Or paddle rivers with tongue-twisting names like Econlockhatchee, Ocklawaha and Withlacoochee.

The innovation that spawned a space industry and related technologies here touches on recreational opportunities too. Case in point: the "Under i," a five-block urban park with soccer fields, basketball courts, a splash pad and more that is being considered as a way to "beautify" the space beneath a stretch of I-4 in downtown Orlando.

Living in East Central Florida opens the door to many educational options and some exceptional health care too. Brevard County, birthplace of America’s aerospace industry, attracts 11 patents for every 10,000 workers, according to the Brookings Institution. And with 39 U.S. utility patents granted in 2017, the Orlando-based University of Central Florida is ranked 27th among U.S. public institutions and 67th worldwide for patent production. In addition, a consortium led by UCF recently won a five-year, $20-million contract to take over management of the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, a mammoth radio telescope that has been used for important astronomical discoveries.

Elsewhere in this region, Melbourne’s Florida Institute of Technology is the recipient of a $246-million grant from Siemens to better equip students for STEM careers by offering hands-on experience with the product lifecycle management software used by companies in the aerospace, automotive, electronics and other high-impact industry sectors. In Daytona Beach, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University will use a $1-million grant from the U.S. Department of Commerce to establish an aviation and engineering research center in Volusia County. And Valencia College, which in 2011 won the “Aspen Prize for Community College Excellence,” has opened its sixth central Florida campus in Poinciana.

On the secondary level, six East Central high schools earned gold medals in U.S. News & World Report’s “2018 Best High Schools” ranking – two were among the nation’s top 75 high schools.

Pediatric health care in Orlando is growing and earning accolades too. U.S. News & World Report ranked Orlando Health’s Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children among the nation’s 50 “Best Children’s Hospitals 2018-19” in five specialties; Florida Hospital for Children earned a top 50 ranking in one.

At Nemours Children’s Hospital, which opened just six years ago in south Orlando, a $21.7-million expansion is underway to finish out the facility’s sixth floor with the addition of 30 critical care beds, a cardiac operating room and catheterization lab. The project will add 40,000 square feet of working space and 60 full-time employees. Coming soon: a new pediatric residency program. The first class of 12 arrives in 2019.