SPOTLIGHT
Florida State University has won grant approval from Triumph Gulf Coast for $98.5 million to construct aerospace and advanced manufacturing facilities in Panama City. The proposed Institute for Strategic Partnerships, Innovation, Research, and Education (InSPIRE) project will be located within the Northwest Florida Beaches Airport’s Venture Crossings Enterprise Center near Panama City.
The grant money is part of the funds that came to the state through a settlement with BP oil company over the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. Northwest Florida counties affected economically by the spill include Bay, Escambia, Franklin, Gulf, Okaloosa, Santa Rosa, Walton and Wakulla.
The contract FSU signed with Triumph directs InSPIRE to serve as FSU’s “applied research and workforce development arm” with the mission to accelerate “technology innovation, cultivating corporate investment, nurturing the growth of new industries, and fostering high- skill, high-wage employment opportunities.”
Stacey Patterson, vice president for research at FSU, says the project will have a significant economic impact: “We are creating a bold and impactful vision to leverage FSU’s current strengths with new investments that are focused on this Northwest Florida region.”
Under the contract with Triumph, FSU will invest $65 million in the project over the next 10 years and will commit to securing more than $230 million in contract and grant activity.
ENVIRONMENT
- Louisiana-based Clearwater Land & Minerals has been granted a Florida Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) permit to conduct exploratory drilling for oil in a Calhoun County site located between the Apalachicola River and the Chipola River. The permit allows Clearwater to drill from a platform built by Texas-based Cholla Petroleum that was abandoned in 2021. The Apalachicola Riverkeeper, a nonprofit environmental advocacy group, has asked the DEP to delay the permit to give the organization time to decide whether to launch a legal challenge.
- The DEP has finalized the $8.2-million purchase of what are known as conservation easements at Cherokee Plantation, which is about six miles north of Tallahassee. The 4,808-acre property is one of five tracts of land in Leon and Jefferson counties that is included in the Red Hills Conservation Florida Forever Project, a 17,875-acre initiative begun in 2019 to protect wildlife, wetlands and groundwater recharge areas.
MANUFACTURING
- Danfoss Turbocor’s 145,000-sq.-ft. bearing manufacturing facility is up and running at Innovation Park in Tallahassee. The $60-million facility is the fourth major facility expansion by the Danish-based company that manufactures oil-free magnetic bearings for high-output compressors. The plant enables the company to produce more than 14,000 compressors annually. Danfoss President Ricardo Schneider says the company is committed to being carbon neutral by 2030.
TRANSPORTATION
- Denver-based Frontier Airlines is now offering nonstop service from Pensacola International Airport to Cleveland Hopkins International Airport, Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport and Philadelphia International Airport. The three U.S. destinations add to Frontier’s popular nonstop service from Pensacola to Denver that began in the spring of 2018.
- Allegiant has begun nonstop service to 15 destinations from Destin-Fort Walton Beach Airport.
LEGAL ACTION
- Tallahassee-based Trulieve Cannabis, Florida’s largest medical marijuana company, has been fined $350,000 in connection with the death of an employee in 2022. Massachusetts authorities levied the fine after Lorna McMurrey, 27, collapsed while working at a Trulieve cultivation and processing location there after having trouble breathing. An OSHA report found she died from occupational asthma triggered by ground cannabis dust.