SPOTLIGHT
The Florida Institute of Human and Machine Cognition has begun operations in its new $40-million biomedical research facility in downtown Pensacola.
The research complex is intended to be an accelerant for the pace of discoveries that will drive innovations in maximizing the “healthspan” — healthy lifespan — for everyone from elite military operators and veterans to those with neurodegenerative diseases, musculoskeletal problems and chronic metabolic conditions, says Ken Ford, IHMC’s founder and CEO.
“Pushing the boundaries of science to maximize the performance and resilience of human beings has long been a foundational tenet at IHMC,” Ford says. “In our healthspan, resilience and performance research thrust, the vision has always been to work from the molecular level to the whole human. This facility brings that to life.”
Morley Stone, IHMC’s chief strategic partnership officer, says the research complex gives the institute’s team of researchers the ability to pursue and realize Ford’s vision.
“The health care system as it is set up now puts people on a trajectory to decline over decades,” Stone says. “We want to lead the science that drives people to extend the period of a person’s life over which they are high functioning and healthy.”
Ford adds that the research complex is unique to the Southeast and already is attracting national and international interest from the National Science Foundation and leading research universities that include Harvard and Stanford.
The research facility also will be an “economic and intellectual beacon for the entire Northwest Florida region,” says Marcas Bamman, IHMC’s research director.
AVIATION
- Pensacola Mayor D.C. Reeves says despite state and federal assistance, the city likely will have to finance much of the cost of expanding Pensacola International Airport with a bond issue. A previous cost estimate of $70 million for the five added loading gates and security enhancements has ballooned to $90 million. “We have looked at what our bonding ability is if we had to take on the whole thing ourselves, or two-thirds of it ourselves,” Reeves says. The airport, built in 1990 and designed to accommodate 1 million passengers annually, is on track to top 3 million passengers a year. Breeze Airways has begun service to Pensacola International Airport with nonstop flights to Tampa and Norfolk, Va. Breeze brings the airport’s total number of commercial air carriers to eight. Construction has been completed on a $11.3-million terminal and baggage area project at Northwest Florida Beaches International Airport in Panama City.
HOUSING
- Santa Rosa County commissioners recently approved two major residential development projects that will add nearly 600 more homes to the rapidly growing Milton and Pace areas. The approval comes on the heels of the county’s second-quarter action green-lighting construction of more than 500 homes. Santa Rosa is one of the fastest-growing counties in Florida.
GOVERNMENT
- A citizens group advocating incorporation of the Navarre community was dealt a major setback recently when Santa Rosa County commissioners voted down a request to place a non-binding straw poll on the November general election’s ballot. The straw poll would have given voters the opportunity to vote “yes” or “no” to incorporating Navarre, a fast-growing South Santa Rosa community with a population exceeding 41,000, according to the latest U.S. Census Bureau estimate.
TRANSPORTATION
- A much-needed I-10 interchange project that would help alleviate traffic congestion in the rapidly growing Beulah community has been given the green light by state officials. Once completed, the $240-million project will create a second on-and-off exit to Beulah, home to the $1-billion campus of Navy Federal Credit Union and its nearly 9,000 employees.
RECREATION
- A move is underway to sink the once-famous SS United States ocean liner off the Gulf Coast, creating another attraction for divers. The rusting hulk has been moored in a Philadelphia shipyard for 30 years and is being evicted by court order this fall. Members of Escambia’s Marine Advisory Committee would like to have it towed to Pensacola and sunk some 22 miles off the coast and near the USS Oriskany, a decommissioned aircraft carrier that was sunk in 2006 and has become a popular destination for divers.