A grant from the state of Florida is expected to help draw aerospace business and jobs to Space Coast Regional Airport.

The regional airport in Titusville got $5.8 million from the Florida Job Growth Grant Fund to aid the construction a 3,200-foot roadway for the Space Coast Innovation Park.

The roads will help the project — which will include five to seven commercial buildings with 1.1 million to 1.4 million total square feet of industrial space — get off the ground.

Governor Ron DeSantis said during an Aug. 22 event that the road work will link the airport with the industrial park to lay a foundation for job creation and more. With the help of the grant, the project is expected to create 900 jobs and have a fiscal impact of $24.6 million.

“Our role is to say ‘what infrastructure do we need, particularly in this area, to be able to continue to make this part of Florida the number one place for space in the world?'” DeSantis said.

In 2022, Space Coast Innovation Park LLC signed a ground lease for 450 acres on the westside of the airport for the project. The project is expected to include up to three phases, with 639,040 square feet in the first phase and 465,720 square feet in the second phase. Representatives with the company and the airport authority were not immediately available. Space Coast Innovation Park’s development team includes Key Group, Hines, Ware Malcomb and Alston Construction.

Meanwhile, the investment comes as the region works to draw a diverse range of businesses tied to commercial space activity. So said Lynda Weatherman, president and CEO of the Economic Development Commission of Florida’s Space Coast, during Orlando Business Journal’s Doing Business in Brevard County event on Aug. 1.

“If you look at space … we’re diversifying from launch to manufacture of a launch vehicle to the manufacturing of the payload that goes on that vehicle,” Weatherman said.”So we’re a manufacturing-driven county in a non-manufacturing state.”

Space Florida, the state’s aerospace finance and development authority, reported more than $5.5 million in capital investment across the state at the end of 2023 across 151projects. The state saw more than 70 launches during that year.

Source: Orlando Business Journal