A high-tech company is considering creating 150 jobs at the Spaceport Commerce Park in Titusville.
But the company is looking for $2.5 million of incentives from Brevard County and the North Brevard Economic Development Zone to help it build a 50,000-square-foot complex at Spaceport Commerce Park. The industrial park is in south Titusville, near Space Coast Regional Airport.
According to a report provided to county commissioners, the unidentified company — using the code name “Project Eagle” — wants to build a facility “to be used for the design and manufacture of a high-tech product.” The jobs would pay an average of $48,000 a year.
To help offset development costs, the company wants:
- A $2.2 million grant from the North Brevard Economic Development Zone to offset construction costs. Money for construction would be provided in phases, “so as to ensure progress toward building completion,” the report said.
- A “suitably sized, county-owned lot in the park (approximately 15 acres), cleared and prepped for construction,” an undertaking valued at $300,000. Under the proposal, the land would remain in title to the county, with the company executing a long-term ground lease at $1 a year for 10 years.
- The company would have the option of ownership of the property at the end of the 10-year lease term, if it meets its job-creation obligations.
The Brevard County Commission is scheduled to discuss the issue at its meeting on Tuesday.
The County Commission created the North Brevard Economic Development Zone to help spur economic development in northern Brevard County. The zone uses property tax money generated by commercial and industrial development in that part of the county to help do that.
While not identifying the company behind Project Eagle, the county said it is a publicly traded company with more than 5,000 employees that has been in business more than 20 years.
The county said the company plans to make a $3.5 million private capital investment in the project, and if it gets additional contracts, that could further increase employment at that site.
The resolutions the County Commission will consider indicate that “the North Brevard Economic Development Zone believes that inducing this project … will provide a needed economic boost to an area of the county adversely impacted by the end of NASA’s space shuttle program.” Additionally, it “will aid in the future development of additional county-owned lots within Spaceport Commerce Park by evidencing the viability of this site location.”
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