Menu
By Richard Burnett, Orlando Sentinel
5:38 p.m. EST, January 20, 2014
High-tech industry leaders are on a mission to keep “simulation world” in Orlando, and they want the Legislature’s help. The region’s $5 billion military-training industry and a coalition of political, education and business leaders plan to ask state lawmakers for millions of dollars to pay for new construction at the Central Florida Research Park. The goal is to add a $60 million complex to the park, offered rent-free to the military. Officials hope that will become a preemptive strike against any Pentagon actions that could dismantle the existing facilities there.
Doing so could cripple an industry that has nearly 30,000 high-paying jobs across the region and plays a critical role in diversifying Central Florida’s tourism-reliant economy.
“It has taken 50 years to build this industry into what is the world’s epicenter of simulation and training today,” said Tom Baptiste, president of the National Center for Simulation, an industry group based in the park. “We don’t want to see it unravel because of base closing and realignment or any other cost-cutting actions by the military.” Though there is no current proposal to close the Central Florida military-training agencies, industry officials remember well the federal government’s last Base Closing and Realignment, or BRAC, in 1995 that shuttered Orlando’s Naval Training Center, which had been an economic force for decades.
So they are going on the offensive to make sure that doesn’t happen again. In the upcoming legislative session, they plan to ask Florida lawmakers for an initial installment on the cost of the new facility. The amount of that request has not yet been determined.
Proponents say the outlay would help remove Orlando from the budget-cutters’ bulls-eye. It also would eliminate $5 million in annual rent the military now pays the park and create a new place for other operations and jobs that move there in the future, they say.
Most importantly, it would solve the military’s space crunch at the park, Baptiste said.
“Our key vulnerability is that because of the success of the simulation cluster, the military presence here has outgrown its original facilities in the research park,” he said. “It has spilled out into the commercial real-estate space where they are paying premium rent rates, probably higher than the downtown high-rises.”
Industry officials fear the Pentagon will decide to consolidate operations into facilities elsewhere that the military already owns. They also expect other simulation-rich areas of the country — such as Huntsville, Ala., and Norfolk, Va., — will be trying to gain new operations as part of any consolidation. “The truth is, BRAC is not only a threat, it is also an opportunity,” Baptiste said. “And there are certainly a lot of people who are licking their chops to get a piece of what we have in Orlando.” It would be the second time in five years that the simulation industry has sought state tax dollars. In 2009, the research park received $9.1 million from the Legislature to help finance security upgrades after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. Before that, however, the simulation industry has rarely sought public dollars.
State Sen. Darren Soto, D-Orlando, called the proposal a wise investment of state and local tax dollars. “Clearly, the simulation industry is a critical part of Florida’s economy, so I’m willing to make the leap of faith to help keep them here,” Soto said. Richard Foglesong, a political science professor at Rollins College, agrees. “It is a valid fear in this budget-cutting climate that the Defense Secretary might reduce spending for a research park than a conventional military base. So I think this is an appropriate preemptive strike on their part,” he said. But one analyst said the industry’s alarm may be overstated, given the huge infrastructure already established at the research park and the massive costs the military would incur to move it. “Other areas that do simulation are much more vulnerable and should worry far more than Orlando,” said Michael Blades, a defense analyst for the Frost & Sullivan consulting firm. “It is the hub for simulation and training; it has the biggest concentration of expertise and experience. The military just isn’t going to uproot that and move it.” Blades acknowledged that the wild card in base-closing decisions is how much political influence comes into play. “Of course, you would want to have a clear agreement in place, a sort of ‘if you build it, they will come’ agreement,” Blades said. “You don’t want to sink that kind of money into something and just have it sit there as a taxpayer burden.”
rburnett@tribune.com or 407-420-5256
