Orlando’s Lake Nona Medical City Economic Impact Could Exceed That of Walt Disney World
Orlando’s economy is getting an economic booster shot that could exceed Walt Disney World’s transforming impact when it opened in 1971. How can that possibly be? Disney World employs 60,000 people in its Orlando location!
It’s because a world-class cluster of some of the world’s brightest medical minds and biotechnology-driven health care facilities have moved and are moving to Orlando.
Its official name is Lake Nona Medical City, a 600-acre life science cluster located in southeast Orlando, just 10 minutes from Orlando International Airport (MCO). The cluster is an economic engine for Central Florida and the focal point of Lake Nona’s 7,000-acre development of regional impact, which has approved entitlements for 9,000 residential units; 950,000 GSF of retail; 2,250 GSF hotel resorts/villas; 950,000 GSF office space; and 4,870,000 GSF of commercial space.
Lake Nona Medical City is projected to bring 30,000 jobs to Orlando and have a $7.6 billion impact on the economy within the next ten years, according to Arduin, Laffer & Moore Econometrics. Not to mention the small businesses that are springing up around it.
According to Florida Trend’s October 2009 cover story, Orlando’s Medical City is “changing Florida’s DNA” and “is a big step toward critical mass for the state’s biotech initiative.”
The University of Central Florida’s new health sciences campus at Lake Nona includes the UCF Burnett School of Biomedical Sciences building which opened its doors last year and the new UCF College of Medicine which is nearing completion this spring. The 50-acre campus plans to employ more than 400 full and part-time faculty and staff.
Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute at Lake Nona opened its east coast $85 million research center in April 2009, and will eventually be home to 300 scientists and support staff.
The Orlando Veterans Affairs Medical Center is scheduled to open in the fall of 2012 for a total cost of $665 million and will employ more than 2,000 staff. The new center at Lake Nona, which is expected to serve more than 400,000 local veterans, was just announced as the national site for the Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Simulation Center for Excellence.
In 2009, the M.D. Anderson-Orlando Cancer Research Institute relocated its Orlando operations to the UCF health sciences campus at Lake Nona Medical City. They currently occupy 30,000 sf of laboratory space in the Burnett building while planning and construction of its own facility near the College of Medicine.
In 2008, the Florida Legislature appropriated $6 million to the University of Florida (UF) to begin planning for a $61 million, 100,000 square-foot biomedical research facility to be located at Lake Nona. In October 2009, UF formalized its commitment to locate the UF Academic and Research Center at Lake Nona and is currently planning the construction of its facilities.
“The fact so many medical and biomedical facilities are opening in one community in Florida within two years of each other would be noteworthy by itself. The fact that they are opening on one parcel of land, in a coordinated fashion, with a collaborative mission, is even more significant-for both Orlando and the state,” noted Florida Trend editor Mark Howard.
Orlando Attorney Terry Delahunt, a past president of NAIOP who has been involved in commercial real estate for 25 years observed that “the collateral economic benefits should be enormous as new companies and businesses spring up around Lake Nona Medical City.” With so much critical mass falling into place, Metro Orlando has quickly catapulted to ‘contender’ status in the bioscience industry. Business leaders from across the region banded together in a collaborative spirit—as bioOrlando—to focus on the biotechnology and life science industry.
Led by the Metro Orlando Economic Development Commission (EDC), bioOrlando focuses on the development of Central Florida’s life science and biotechnology industry as it pursues initiatives that further accelerate this already fast-emerging sector.
The intended result: long term, stable, high-paying job opportunities, in of all places, Central Florida one of the most beautiful climates and places to work and play in the United States. “Our bioOrlando efforts are already paying off with increased interest from biotech companies and venture capitalists from throughout the world,” according to Eric Ushkowitz, director of bioOrlando.
Click here to see Lake Nona Medical City Site Plan & Directions.
