2025 Forecast
- AEROSPACE
Janet Petro
Director, NASA’s John F. Kennedy Space Center, Merritt Island
WORKFORCE: “We’ve really been focused on a couple of things — either direct hires or other ways of getting people on quickly; and secondly, we’ve reached out to different universities and really tried to lean into developing that pipeline so that we can capture the students when they graduate and come into our marketplace. We’re an exciting place and so the draw of Kennedy Space Center in and of itself, that employee value proposition, I think, is what we go for.”
GROWTH MODE? “Yes. Back in 2021, we had 31 launches that we supported across the spaceport here. And this past Sunday (Oct. 26) we broke the record of all time: 73 launches. By the end of this calendar year, we expect to be near 100 launches. ... We’re going to be at well over 200 launches by 2030. That’s incredible. If you think about that, that’s a launch more than every other day here from the Space Coast.”
CHALLENGES: “(Our NASA) programs will continue our journey back to the Moon and then on to Mars. ... Our teams have been really focused on getting the mobile launcher in the pad ready for Artemis II with those four crew members. That is quite the challenge of trying to get all the necessary work done before that launch (now scheduled for 2026).
“The current infrastructure — roads, sewer systems, wastewater — were all built back in the 1960s to support the Apollo programs, maybe six, eight launches a year. Fast forward to where we are today at nearly 100 launches, and we’re using that same infrastructure. We’ve got to right-size it to make it more resilient, more redundant and design it for the current cadence and tempo that it’s being asked to support.”
CHANGES? “(In) the last 10, 15 years we’ve switched from just relying on government designed, developed and operated programs to really buying services from the commercial industry.”
- HEALTH CARE
David Strong
President and CEO, Orlando Health, Orlando
WORKFORCE: “Orlando Health team members, physicians and leaders have made the organization a great place to work. They’ve developed a culture that expects teamwork, encourages care for others and demands excellence. These characteristics attract and retain talented people.”
GROWTH MODE? “Orlando Health is always in growth mode. These tangible results are seen in St. Petersburg, Fla., Birmingham, Ala., Puerto Rico and soon to be on the Space Coast of Florida. Orlando Health focuses on bringing quality care to communities and building clinical programs that otherwise would not exist.”
CHALLENGES/BRIGHT SPOTS: “Given our growth, one of the consistent challenges we have is leadership development. Developing leaders that can assist in delivering our mission is critical to our continued success. Fortunately, we have succeeded in reducing turnover and increasing retention. So, talent and leader development is both an ongoing challenge for Orlando Health but also a strength.”
- COMMERCIAL REAL ESTATE
Brooke A. Myers
President and Founder, VelocityRED, Orlando
WORKFORCE: “We have a fairly small team, but we’re able to deliver large-scale projects by leveraging trusted third-party consultants. Teamwork is critical and in-person meetings are important, so we make it a point to utilize firms who are predominantly in the office. Our challenge is not necessarily hiring, but engaging firms who recognize and appreciate the collaboration that occurs in person.”
GROWTH MODE? “The motto in commercial real estate for the past couple of years has been ‘Survive until ’25.’ I thought that was crazy the first time I heard it, but it seems to be playing out that way. The financial markets are still somewhat stagnant ... so we’re not out of the woods yet, but 2025 and beyond looks much brighter than the past couple of years for commercial real estate.”
CHALLENGES/BRIGHT SPOTS: “The biggest challenges continue to be the financial market and property insurance. Both financial markets and insurance carriers tend to categorize Florida as one large market, but there’s a big difference across sub-markets. One might be overbuilt, another might be more susceptible to major storms. The bright spot is, Orlando continues to be a growth market because of the location, amenities, business friendly environment and regional collaboration.”
- CYBERSECURITY
Danny Jenkins
CEO and Co-Founder, ThreatLocker, Orlando
WORKFORCE: “It’s definitely difficult, especially in the areas of research and development, but it has improved over the last two years. Sales and administration and support areas seem to be a little bit easier. We’re expecting to hire about 1,200 people over the next two, two-and-a-half years.”
GROWTH MODE? “We started off with 25 employees in 2021, and now we’re over 500 employees. We’re just coming up on $100 million in revenue, and we’re expecting to triple that over the next two years, if not quadruple it.”
CHANGES: “Our adversary 10 years ago was hacktivists, people who just wrote malware for fun. Today, they’re organized crime and they’re making money. So, the value of ransomware is $10 billion a year or something like that for criminals. More and more companies are being targeted. I think that’s the biggest change that we’ve seen, and that obviously drives defense requirements up quite substantially.”
Business Briefs
BREVARD COUNTY
- NASA launched its space probe Europa Clipper — on a flagship science mission — aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from Kennedy Space Center on Oct. 14. The Clipper is set to travel 1.8 billion miles to orbit Jupiter’s moon Europa by April 2030. NASA’s objective: Determine if Europa has conditions suitable to support life.
LAKE COUNTY
- Two land deals in Lake County’s Wellness Way corridor outside Orlando are harbingers of massive housing developments to come. Fort Lauderdale-based GT USA bought 549 acres for $90 million followed by another roughly 2,400 acres for $165 million, reportedly the largest land deals in county history. The larger deal — encompassing Arnold Groves & Ranch and Roper Growers properties — laid the groundwork for a 3,000-home community called Panther Run that GT says will include a wildlife corridor extending to Lake Louisa State Park. In the smaller deal, GT sold 518 acres to Pulte Homes with about 1,500 homes, retail stores and restaurants expected there.
- The Lake County School District received a $6.4-million state grant to fund career education programs in advanced manufacturing technology, building construction technologies, aerospace technologies and aluminum welding. It was among the largest grants awarded late last year in a $62-million distribution to local school districts from Florida’s Workforce Development Capitalization Incentive Grant Program. The program is set to award a total of $100 million for high-demand jobs training in fiscal 2024-25.
ORANGE COUNTY
- Ocoee is getting a $1-billion family-oriented tourist destination dedicated to popular traveling youth sports leagues. Construction is set to begin this year on The Dynasty | Ocoee and finish in 2027, Montierre Development said. It will offer 17 fields and an indoor facility for athletes and sporting events, about 1,100 hotel rooms, and a riverwalk along with 350,000 square feet of retail, dining and entertainment. IRadimed, an MRI-based medical device company in Winter Springs, will open a 60,000-sq.-ft. manufacturing facility this year in Orange County’s Central Florida Research Park.
- Orlando-based Darden Restaurants finalized its acquisition of Chuy’s Holdings for $605 million, adding to its portfolio of brands that include Olive Garden and LongHorn Steakhouse. Chuy’s, an iconic Austin Tex-Mex chain with more than 100 restaurants in 15 states, is moving its headquarters to Orlando.
- Eola Food Hall, a planned 32,000-sq.-ft. mecca for food lovers, is under development and set to open in downtown Orlando in late 2025, Lincoln Property Company says. The first two floors of a four-story building will be transformed into the food hall with about 10 vendors featuring a handful of local chefs, a full-service restaurant and cocktail bar, and panoramic views of Lake Eola. The third floor will be an event venue.
- Goodwill of Central Florida announced a partnership with 2nd Mountain Homes to provide job training for youths transitioning out of foster care. The 90-day “Transitioning Youth”program will pair young adults with specialists who help guide their personal and employment goals toward success.
OSCEOLA COUNTY
- Des Moines, Iowa-based investment firm Principal Asset Management acquired a new cold storage and logistics complex in Kissimmee for $54.6 million from InLight Real Estate Partners and Black Salmon. Osceola Logistics Center was completed last year and leased to a grocery and food service supply company. Positioned near global transport routes, it encompasses two distribution warehouses totaling 280,000-sq.ft., including freezer, dry storage and air-conditioned space, and a candy storage area.
SEMINOLE COUNTY
- The City of Altamonte Springs partnered with CareerSource Central Florida to create a Career Accelerator pilot program, providing training for city jobs including accounting, recreation, maintenance, administration and public works. Altamonte Springs professionals will work together with students during the eight-week program, which aims to address job market needs with a focus on students, people switching careers and professionals seeking enhanced skills.
SUMTER COUNTY
- The Villages’ newest community of Eastport continues to take shape. The 250-acre space will include a European-inflected downtown area, a mid-century modern hotel, health care and recreation centers, residences and nine-hole golf course set along its Central Lake.
- Trademark Metals Recycling announced the opening of its $150-million, 100,000-sq.-ft. metal recycling facility that will employ 67 people across two shifts. TMR is a subsidiary of The David Joseph Co., a scrap broker/processor owned by the Charlotte, N.C.-based Nucor Corp., North America’s largest recycler.
VOLUSIA COUNTY
- French aircraft manufacturer Aura Aero, which manufactures hybrid electric regional aircraft, announced plans to build a 500,000-sq.-ft. assembly plant at Daytona Beach International Airport. The company will begin construction of the plant in 2026 and begin operations in 2028. It aims to produce 100 aircraft per year and create more than 1,000 high-wage jobs.
- Set alongside the northernmost SunRail train stop in DeBary, development continues on Mosaic’s new urban Main Street district, which is part of the city’s transit-oriented development zone. Workers broke ground in 2024 with Phase I set to be finished late this year and the entire 50-acre project to be complete by the end of 2027. The south side of Main Street will also connect cyclists and foot traffic to 600 miles of Central Florida trails.
RosenCare Expansion
High premiums and out-of-pocket costs have for many degraded the central tenet of the 2010 Affordable Care Act. Back in 1991, the late hotelier Harris Rosen of Orlando-based Rosen Hotels & Resorts offered a solution for his employees called RosenCare. It has long been touted as an innovative self-insured health care model, in which an employer is the de facto insurer and care provider. More recently, RosenCare has begun to expand the model. In 2019, the Osceola County School District opened a RosenCare clinic. This year, RosenCare partnered with Pennsylvania health care provider PeopleOne Health to bring the model to Putnam County government and Orange County Public Schools as an option for employees and their families, in addition to or in place of other plans. RosenCare and PeopleOne Health will offer four new Orlando area health centers for OCPS employees and their families, they say, providing an option for top-tier health care with no out-of-pocket costs. PeopleOne CEO Jordan Taradash told FLORIDA TREND the company expects to scale up clinics beyond Orange County Public Schools. “(We) view the Orlando market as a beachhead to enter Florida and then expand health centers both to the north and south,” he said. “It’s reasonable to be able to serve 500,000 Floridians and have 160 clinics.”
Chipping In
Whether due to the federal government’s national security interests or local officials’ desire for economic diversity, Central Florida’s high-tech semiconductor industry is primed for growth. Just south of Orlando, Osceola County’s 500-acre master-planned tech hub NeoCity is a hotspot. Since 2022 it has attracted more than $500 million in investments, including a $160-million National Science Foundation grant to help establish an industry based around semiconductors, which are materials used in electronics and computer chips. In Palm Bay on Florida’s east coast, Oregon-based Rogue Valley Microdevices is set to begin manufacturing microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) devices in 2025 with applications in the defense and biomedical markets. The company was awarded a $6.7-million federal grant from the Biden administration’s 2022 CHIPS and Science Act that proposed up to $29.5 billion to reshore America’s semiconductor industry and triple U.S. manufacturing capacity in a decade. Meanwhile, the University of Central Florida is an anchor among several schools in the region with 20 semiconductor-related degree programs. UCF set aside $3.3 million for research and education in advanced semiconductor technologies and nanofabrication.
Universal’s New Park
Roller coaster fans will have something to scream about when Universal opens the gates on May 22 to Epic Universe, the first major new theme park to open in Florida in more than two decades. Its Stardust Racers coaster promises a ride through the “cosmos” at up to 62 miles per hour and 133 feet in the air. The coaster is within the Celestial Universe, the center of five worlds that include immersive odes to Harry Potter, Super Nintendo, How to Train Your Dragon and the Dark Universe. The park represents the largest investment that Comcast (which owns NBC Universal and its theme parks) has made among its parks worldwide, the company said. It’s set on a 750-acre site at Universal Orlando Resort that almost doubles Universal’s footprint and adds three hotels to the property. Comcast says the park will create 14,000 permanent jobs and nearly double the more than $302 million that Universal Orlando pays in annual state and local taxes. It will be the fourth of Universal’s parks that compete for visitors with rival Disney.