Technology campus was nearly put to other uses
Thanks to their place in the global semiconductor manufacturing sector, Osceola County, NeoCity and their partners will receive nearly $51 million in federal funding to expand those operations at the technological campus east of Kissimmee.
Go back a decade, and that plot of land — called the Judge Farms when a series of events began to unfold — was nearly … well, not a microchip research hub.
It was almost an athletic complex for youth sports … then an international business center … then a major-league baseball team nearly convinced the county to build them a new spring training site.
Those deals didn’t get done. Fast forward to last week, and those federal funds are owing into a massive project that, county officials hope and anticipate, will diversify the area’s economy.
Brandon Arrington is the only current county commissioner who was a part of that board in 2012 when this process started. He said all the partnerships Osceola County struck up within the region helped reach Friday’s announcement.
“This adventure started when Don (Fisher, county manager) and I had a conversation of what economic development would look like, and we realized we couldn’t compete with other communities playing the same games,” he said. “We changed our focus. It was through investments over the years to create facilities here. Those brought us to this amazing point; our belief in our community and where we can take ourselves.”
In 2012, Osceola County and Avatar Homes, Poinciana’s primary developer, struck a deal: in exchange for the county issuing the debt to build Poinciana Parkway, the first toll-road project of the Osceola County Expressway Authority, Avatar gave the county 160 acres.
(The postscript: for the closing costs and traffic study for the road, a cost of about $150,000, the county had the land free and clear. e road was built, the rest of the county’s toll road projects folded into the Central Florida Expressway Authority’s (CFX) 30-year plan, and then Poinciana Parkway was sold to CFX for $30 million, Fisher said.)
The only sure use for the land was the Lake Toho Water Restoration Project, a mitigation project that cleans water as it flows from the Mill Slough basin toward the big lake.
“In 2012, we made diversifying our economy a priority in our Strategic Plan,” Fisher said, noting that during this yearsl-ong process, there were proposals to turn the land into apartments and other residential lots with mixed-use plans.
If the county didn’t have more ideas, others did. e United States Specialty Sports Association, already working from space at Osceola Heritage Park, pitched a multi-field sports complex that gained traction, but “the numbers didn’t work out,” Fisher said. (They soon moved out.)
In 2013, Beijing Construction, designed to be a business-to-business marketing center catering to Asian companies, became an option.
“We had some serious talks, but the Chinese government chose to not invest in other international markets at the time,” Fisher said.
Later that year, talks between the county and the Washington Nationals — who weren’t satisfied with the existing OHP baseball complex — progressed into a new spring training development. It reached a County Commission vote; that went 4-1against building it. Pushback from the tourism industry saw the nine-figure project as a bad deal.
“It came down to $130 million for 14 games a year, and the team could take tourist tax dollars to refurbish their space,” Fisher said. “From a business perspective it didn’t make sense.”
In 2014, UCF, the Orlando Economic Development Commission and Florida High Tech Corridor were working together on a project. ey studied the economy of Austin, Texas, a new technology hub, where governments came together to invest and sent their economy into motion.
“UCF went to the Florida Legislature to see if there was interest in doing that locally, but they gave up on looking for sites in Orange County,” Fisher said. “In the back of my mind, I knew we had this cluster study to show manufacturing and research being a sector we could grow. We knew about the project, we owned the land, and a pair of locals convinced them to come talk to us. When we talked to them, we committed that day. Six months later, we entered in an agreement with UCF.
“A lot of entities invested here who normally wouldn’t have, a total of $16 million — UCF, Florida High Tech Corridor, Harris Corporation, Massey Services.”
While the Legislature was in a battle with then-Gov. Rick Scott, which slowed down state funding into a tech project, Osceola County moved forward, funding construction.
That wouldn’t be the only detour. UCF originally entered an agreement to operate what was then called the Florida Advanced Manufacturing Research Center for 30 years. But a number of leadership and Board of Trustee transitions led UCF to disengage last year.
Enter the Minnesota-based semiconductor engineering and fabrication foundry SkyWater Technology, which brings expertise in the “next big thing” in NeoCity sensor research — advanced packaging, which basically involves making microchips even smaller, faster and more efficient. The Department of Defense, which deferred $27 million in projects to NeoCity under UCF’s watch, found them acceptable to continue their grants through BRIDG, a consortium of nowfamiliar international tech companies: imec (Belgium), SUSS Micro Tel (Germany), and TEL (Japan). In 2021, Korean tech firm DSUS entered into a deal to build NeoCity’s town center, a billion-dollar investment.
And the news may not be done. Per the county, the National Science Foundation has $160 million in innovation planned over the net 10 years, and Osceola is positioning NeoCity to be a player, and the CHIPS Act, which Congress passed a month ago, has $52 billion in semiconductor projects, many involving advanced packaging research.
Thus far, the county and utility providers’ NeoCity investment has been $273 million, and here’s the receipt: the Lake Toho water project, the Center for NeoVation, the OC office building, NeoCity Academy, a new KUA power substation, NeoCity Way and the future projects already mentioned. While baseball players are paid well, they’d never bring multiple billion-dollar investments to the community.
“When you walk out of NeoCity, you look east and see rockets launch. You look west and see low-wage workers that were the subject of e Florida Project,” Fisher said. “Our intent wasn’t to manufacture semiconductors, it was to grow and diversify our economy and invest in infrastructure for economic development, like a road is infrastructure for transportation.
“We’ve wanted to provide jobs for those who grow up here, ones you can get a certification for. Valencia students can get permanent jobs with Skywater. I know of one who was a cook for 20 years, and is now working in a clean room for much more pay for a company that’s growing science.”
