After enduring a competitive process involving hundreds of applicants nationwide, Osceola County, NeoCity and their partners will be receiving nearly $51 million in federal funding to expand sorely-needed semiconductor and microchip manufacturing -- right here along the U.S. 192 corridor.
The money is part of the Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Administration (EDA)'s Build Back Better Regional Challenge (BBBRC), funds the Biden Administration is dispersing to continue economic recovery from the pandemic.
The county and its partners in the Central Florida Coalition -- Skywater, imec, and UCF among them in BRIDG, a consortium of industry partners -- announced the award Friday at NeoCity, and its big plans for it. A part of that is becoming a hub for a form of semiconductor manufacturing called advanced packaging, which greatly reduces a microchip’s size, weight, and energy consumption. The long-range plan, about a decade in the making, involves creating opportunities for new, high-wage jobs in the emerging technology field to come to Osceola County.
These are ideas that county leaders -- the few who are still in place, like County Manager Don Fisher and County Commissioner Brandon Arrington -- said was visionary at best when the thought of using newly-acquiring county land for an advanced manufacturing complex came forward about a decade ago.
"It's affirming, and quite humbling," Fisher said. "All the work that went into an idea that started in 2012, to create a strategic plan and committing with UCF to build this building (Center for NeoVation) in 2014. A lot of nay-sayers of our effort to diversify our economy and help our minority-majority community find jobs ... it's elating to get that kind of affirmation."
Arrington said all the partnerships Osceola County has struck up within the region helped reach Friday's announcement.
"This adventure started when Don 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," Arrington said. "We changed our focus. It was through investments over the years to create the facilities here -- working with our school district to create NeoCity Academy. Those brought us here to this amazing point, where our belief in our community and where we can take ourselves."
Osceola County and NeoCity were one of the 521 applicants for these funds; they were one of just 21 who received them, and the only winner out of 17 Florida groups who applied.
In December, the regional Coalition passed Phase I of this process, and was awarded $500,000 through the Build Back Better Challenge. That was used to develop a Phase 2 proposal, when the vision for the semiconductor manufacturing at NeoCity and how it would benefit the community with access to high-wage, high-skill jobs it has never seen before,.
In that process, contributions from familiar local organizations --Lockheed Martin, Siemens, Valencia College, the Osceola School District -- became a part of it. Congressional support from those like U.S. Rep. Darren Soto (D-Kissimmee) just added to the success of the county's application.
In the end, Osceola County secured what Arrington called, "The first major federal semiconductor investment in the United States ... a validation of the County's vision to create high-tech, high-wage jobs right here at NeoCity."
The $50.8 million fully federally-funded investment -- "Osceola County isn't spending a dime of local tax dollars to move these along," Arrington said -- will be used to fund six main projects:
- Expand capacity for the Center for Neovation, where nanoelectric research has been going on since that facility opened about five years ago. Funded at $23.4 million.
- The advanced packaging technology, led by the BRIDG coalition of tech outfits on campus like imec and Skywater, will fund the purchase and installation of machinery to create a new production line. Funded at $13.1 million.
- A "Digital-twin" project, led by UCF, which will digitize the manufacturing processes of all these nanotechnologies. It will create a second digital version of Neovation's semiconductor production line. According to the county, it will make more efficient production lines. Funded at $8.8 million.
- Expand the Upskill Osceola, and Orlando Economic Partnership program designed to develop a talent pipeline of workers who will one day work at NeoCity, who originally lacked the credentials to work there in their educational background and would otherwise have been overlooked in the past. Funded at $1.5 million.
- Establish Catalyst Osceola, an organization to develop and manage programs and processes tied to the development needs of Central Florida’s semiconductor companies. The goal here is to help those companies leverage the business opportunities that will eventually be available at NeoCity. Funded at $1.9m million.
- The Internal Governance & Community Engagement. Will establish the governance structure and a community engagement framework to inform the community as economic opportunities become available at NeoCity.
All that's left now is to receive the funds, get to work and work of Friday's momentum.
"Let's go get the equipment," said BRIDG's Jim VanderVeer.
This isn't NeoCity's first government award in 2022. On Jan. 5, Go. Ron DeSantis presented a $6 million grant to Osceola County to help fund the construction of Neovation Way, a road that would directly link NeoCity to Neptune Road, and awarded Valencia College $3.7 million to fund new programs that focus on technology workforce training for semiconductor industries.