Working woes: UCF lays off more employees at Osceola’s technology park

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  • NeoCity sits across from Osceola Heritage Park on U.S. Highway 192. PHOTO/FACEBOOK
    NeoCity sits across from Osceola Heritage Park on U.S. Highway 192. PHOTO/FACEBOOK
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The University of Central Florida this month laid off more than twodozen employees from BRIDG at NeoCity, Osceola County’s 6-year-old technology park.

The county has committed more than $100 million for the project, aimed at injecting high-wage, hightech jobs into a local economy now dependent on tourism.

Earlier this year - before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic – UCF officials announced that the school intended to sever ties with BRIDG, short for Bridging the Innovation Development Gap. The “industry-friendly,” publicprivate consortium was designed to accelerate the development of sensor technology and to provide space for research. It also includes a manufacturing component.

BRIDG in March ousted CEO Chester Kennedy, a former Lockheed Martin executive and engineer. His replacement, Brian Sapp, came to Osceola from The Research Foundation, “a private, not-for-profit educational corporation” at the State University of New York.

Sapp, who was appointed on an interim basis, earlier this summer, said that BRIDG’s latest partnership with military defense contractor Radiance Technologies further establishes the consortium “as an industry leader in strengthening our domestic semiconductor supply chain.”

Radiance provides engineering and intelligence services to the Department of Defense at 16 locations in the U.S., including military bases such as Redstone Arsenal in Alabama and Eglin Air Force Base in north Florida.

The research labs at BRIDG were built to attract companies like Radiance by saving them the cost of expensive infrastructure, such as the facility’s “clean room,” one of the largest in Florida. The sterile environment (no dust, no static electricity) is ideal for working with the semiconductor material used to make sensors.

Using labs and infrastructure already in place, technology companies are supposed to be able to do research and development cheaper and easier versus building their own. Officials have said the goal is making BRIDG and NeoCity a Southeast technology hub.

The first BRIDG building opened in 2017 in NeoCity, the commercial development tied to the consortium. School Board Member Clarence Thacker, a former publishing executive, is one of the five members of the BRIDG Board of Directors, along with Osceola County Manager Don Fisher. The school district opened NeoCity Academy on the BRIDG campus in 2019. BRIDG and NeoCity have been anchored by UCF and were funded by Osceola County, the Florida Legislature and the Florida High Tech Corridor, with an initial investment of about $200 million.

Despite its $25 million investment, UCF wants to break ties with BRIDG, according to recent reporting from the Orlando Sentinel.

Gov. Ron DeSantis this summer vetoed the $10 million appropriation for BRIDG, which prompted UCF’s latest layoffs at the technology park, according to the Sentinel.

NeoCity sits across from Osceola Heritage Park on U.S. Highway 192.

Local officials have said the project could bring some 20,000 new jobs to the area in the future.

Right now, Osceola County has the highest unemployment rate in Florida at 37 percent, according to figures released by the state in July.