Titusville large-scale industrial park near airport to house space, aerospace tenants
Officials hope to kick off construction early next year on Space Coast Innovation Park, a future 1.1-million-square-foot, five-building industrial spaceport complex across 100 acres alongside Space Coast Regional Airport in Titusville.
The opening construction phase calls for a trio of buildings spanning a combined 639,040 square feet for space-industry and aerospace tenants off Grissom Parkway. For comparison's sake, Amazon's recently built distribution center in Melbourne between West Eau Gallie Boulevard and Sarno Road measures 141,360 square feet, a site plan shows.
"The aerospace industry, from a demand perspective, has really grown. It's outpaced the supply of modern industrial buildings like this in the area that are a critical need for these companies moving in and launching products to space," said Ryan Wood, a Hines managing director of industrial development and acquisitions.
"So we feel like the need is there — and they need us to move quickly," Wood said.
Space Coast Innovation Park construction should start during the first quarter of 2024, Wood said, with the first three buildings opening for space-related businesses in early 2025. He declined to divulge information on future tenants, citing a nondisclosure agreement.
The second phase of construction calls for two industrial buildings spanning nearly 466,000 square feet across 50 acres.
"On the outside looking in, these buildings will be similar to what we also develop in other markets like Atlanta and Tampa, where we're catering to more traditional distribution and industrial users such as e-commerce and retail," Wood said.
"Here's where it's a little bit different: less about pallets and moving boxes around — like you might see in e-commerce — and more about parts storage. Maybe some testing areas. R&D (research and development). There could be some clean-room components for assembly," he said.
"So think of it as, more or less, a key support node in their supply chain. There could be some manufacturing here," he said.
Hines, a real estate development firm that manages $95 billion in assets in 30 countries, and Titusville-based Key Group are teaming up on the project. A third, unspecified construction phase could add mixed-use development on another adjoining 350 acres.
Space Coast Innovation Park will be built on leased land within Space Coast Regional Airport’s federally licensed Exploration Spaceport. Space Florida and the Florida Department of Transportation are teaming up to finance $3.48 million of the $6.95 million cost to extend Challenger Avenue, linking with Grissom Parkway near and through the future industrial park.
"The Project will enable spaceport development by creating access to buildable lots for commercialspace industry use and critical access for heavy load transportation from the Spaceport to CapeCanaveral Spaceport and local transportation networks," a Titusville-Cocoa Airport Authority agenda memo said.
A Space Florida non-disclosure agreement with an unidentified company is linked with the Challenger Avenue extension, airport agenda records show.
More: All Points to build large spacecraft processing complex at NASA's Kennedy Space Center
At NASA's Kennedy Space Center, the Merritt Island logistics company All Points has announced plans to build more than 500,000 square feet of specialized spacecraft processing facilities on 60 acres south of NASA's Vehicle Assembly Building.
In a FLORIDA TODAY interview last month, former NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine said the All Points complex will help break a "bottleneck" of ground-based spacecraft processing work that is straining Cape Canaveral's infrastructure.
A Space Coast Innovation Park brochure for prospective tenants notes its future buildings will be located within 10 miles of the VAB, making the site "ideally positioned to accommodate the area’s strong demand for highly specialized industrial space requiring payload assembly and transport to Kennedy Space Center launch pads."
"This is really an adjunct to activities that are currently happening, and/or hope to happen, within the gates to Kennedy Space Center. But to get inside the gates to Kennedy is highly — as you would imagine — secured and restrictive," Key Group CEO Kathleen Yonce said.
"So anything that can be done on our site can be done at a much cheaper cost of real estate, and can certainly be done at a much easier mode of operations," Yonce said.
Rick Neale is a Space Reporter at FLORIDA TODAY (for more of his stories, click here.) Contact Neale at 321-242-3638 or rneale@floridatoday.com. Twitter/X: @RickNeale1
This article originally appeared on Florida Today: Space Coast Innovation Park to build 1.1M square feet for space tenants
