Joining Forces

Florida Trend, Apr 2008 by Sears, Diane

Central Florida leaders are building on an established reputation for collaboration in 2008. Two of the region's most powerful business groups - the Metro Orlando Economic Development Commission and the Central Florida Partnership, which launched in late 2007 as an umbrella organization that includes the Orlando Regional Chamber of Commerce - are collaborating with the Orlando/Orange County Convention and Visitors Bureau on economic development. The groups held their first conference in January, crafting plans to join forces on trade missions, research and possibly even the CVB's branding campaign, "Say Yes to Orlando."

The area's economic developers aren't in any hurry to shed the region's image as a top leisure and convention destination. Meanwhile, however, they continue to target 21st century, knowledge-based industries - biotech, defense, digital media, modeling, simulation and training, optics and financial services - which together contribute $13.4 billion to the economy and employ some 65,000 workers.

Like local governments throughout the state, Central Florida municipalities face budgetary pressures as a result of Amendment 1. And along with the real estate slowdown, the region faces other issues: An increase in violent crime, high insurance rates and perennial gridlock on the roads. The mayors of Orlando and Orange County are also heading up a commission on homelessness, a growing problem.

The region's momentum should serve it well, however. There are more economic development projects working now than last year, says John Fremstad, who oversees bioOrlando and Technology Industry Development for the Economic Development Commission.

A new "medical city" under construction on the east side of Orlando will include a University of Central Florida medical school, a Veterans Administration hospital, a Nemours children's hospital, a Burnham Institute for Medical Research facility, the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center Orlando's Cancer Research Institute and a just-announced 100,000-sq.-ft. innovative "wet lab" and biotech incubator that Lake Nona developer Tavistock Group is building on spec to attract biotechnology startups.

"When you drive around here, it's still growing," Fremstad says. "Although there's a slowdown in the economy, we're not dying."

LEADERS

> As 2008 chairman of the new Central Florida Partnership, Des Cummings Jr. will steer efforts to bring together seven counties - Brevard, Lake, Orange, Osceola, Polk, Seminole and Volusia - to address the region's most pressing issues, including economic diversification, transportation and job creation. Cummings is president of the Florida Hospital Foundation and executive vice president of business development for Florida Hospital and the Florida Division of Adventist Health System. He leads a team that includes chairman-elect Pat Engfer, general manager of the Hyatt Regency Orlando International Airport, and Jacob Stuart, who has given up his longtime position as head of the Orlando Regional Chamber of Commerce to become CEO of Central Florida Partnership.

> Appointed last year as dean of the new University of Central Florida College of Medicine, Dr. Deborah German is closing in on her goal to raise enough community money to provide full scholarships for the first class of 40 students, who will begin classes in 2009. The college received its preliminary accreditation earlier this year.

> Named the first female president of Walt Disney World in 2006, Meg Crofton has moved full-bore into civic life. She's joined a number of community boards and has promised Disney's participation in a new downtown arts center. Crofton also announced Disney will build a new indoor sports facility.

ORLANDO

This year marks the start of a $1.1-billion downtown project to build a performing arts center, a replacement for the Amway Arena, where the Orlando Magic play, and a renovated Citrus Bowl. The city is making an effort to employ local minority contractors where possible for the design and construction, unbundling larger contracts to get smaller companies involved. The initiative essentially amounts to a public works project.

"We can withstand a slump in the housing industry better than we could in the past," says Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer. "I'm very optimistic. What we have is a community that's come together, and everybody's pulling in the same direction. This place is going to be the envy of the world in the next decade."

LEADER

> Founder and president of the architectural and planning firm C.T. Hsu Associates, C.T. Hsu is expected to work closely this year with regional economic development efforts between the Economic Development Commission, the Central Florida Partnership and the Convention and Visitors Bureau.

ORANGE COUNTY

As the region focuses on diversifying its economy, the county is focused on creating jobs. One promising sector: The green-business movement that aims to help the region become eco-friendly. Another: Proposed construction of the Wekiva Parkway, a $1.8-billion project that would be the last piece in the $13.8-billion beltway around Central Florida. The parkway would join a planned commuter rail project in alleviating traffic from I-4, which is about to be widened through downtown. "I see this as an opportunity for job creation, as well as moving people and visitors around," Mayor Richard Crotty says.