Orlando Business Journal -- Osceola County is working to lure an as-yet unnamed medical research lab to downtown Kissimmee. The lab would bring 25 jobs to the area, each paying more than $57,000 annually. On Aug. 11, the Osceola County Commission approved giving the firm tax refunds of $25,000 over five years beginning in 2010. The county also asked the state to chip in another $100,000 in tax refunds during that time span.
Osceola business leaders want the medical research lab to lease space in a new $26 million, 268,000-square-foot mixed-use project in downtown Kissimmee called City Centre, which includes a three-story office building and an eight-story building with retail, office and residential space.
The unnamed firm signed a letter of intent for about 15,000 square feet in City Centre with Schoolfield Properties, which owns and manages that space.
The lab would occupy the entire third floor of the three-story office building, where it would test new and existing medications, said Kevin Schoolfield, a partner in the City Centre project.
When pressed for details on the unnamed company, Schoolfield would only say the Kissimmee location would be an expansion of its existing business. The Kissimmee site is one location the firm is considering.
The operation likely would research the safety and effectiveness of drugs on patients, said Dr. Philip Chen, medical director of Cognoscenti Health Institute, an Orlando medical diagnostics company owned by Sonic Healthcare USA. Cognoscenti does similar testing of drugs, as do Orlando Health and Florida Hospital.
Those working at the potential Kissimmee location of the company would be “highly skilled” and involve a “fairly high level of scientists,” said Chen, who declined to speculate about the identity of the firm Osceola is wooing.
Getting such a lab started would not be difficult, Chen said, but the company would have to have previous connections with drug companies to succeed.
Should the medical research lab ink a contract for the space at City Centre, it would be another step toward diversifying Osceola County’s economy with medical and technical research, said Commission Chairman Ken Shipley. “I would like to have 15 of these type of companies.”
Officials in both Osceola and Orange counties want more medical research firms in their areas, as it’s a clean industry with high-wage jobs. They believe the emerging “medical city” in Lake Nona, in south Orange County not far from Osceola, will result in spinoff biotech firms.
Lake Nona is slated to include the Burnham Institute for Medical Research’s satellite lab, the University of Central Florida’s new medical school, Nemours Foundation’s planned children’s hospital and the proposed new VA Medical Center.
