Scott Powers
Miami Beach Mayor Philip Levine believes Florida’s Space Coast is the state’s unique opportunity to capture 21st Century technology. He wants to see it become the Sunshine State’s Silicon Valley.
Levine, a potential Democratic gubernatorial candidate, sees his vision as not unlike that already pursued by officials at Space Florida and the Economic Development Commission of Florida’s Space Coast, as well as by some within NASA.
Should he run for governor, Levine may be the first statewide candidate to explicitly focus on the region anchored by Kennedy Space Center as a primary place for Florida technology innovation.
“With the right state government, we could turn NASA into the most exciting innovation zone, and it could become Florida’s Silicon Valley,” Levine said in an interview with FloridaPolitics.com.
“Every company involved in space should have a presence there. And every university in the state of Florida should be attracted to NASA. We need to own that space,” Levine said.
In fact, Space Florida, the state-chartered space business promotion arm, joined by the Space Coast EDC, have been pursuing such prospects.
The University of Central Florida and the University of Florida have rapidly-growing space technology research programs, as do several other institutions including the University of South Florida and Florida Institute of Technology.
The Space Coast – from Titusville to Melbourne and including Kennedy and Cape Canaveral Air Force Station – is evolving from a place known for 50 years almost exclusively for launching government rockets.
Now it has become a place now with mostly private rocket launches, with small, medium and large space companies involved in everything from rocket engine research to satellites are setting up shop. But, for the most part, investments are relatively modest compared with what those companies in states that have been longtime centers of the space industry and research, such as California, Texas, and Virginia.
Legacy space companies such as Boeing and Lockheed Martin and “New Space” companies such as SpaceX and Blue Origin have operations, some large, and some growing, in and around Kennedy. Most of these enterprises’ research, manufacturing and corporate offices remain elsewhere.
Levine said the state needs to get more involved in trying to change that.
“You need to sit with Jeff Bezos. You need to sit with Musk. You need to sit with all the smaller ones. We’ve got to ask them: ‘What do you need to make this area the most top innovation zone?'” Levine said. “You need to create all those incentives around NASA. You can’t afford not to. And you’ve got to create that buzz, energy.”
Levine is a believer in states offering targeted business incentives, something Space Florida does with transportation money. He believes far more can (and should) be done in the Space Coast.
That puts him closer in economic philosophy to Republican Gov. Rick Scott than to many Democrats, or for that matter to many Republicans who believe Florida’s business incentives programs have gotten out of control. That starts with Speaker Richard Corcoran, the Republican from Land ‘O Lakes who wants to cut them entirely.
Corcoran and Levine both spoke at a breakfast meeting of the Central Florida Urban League last Friday, taking jabs at one another over their positions on incentives.
In his interview, Levine jabbed back, calling Corcoran “Nikita Khrushchev,” referring to the Soviet president of the 1950s and 60s, charging that the speaker seeks centralized control of how the state invests in business.
“You’ve heard when Nikita Khrushchev the speaker, talked about how he doesn’t want to help industry, doesn’t want to help business,” Levine said. “You know: ‘Mr. No, I’m Mr. Yes.’ We took Miami Beach from the city that starts with ‘No’ to the city that starts with ‘Yes.’ The state of Florida needs to be the state that starts with ‘yes.'”
7 comments
Janis Saxon
February 28, 2017 at 8:22 am
On Miami Beach, He says ‘Yes” to his friends and business associates and screws over local residents and everyone else. He was terrible for Miami Beach. All is civic projects are over budget and server little real local purpose other than to generate publicity for himself. His ‘Convention Center” is $100 million over budget and not half the project that he took off the table when he came into office that would have costs taxpayers ZERO. A recent survey shows over 70% of residents think that Miami Beach is heading in the wrong direction under his leadership. Crime is way up- but he won’t let the police file reports to document it because it would make him look bad. He hires his own PR person at taxpayers expense and blocks all dissenting opinion on social media because he is so think skinned he can’t handle honest disagreement. He has been a huge failure for Miami Beach and he would be an even bigger failure for Florida.
Don Matson
March 1, 2017 at 10:04 pm
NASA, the Kennedy Space Center, the Apollo Program, the International Space Station, the mission to Mars and space exploration all have one thing in common, they are all socialist programs that create jobs and benefits corporates and the wealthy at taxpayers’ expense. Without taxpayers footing the bill there is no near term or long term profits to be made in space exploration or any of these programs. Capitalist like Elon Musk and his private enterprise, Spacex, did not create jobs engineering, manufacturing and operating the Falcon rockets, the US government created these jobs through NASA, a socialist program funded by US taxpayers.
John Saathoff
March 3, 2017 at 12:21 am
This is an ignorant comment that would be better placed in Hometown News Rants and Raves.
Trent Spears
March 2, 2017 at 1:28 am
I am a Democrate form Brevard County. Mr Levine You are totally out of touch with what we want in Brevard. We want enviormental renewal of our dead INDIAN RIVER LAGOON (Lagoon house and Lagoon Fest), due to pollution runoff from NASA launches and overuse of our natural beaches and endangered sea turtle nesting beaches (Lights out project, INC.) HARRIS CORPORATION is already looking for 40,000 more educated fools to build DRONES THAT KILL PEOPLE. Those new comers will destroy our Lagoon and beaches which us residents are caretakers of. Who are you Lobbying for because it sounds like you are eager to make much money out of this IDEA of yours. You Know nothing about the residents of Brevard county and DEMOCRATES HERE WILL NOT SUPPORT YOU AND YOUR BIG IDEAS. We don’t know you here and we don’t want you and your big kickback ideas, MR. Money Man. WE want Enviormental Conservation or our property values will go down. It’s all about our location and overpopulation. Forget it MR.LEVINE!
Dorothee
March 4, 2017 at 9:47 pm
Well said!
Judith Moss Pobjecky
March 5, 2017 at 9:24 pm
Most of Brevard County residents are thrilled the space program is making a great comeback.
When Obama phased out the space program thousands of people suffered. Loss of jobs, homes, businesses, schools.
A LOT of people were forced to leave. Very bad times.
Thank goodness Pres Trump is bringing the important work back to the Space Center.
There are many here in Titusville employed by KSC and associated comanies. They not only care about the space program but also very concerned with the environment.
I can’t believe some of the responses I’ve read on this site. First time in 40 years I’ve seen such bitter responses regarding the space program.
Paul Crow
March 6, 2017 at 10:11 pm
When your closet in Miami Beach is filled to capacity with skeletons, I guess you try to move to Tallahassee and get a bigger closet…
Comments are closed.