KISSIMMEE, Fla. — Kissimmee Gateway Airport is trying to encourage growth within its surrounding area by offering incentives to potential companies and the incentives are meant to bring more high paying positions to town.
- Kissimmee Gateway Airport launches aerospace advancement initiative
- It is to get businesses to the airport to offset their costs, offers rebates, grants
"Kissimmee is open for business," said Belinda Ortiz Kirkegard, the Economic Development director for City of Kissimmee. She believes this is the message the city is trying to relay.
Recent road improvements by the city have opened access to some property in and around the Kissimmee Gateway Airport.
Which has led officials to launch an aerospace advancement initiative.
"We'd like to become a major workforce hub in aviation and aerospace within the central Florida footprint," Kirkegard said.
The initiative was put in place to encourage investors to locate at or near the airport. While the Kissimmee Gateway Airport does not accommodate commercial airlines, it deals a lot with corporate jets, pilot training and small aircrafts hitting the west side of the Orlando metro area. The airport is used by many tourists visiting the theme parks or the Orange county convention center.
"We are already serving the community, we're just really trying to enhance that with developing our available property for opportunities to generate some high wage jobs for the community," said Terry Lloyd, the director of Aviation for the City of Kissimmee.
Those behind the initiative said the point is to help businesses looking to move here by offsetting some of their costs. The incentives include rebates, grants and permit reimbursements.
"All of our incentives are performance based. A company has to make the investment they said they're going to make, Kirkegard said. "They also have to hire the individuals they said they're going to hire. Meet their job goals as we say before we provide those incentives."