Tom O'Neal, Associate Vice President for Research & Commercialization
at UCF, speaks at the incubator ribbon cutting
Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer, UCF President John
Hitt, and Orlando City Commissioner Betty Wyman celebrate
after cutting the ribbon to officially open the Orlando
Business Development Center Incubator, part of the UCF
Business Incubation Network.
The new center, located
at 3218 East Colonial Drive, across from the Orlando
Fashion Square, is designed to provide affordable
professional office space and support to qualified
new and small businesses. The section
that opened Dec. 4 is already occupied by its first four
clients with others on a waiting list. The facility
is expanding into an additional -------- square-foot space.
“We started the UCF Incubator Network
to provide fledgling businesses the support they need to
be successful and contribute to the economic strength of
the Central Florida Region, said Tom O’Neal, Associate
Vice President for Research & Commercialization at UCF and Director of the
UCF Incubator Network.
The City of Orlando, Orange County Government,
Seminole County Government, Florida High Tech Corridor
and the Metro Orlando Economic Development Commission (EDC)
all partner with UCF to support the incubator network.
The Orlando Business Development
Center is the fifth location for the network. Other facilities
are located at the University Tech Center and the Bennett
Complex in UCF’s Research Park, on North Orange Avenue
in downtown Orlando and in Seminole County at Winter Springs,
just off the intersection of of I-4 434/Alafaya and the
417.
