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Kennedy Space Center laboratory slated to support space station research and development

By Anne Straub
Brevard Technical Journal

Artist's rendering of the Space Experiment Research and Processing Laboratory, currently under construction. Photo courtesy NASA, © 2002.

Construction is under way on a Kennedy Space Center laboratory slated to support space station research, the first sign of life in an ambitious project designed to foster world-class research and technology development related to space.

The Space Experiment Research and Processing Laboratory (SERPL), expected to be complete at the end of next year, will serve as the primary gateway for scientific experiment payloads destined for the space station. Tenants will include NASA's experiment processing contractor team, as well as university researchers.

The 100,000-square-foot building is being built with state funds. But that facility is seen as a magnet for additional projects to populate a research park that would attract private investment and increase high-tech employment.

Called the International Space Research Park, the joint state and NASA project would cover 400 acres south of the KSC Visitor Complex, across the road from SERPL.

The southern leg of Space Commerce Way, with the VAB to the north in the distance. The SERPL construction area is seen between the road and Kennedy Parkway (SR 3). Photo courtesy NASA, © 2002.

A preliminary study shows the park could employ up to 10,000 employees, over a 20-year build out.

"This could have an enormous impact," said Walt Johnson, executive director of the Space Coast Economic Development Commission. "Ultimately, it could just about double the number of employees at the Cape."

Commercial real estate agent Rick Barnes thinks the park could stimulate business outside the site. That's particularly important for Titusville, which has had plenty of high-tech space available for several years.

Even without considering the mostly empty former McDonnell Douglas plant in Titusville, just 78 percent of high-tech space in North Brevard is occupied, according to a survey by Tuttle-Armfield-Wagner and Coldwell Banker Commercial Sun Land Realty of Florida. That level doesn't indicate strong demand for new space, the survey concludes.

This map shows the SERPL site and the adjacent planned International Space Research Park. Click for a larger version. Map courtesy NASA, © 2002.

"We were hesitant at first. But all boats rise with the tide," Barnes said. "We think it will end up bringing more to the area - more rooftops, more people, more absorption of existing space."

That tends to be the case with such projects, said Stephanie Roy of consultant Futron Corp. in Bethesda, Md. "We look at the park as a draw for the region - an added incentive for businesses to locate in Brevard County," said Roy, program manager for the development study the firm conduced on the KSC project.

Research and development firms such as those likely to locate in the park tend to have a very high multiplier effect, she said, meaning they stimulate more business for the area. The company will release its estimates for economic impact in a study due out in May.

Some of that impact could come from businesses that locate in Brevard to serve park tenants. "We don't anticipate any kind of manufacturing in the park," Roy said. "Any products that tenants will need will be coming from vendors and suppliers. A proportion of those companies will likely locate near the park."

Officials are talking to two or three companies that are close to agreeing to locate at the park, said Jan Heuser, NASA's program manager for SERPL and the park. Activity in the park probably wouldn't start until 2004.

The agency wants to take advantage of the site's unique qualities when searching for tenants. "This is where they launch and land," Heuser said, noting that potential tenants must have a need to be near the launch facilities or meet other criteria that will limit tenants to those with clear space-related objectives.

The park probably won't cause businesses to relocate, but rather will attract researchers and start-ups, Heuser said.

NASA hopes the research park would increase KSC's involvement in research and technology development, and make the Cape the place to be for companies involved in space transportation. That's increasingly important as the industry moves toward a future that might not require complex, coastal facilities like the space center.