Sunday, March 22, 2015

From today's Post, front page below-the-fold: "Scripps: Non-biotech company ‘tenable’ on bio land — with conditions"

Many articles of late about Palm Beach Gardens. This is one from Tony Doris on the Scripps Research Institute and the Briger Tract that's part of their planned expansion:
     Scripps Research Institute, the center of a world-class biotech cluster meant to transform the county and state, says any effort to fill adjacent Palm Beach Gardens land meant for biotech spinoffs with companies not related to the industry violates the covenants upon which its arrival was based 10 years ago.
     At the same time Scripps, in a March 10 letter to Assistant Palm Beach County Administrator Shannon LaRocque, acknowledges pressure from business boosters to land a major non-biotechnology corporation on roughly one-third of the reserved parcel.
[and . . .]
     The Palm Beach Gardens land, known as the Briger Tract, was set aside as a crucial part of that plan, with room for spinoffs and other biotech companies to create critical mass for medical advances and economic growth.
     With a recession in the intervening years, that growth has been slow to materialize and United Technologies Corp. represents a big bird in hand.
     Kolter and those pressing for UTC and its 450 promised jobs paying an average of $85,000 a year on the northern 30 acres of Parcel B say the corporation fits the definition of high-tech in the covenants.