Lake Nona innovation center set to break ground this week

Shovels will hit the dirt this week on the new $30 million complex slated to bring wet lab and incubator space to Lake Nona's fast-growing Medical City.

Lake Nona developer Tavistock Development Co. LLC will host a groundbreaking event on Oct. 30 for the new 92,000-square-foot, three-story GuideWell Innovation Center, Central Florida's first multi-tenant building designed specifically for life sciences, health innovation and technology companies, said a news release.

The new facility on Medical City Drive and Lake Nona Boulevard also is critical in the biotech hub's growth, as it provides space for smaller companies to feed off Medical City's anchor tenants, including Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute, University of Central Florida College of Medicine, Orlando VA Medical Center and Nemours Children's Hospital.

The project, set to be completed in late 2015, will be anchored by GuideWell, part of a group of companies launched by Florida Blue to market personalized wellness plans and a line of related health products to its 4 million members, as reported by sister paper Jacksonville Business Journal.

The Innovation Center in Lake Nona — which previously was called the Florida Blue Innovation Center — also will include a life sciences incubator to be jointly run by the University of Central Florida and University of Florida.

Tavistock is developing the project and Hoar Construction LLC is the general contractor.

Be sure to come back to OrlandoBusinessJournal.com for updates. And read up on more of OBJ's recent coverage of Lake Nona:

Sanford-Burnham recruits leading cardiometabolic experts to Lake Nona

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