Mitsubishi Heavy Industries to Open $40-Mil Plant

ORLANDO-The year’s biggest industrial deal to date is about to go down. Orange County government officials and Newport Beach, CA-based Mitsubishi Heavy Industries America Inc. are expected to compromise next week on a $1.4 million tax concession over 10 years that the turbine engine manufacturer has requested before opening a $40-million, 91,000-sf plant in Orlando Central Park.

The manufacturing facility could lead later to the opening of a larger Mitsubishi western hemisphere service headquarters requiring expanded space either in the park or at another site, according to the Economic Development Commission of Mid-Florida Inc., which coordinated the deal. Mitsubishi scouted Tampa, FL, Pensacola, FL and South Carolina before deciding on Orlando.

County staffers, on condition of anonymity, tell GlobeSt.com, the deal is 95% done. The Japanese-owned company wants the state to offer $1.12 million and the county, $280,000 or $28,000 per year for 10 years. “That’s peanuts,” Dean Fritchen, senior broker at Winter Park, FL-based Arvida Realty Services Inc., tells GlobeSt.com.