LAKELAND, Fla. — A Lakeland nonprofit devoted to preserving Florida's history in flight launched a major construction effort on Wednesday geared towards advancing the state's future in the skies.
- Expansion will bring STEM classrooms, instruction areas for large, small training programs
- Project Skylab expected to open in 2021
- More Polk County stories
The Aerospace Center for Excellence broke ground Wednesday on a $4.6 million facility called Project Skylab.
“This will be one of the premiere science centers in the United States, especially the way we’ve geared it towards aerospace,” said Ed Young, the Executive Director of the Aerospace Center of Excellence.
The 22,000 square foot facility will be an expansion to the Aerospace Center for Excellence’s Florida Air Museum, currently housed on the Sun 'N Fun Expo campus.
“It’s going to be a STEM learning facility," said Rick Garcia, Director of the Board for the Aerospace Center for Excellence. "We can put up to five to six classrooms in there, moveable walls, we can bring artifacts and things from the museum into the Skylab to teach people how to fly, fix things, learn about aviation, space.”
“The students get to build an airplane. They get to build a helicopter. They can finish a circuit. They can work with basic chemicals so that they can see what happens when you join chemicals together,” Young said.
Project Skylab will also have instruction areas for small or large training programs, as well as an aerospace media center where they’ll be able to host seminars, webcasts, and other large-audience presentations.
In addition, the facility is expected to house workforce training program facilities for Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Southeastern University, Polk State College, and Florida Polytechnic University.
The project organizers said funding came about fairly easy. The project received a $493,000 grant from the State of Florida Division of Cultural Affairs on top of numerous donations.
“The generosity of Lakeland surprised us. We are a year ahead of schedule,” Young said.
They need to raise about $800,000 more to fund the exhibits inside the facility.
Project Skylab is expected to open just in time for the Sun ’N Fun International Fly-In and Expo in 2021.