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SCOTT BARANCIKDecision makers at Scripps agreed with Palm Beach County officials that acreage in Jupiter has too little room for economic growth.
Scripps Research Institute's brief flip-flop over its Florida location is over.
Under pressure from state and local lawmakers, the California biotech organization dropped its short-lived bid for a 100-acre site next door to the Jupiter campus of Florida Atlantic University, calling it too small to host a hoped-for cluster of spinoffs, pharmaceutical companies and other high-tech employers.
Instead, Scripps asked Palm Beach County officials to redouble their efforts to land Mecca Farms, the 2,000-acre parcel Scripps selected several weeks ago over a number of competing tracts.
"We decided to focus on Mecca because it's a place where the county feels, and I guess we feel also, they can capture the economic development aspects of this project," general counsel Doug Bingham said Wednesday.
State officials were pleased with the decision because the original location offers plenty of room for the biotech boom they are counting on. Last week, Gov. Jeb Bush signed into law a bill that will give Scripps $369-million to open a second home in Florida, the largest economic development package in state history.
"The other site would have been great for Scripps, but not as great for Palm Beach County and Florida," Bush said before a Cabinet meeting Wednesday.
"I encouraged them to stay with the Mecca piece," said Sen. Ron Klein, D-Boca Raton, a key player behind the Scripps incentive package.
Palm Beach County officials might have cobbled together a modified Scripps campus at the Jupiter site by purchasing several properties nearby. The county commission recently budgeted $200-million to buy land for Scripps and build it a state-of-the-art drug research lab.
But Klein said there was no guarantee that negotiations with owners of the nearby parcels would be resolved quickly or affordably.
Even as Florida Atlantic University lost the chance to have a world-famous research group as a neighbor, president Frank Brogan was making sure Wednesday that the school would not be left empty-handed.
In an interview, Brogan said Scripps has already agreed to house a small cadre of its California scientists at FAU's main campus in Boca Raton, where they will not only conduct scientific experiments but begin recruiting other researchers for Scripps' Florida arm.
"They would create a beachhead, if you will, in terms of recruitment," said the politically connected Brogan, who was Bush's lieutenant governor until resigning to take the campus post in March.
In addition, Brogan has proposed that Palm Beach County build Scripps a new, 40,000-square-foot research facility on his university's Jupiter campus for temporary use. Once the Mecca Farms construction was complete, Scripps employees would move there and FAU would assume ownership of the lab, gradually paying Palm Beach County back for most or all of the cost.
Brogan said he and a group of FAU scientists broached the idea last week during a visit to Scripps' headquarters in the La Jolla area of San Diego. FAU staff are discussing the proposal with county officials, but Brogan said Scripps is already sold on the concept.
"They love the idea of housing on the Jupiter campus," he said.
In other Scripps developments Wednesday:
The institute has agreed to fund 10 scholarships for Floridians who qualify for a joint doctoral program between Scripps and Oxford University in Great Britain, Sen. Klein said. Those selected will do their academic work at Oxford and clinical work at Scripps' Florida campus.
Rep. James "Hank" Harper Jr., D-West Palm Beach, said he will bring a delegation of African-American entrepreneurs to La Jolla next week to make sure they get "a seat at the table" when Scripps comes to Florida. The relatively small percentage of African-Americans among Scripps' research staff and Scripps' willingness to work with black contractors in Florida were flashpoints during last month's legislative debate.
- Times staff writer Alisa Ulferts contributed to this report. Scott Barancik can be reached at barancik@sptimes.com or 727 893-8751.