The 96-acre Young-Rainey STAR Center on Bryan Dairy Road gains $1.5-million for improvements.
By SHANNON TAN
Published October 22, 2004
LARGO - U.S. Department of Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham announced a $1.5-million grant in infrastructure improvements for the Young-Rainey STAR Center on Thursday.
The money will go toward heating and ventilation improvements, roof structural engineering and the center's new high-tech business incubator.
"This is a major infusion right now," Abraham said.
The 96-acre complex at 7887 Bryan Dairy Road is a former Department of Energy plant that stopped producing parts for nuclear weapons after the Cold War ended.
U.S. Rep. C.W. Bill Young was concerned that the plant would close in 1991. He called former Pinellas County Commissioner Chuck Rainey and came up with the idea of turning it into an industrial park with high-tech tenants.
"I didn't want to lose the jobs, and I didn't want to lose the facility," Young said Thursday.
Pinellas County now owns the science, technology and research center, which houses 23 technology-related companies that employ 1,500 people. Tenants include Raytheon and Constellation Technology.
Officials estimate the plant's transformation saved or created more than 3,000 jobs.
Another 700 jobs are expected to be created by the end of 2006.
"When this happened, there was no 9/11," Rainey said.
"Today, most of the industry here contributes toward antiterrorism."
The Department of Energy has committed more than $23-million in the past decade for efforts that include training former plant workers and recruiting high-tech tenants to employ displaced workers.
A new business incubator, the STAR Technology Enterprise Center, is also located at the complex.
