From: The Orlando Sentinel

Next month, officials will dedicate the Burnham Institute for Medical Research, crown jewel of the medical city emerging in southeast Orlando. Come spring, the new building for the University of Central Florida’s College of Medicine will open there, too.

Amid the fanfare, what few may realize is that most of the big projects anchoring the Lake Nona development are about a year behind their announced schedules.

Out beyond the city’s international airport, Lake Nona Country Club and even a few cow pastures, the three-story Burnham Institute was expected to open as early as last summer. It was completed in April instead.

Just down a lighted, manicured boulevard from the school, the UCF medical school was originally expected to open last fall. The first students started classes this fall in temporary quarters near the main UCF campus, but classes at Lake Nona won’t start until next summer. Next door to the med school, both UCF’s Burnett School of Biomedical Sciences and the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center of Orlando were expected to open about a year ago. They are now shooting for next month.

Backers of some of the projects say their facilities have benefited from the delays, but the slowdowns have not helped a region desperate for jobs. Metro Orlando’s unemployment rate is nearly 11percent.

“The delay is unfortunate, in that hires by the College of Medicine would have boosted the Orlando housing market when the timing could not be better,” said David Denslow, a University of Florida economics professor. “But I’m sure it’s important to get the design right for the long haul.”

Read the Rest: Metro Orlando awaits jobs bonanza at Lake Nona medical city