Park History

The Progress Corporate Park began as the vision of one man - Dr. Robert Marston, president of the University of Florida during the early 1980’s. He envisioned an office and research park where university technology projects and private start-up companies would co-locate for the mutual benefit of both. The University of Florida Foundation (UFF) owned a large parcel of land in the city of Alachua and 200 of those acres were designated for the park. UFF sought out UF alumni Andrew Hines as their development partner. Hines was then president of Florida Progress Corporation, which owned Florida Power.

In 1984, under Hines’ direction, the Apalachee Development Company purchased the property from the University of Florida Foundation. Two years later, Apalachee applied to the city of Alachua for approval of a Development of Regional Impact (DRI) under chapter 380 of the Florida Statutes.

In 1987 Alachua issued a development order which permitted office and research development within the park. The first building constructed was the 59,000 SF Progress Center.

In 1990, the large animal facility was built and sold to the Board of Trustees of the Internal Improvement Fund for the benefit of the University of Florida. This board also purchased 6 acres in 1994 and built the Sid Martin Biotechnology Incubator.
Florida Power later spun off this property to Echelon International, which they controlled. In 1998, Echelon and UF entered into an agreement which provided, among other things, clarification of the organizations’ obligations to one another and set on paper UF’s continued commitment to the Progress Corporate Park. The university expresses this commitment by promoting the utilization of the park by UF research programs, faculty start-up companies and licensees of university technology.

The park’s DRI was amended in 1999 to allow for much more diverse uses of the property, including light industrial, general office, distribution, medical, retail and hotel use. A group of local real estate investors purchased the park in March of 2000 under the name of Innovation Partners, Ltd. and Park development accelerated. Progress One opened in the Spring of 2007 and Progress Two and Three opened in 2009.

Since Innovation Partners’ purchase of the property, there has been more new construction and development in the park than in all the preceding 15 years combined. Currently 80% of people in the Park work for spinout companies from the University of Florida.