Magic Leap to spend $150M in Plantation

Company gets public financing

One of South Florida’s worst-kept secrets is out.

“Project Blaze” is “mixed reality” development company Magic Leap, and it’s on track to receive $9 million in state and local jobs-creation incentive financing over the next nine years.

Magic Leap’s commitment to create 725 new jobs and invest $150 million in a new R&D Center of Excellence in Plantation was formally announced Wednesday by The Greater Fort Lauderdale Alliance, Broward County’s official public/private economic development partnership.

“Now it’s officially confirmed,” said Maggie L. Gunther, director of communications and programs for the alliance.

Referring to the company using the code name Project Blaze, the state, Broward County and Plantation have been hammering out details of the incentives package for more than a year. Although state law allows companies with pending incentives deals to remain anonymous, the company described in documents presented to the Broward County Commission in 2015 could have only been Magic Leap.

In exchange for creating 725 jobs paying an average 200 percent of Broward County’s average wage — $92,066 — Magic Leap will receive roughly $7 million from the state and $1 million each from Broward County and the city of Plantation. The agreements also require the company to retain 217 jobs.

The company has until 2025 to create the 725 jobs, county documents show.

Magic Leap announced in October 2015 that it was renovating the 260,000square-foot former Motorola Mobility manufacturing facility in Plantation. According to Wednesday’s news release, the company plans to operate both in Plantation and its current headquarters in Dania Beach.

Founded in 2011 by Rony Abovitz, co-founder of Davie-based Mako Surgical Corp., Magic Leap has attracted $1.4 billion in venture capital from Google, Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba and others, but has not yet revealed the technology it is developing nor what products it will be selling.

The release Wednesday said: “Magic Leap is developing a digital, mixed reality platform that will enable people to seamlessly combine and experience digital and physical environments. The company’s cutting edge, virtual retinal display technology superimposes 3D computer-generated imagery over real world objects.”

The release quotes Abovitz as thanking the city, county and state for supporting “our efforts and mission to create the next

COURTESY A video from Magic Leap shows off 3-D imagery that will soon be available to consumers, the company says.