Jet-engine builder Pratt & Whitney reported it will invest up to $100 million at its engine assembly and testing operation in West Palm Beach, Fla., an expansion program it indicated would create up to 215 new jobs by 2022. The projects involve expanding the current campus there and installing new manufacturing equipment, new engineering capabilities, and new technologies that were not detailed.
Currently, the plant has 1,300 employees.
"This investment will support the vital needs of our defense customers, and there's no better home for it than West Palm,” stated Dave Carter, senior vice president of Engineering at Pratt & Whitney.
State and local governments have offered $3.08 million in economic incentives to Pratt & Whitney, over eight years. Those incentives include tax reduction, confirmed job-creation incentives, and cash contribution according to Kelly Smallridge, president and CEO of the Business Development Board of Palm Beach County.
Smallridge reported that the West Palm Beach location won the investment package in a competition with Pratt & Whitney’s Columbus, Ga., operation.
Pratt & Whitney builds GTF geared turbofan jet engines for Airbus, Bombardier, and Embraer commercial aircraft at West Palm Beach, and tests the F-135 turbofan engines installed in the F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter.
Pratt & Whitney noted it has invested over $188 million at West Palm Beach since 2000 to support those programs.