Things To Do In SW Florida

Southeast Steel is ready to make a move for just the second time since the company was founded 85 years ago. But instead of relocating to the suburbs, the downtown appliance retailer wants to stay at its Amelia Street location in the heart of Orlando’s Central Business District, where it will move into a new building.

“I think just from the growth in Central Florida was just one of those things,” VP Spencer Kimball said. “We’ve outgrown the size of the building for our needs, and it was an opportunity that we’ve been exploring for quite some time. And now it’s gotten to the point of all right, let’s see if we can make it go right.”

Kimball’s grandfather founded Southeast Steel in 1940, and it’s been in the family ever since. They currently occupy a former produce packing warehouse that was built in 1918. “We were previously at the location where the bus station is now,” he said. “We moved here in 1978.”

Kimball, the third generation of the family to run the business, told GrowthSpotter they wanted a modern building — a “shiny new toy” — that paid homage to the company’s origin in the steel business. read more

SpaceX looks to knock out the Space Coast’s 18th launch of 2025 but now targeting Monday night.

A Falcon 9 rocket carrying 21 Starlink satellites is targeting an 11:14 p.m. liftoff from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 during a four-hour launch window. SpaceX had originally been targeting Sunday night.

Space Launch Delta 45’s weather squadron forecasts an 80% chance for good conditions at the launch site Monday.

This is the debut launch of the rocket’s first-stage booster, which will aim for a recovery landing downrange on the droneship Just Read the Instructions stationed in the Atlantic.

SpaceX has flown all but one of the missions from either Kennedy Space Center or Cape Canaveral this year, with Blue Origin’s New Glenn responsible for the other.

The Space Force at the beginning of the year had forecast up to 156 launches from the Space Coast in 2025, an average of 13 a month. It saw 10 in January, and this would be the eighth so far in February.

SpaceX has at least one more launch planned this month, a moonbound payload for commercial company Intuitive Machines with its Athena lunar lander set to lift off from KSC’s Launch Pad 39-A as early as Wednesday targeting a 7:17 p.m. liftoff. read more

A decades-old proposal to alleviate traffic congestion in one of the fastest-growing areas of Seminole County — between State Road 417 and Orlando Sanford International Airport — has taken a step closer to becoming reality.

At a recent meeting of the Central Florida Expressway Authority governing board, transportation officials recommended two routes for a two-lane tolled thoroughfare — narrowing it from an original five.

The routes show northbound drivers getting on the new connector road near the Lake Jesup toll plaza on SR 417 — also known as the Seminole County Expressway — and traveling northeast, then north onto Red Cleveland Boulevard directly into the airfield north of Lake Mary Boulevard.

Will Hawthorne, CFX director of transportation, planning and policy, told the board Feb. 13 that the routes “would be the least impactful” to existing residential areas than two others coming from the toll plaza.

Drivers traveling south on SR 417 would be unable to directly access the toll road from any of the four proposed routes. read more

Out of all of the foreign investment sources that have pumped cash into South Florida real estate, financial institutions, and new businesses over the years, Saudi Arabia is a nation that at best has a nominal presence in the region.

But this past week, amid a major public relations lift from President Donald Trump at a Miami Beach investment conference sponsored by the country’s Public Investment Fund, the oil-rich nation announced plans to locate an investment office in Miami, its second in the U.S. after Washington, D.C.

In addition to placing investments domestically, Saudi Arabia will use the office as a “gateway” to South America, Minister of Investment Khalid Bin Abdulaziz Al-Falih told an audience at a Thursday panel discussion,  “Enabling Purpose: How to Create Resilient Economies for Uncertain Times.” The panel included Miami Mayor Francis X. Suarez, who made the announcement official.

“It seems like it was just yesterday that I was in Riyadh announcing that FII was coming to Miami,” Suarez told the audience. “In line with the city’s emphasis on being the capital of capital, and strengthening its ties to the countries in the Middle East … today we are announcing the Ministry of Investment of Saudi Arabia is opening an Invest Saudi office here in the City of Miami.” read more

By BERNARD CONDON

NEW YORK (AP) — Elon Musk’s cost-cutting team is eliminating jobs at the vehicle safety agency that oversees Tesla and has launched investigations into deadly crashes involving his company’s cars.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has cut a “modest” amount of positions, according to a statement from the agency. Musk has accused NHTSA of holding back progress on self-driving technology with its investigations and recalls.

Asked about whether the cuts would impact any probes into Tesla, the agency referred to its statement that says it will “enforce the law on all manufacturers of motor vehicles and equipment.”

The job cuts at NHTSA enacted by Musk’s advisory group on shrinking the federal government, the Department of Government Efficiency, was earlier reported by The Washington Post.

In addition to investigations into Tesla’s partially automated vehicles, NHTSA has mandated that Tesla and other automakers using self-driving technology report crash data on vehicles, a requirement that Tesla has criticized and that watchdogs fear could be eliminated. read more