Osceola County Chief Operating Officer Beth Knight and County Commissioner Ricky Booth offered a wide-ranging update at Tuesday morning’s St. Cloud Main Street Breakfast With the Pros, focusing on transportation challenges, explosive growth, economic diversification, and long-term investments in education that the leaders say are reshaping the county’s future.
Home to about 170,000 residents in 2000, the county is now nearing 500,000 residents, with projections showing more than 55 percent growth by 2040. On average, about 1,200 people move to Central Florida each week — growth that has made transportation the county’s most pressing challenge.
Knight detailed more than $550 million in transportation projects currently underway, made possible through partnerships with the Florida Department of Transportation, the Turnpike Authority, MetroPlan Orlando, and local municipalities like the City of St. Cloud. “None of the transportation programs we have currently going on would be possible by just Osceola County,” she said. “We’re able to leverage county dollars with dollars from other governmental agencies” to complete the projects.
Much of the discussion centered on long-planned expressway connections, including the Southport Connector, which Knight described as a future “game changer” for residents traveling between Poinciana and Orlando. While some segments are still years away, she explained that road construction is a lengthy process. “I’ve been asked before, ‘Why does it take so long?’ Part of it is you have to go through the planning and the development part,” she said. That process includes environmental studies, right-of-way acquisition, and coordination with private property owners.
Another question Knight said she is often asked is why so many local roads are under construction at the same time. “The reason why is that when we identified these roads that needed to be widened and improved, we bonded money from the Osceola Parkway,” she said. “So we refinanced the Parkway and took some cash out to fund these roads. When you bond those funds, you have five years.”
Beyond roads, the meeting highlighted Osceola County’s effort to diversify an economy long dominated by agriculture and tourism. In 2022, Osceola County had the highest unemployment rate in the state and the third-highest in the country. The impact of Covid on the area had been devastating, Knight said, because when the theme parks shut down, there were no visitors. “They took a huge hit, and we realized that we were going to have to do something to make our economy more sustainable,” she said. “So we added a third pillar to our economic drivers, which was advanced manufacturing.”
That effort is centered at NeoCity, a 500-acre innovation campus owned debt-free by the county. NeoCity is now home to advanced semiconductor manufacturing, workforce training facilities, and NeoCity Academy, one of the top STEM high schools in the state. Knight noted that NeoCity has attracted more than $500 million in grants and awards over the past five years, including federal and state funding tied to national security and onshoring semiconductor production.
Education emerged as one of the most personal and passionately discussed topics of the morning. Booth and Knight highlighted Osceola Prosper, a program that provides tuition-free college or career certification opportunities to every graduating high school student who lives in the county. Once ranked near the bottom – 61st out of 67 counties – in college-going rates, Osceola County now ranks second in Florida — a turnaround that Booth called one of the county’s most meaningful achievements.
“I think when my time is done at the county, when people ask me … ‘What’s the most impactful or best thing that you’ve done?’ I’m going to say it’s probably the long-term impact that Osceola Prosper is going to have,” Booth said. “You come out of high school and that’s all you do … really it’s hard to move upward. But if you come out of high school and learn how to be a plumber, an electrician, law enforcement officer, firefighter … that changes the whole trajectory of your life.”
As the update concluded, county leaders stressed collaboration — particularly with the City of St. Cloud — and a long-term vision aimed at keeping Osceola “ahead of what’s next,” while balancing growth, quality of life, and opportunity.
Breakfast With the Pros, presented by St. Cloud Main Street, is a business series that runs from September through March, bringing industry experts and local leaders in once a month to provide local businesses and residents with up-to-date information.
For more information about St. Cloud Main Street, visit https://stcloudmainstreet.org.
