Draper sells manufacturing plant, focuses on work with SOCOM
By Margie Manning
Tampa Bay Business Journal
Published: Jan 15, 2016

Nonprofit research and development organization Draper is shifting gears in St. Petersburg.

Draper has sold a facility on 16th Street North where it was manufacturing multi-chip modules and now is leasing space on Blue Heron Drive in south St. Petersburg, where it will focus on rapid prototyping of new technological capabilities for U.S. Special Operations Command.

Draper signed a lease for about 20,000 square feet at the new site and is currently outfitting it for operations, said spokesman Eric Mazzacone. Full operations at the new facility are expected to begin in mid-February with about 35 employees, with the workforce growing up to 50 by the end of 2017, he said.

Aurora Semiconductor, a St. Petersburg firm that makes and packages semiconductors, bought Draper's plant at 10050 16th Street N. The purchase price was not disclosed in a press release announcing the sale.

Aurora received a 40 percent equity investment from Integra Technologies, an independent semiconductor test lab. The building will be Aurora's new corporate headquarters, housing about 30 workers, according to a posting on the company's website.

Draper - formerly The Charles Stark Draper Laboratory Inc. - bought the 41,000-square-foot building for $7.75 million in 2008. Earlier that year, the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based organization, a spin-off from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, had announced a major expansion in Florida, including its production center in St. Petersburg and a research and development center at University of South Florida.

In April 2015, Draper said it would consolidate its Florida operations, and since then it has worked to find an appropriate buyer for the production plant.

"Draper established a presence in Florida because the ecosystem exists to nurture a high-volume trusted manufacturing capability. Draper took a risk and developed the precursors to this market aggressively,” Kaigham Gabriel, Draper president and CEO, said in the press release, adding that Aurora can take those efforts "to the next level.”

Draper plans to subcontract some of its technology authentication work to Aurora.

Margie Manning is Finance Editor of the Tampa Bay Business Journal. She covers the Money beat.