Blue Abyss CEO, John Vickers and Brook Park Mayor Edward A. Orcutt have confirmed the Cornwall, UK-based company has completed the purchase of 12 acres of land in the city of Brook Park, Ohio, on which it plans to build a state-of-the-art extreme environment research, development, and training centre, and hotel.
The land is adjacent to Cleveland Hopkins International Airport and close to NASA’s Glenn Research Centre, Neil A. Armstrong Test Facility, the Ohio Aerospace Institute, Cleveland’s International Exposition (IX) Centre, and world-class Universities and Hospitals.
The company will proceed to planning application and aims to commence construction in the second half of 2024.
Blue Abyss Facts
The Blue Abyss Centre and hotel will occupy a 12-acre site adjacent to Cleveland Hopkins International Airport, close to NASA’s training facilities and world-class universities and hospitals.
The facility will house the world’s largest and deepest R&D Pool, measuring 40m by 50m on the surface, with a 16m wide shaft plunging to a depth of 50m. It will hold 42,000 cubic metres of water. That’s enough to fill 17 Olympic-sized swimming pools.
The centre will include additional facilities, combined with immersive XR technology to enable unparalleled extreme environment analogue experiences:
- Human Centrifuge; to enable training and physiology research at high G.
- Hypobaric and Hyperbaric Chambers; enabling training and research in hypoxic and pressurized environments.
- Blue Abyss Parabolic Flight 2.0; enabling microgravity research, training and public discovery.
Economic Impact
The Economic and Fiscal Impact Study of the Blue Abyss Training Centre and Hotel by the Department of Economics, Kent State University, November 1st, 2023, concluded that the Blue Abyss Centre and Hotel will provide substantive economic and fiscal benefits to the local economy as a visitor attraction and will bring high-quality jobs and economic benefits to the local region.
The local economy will benefit quickly from the construction phase and will:
- Add 1,759 full-time equivalent jobs.
- Increase resident’s incomes by $135 million.
- Create a total spending impact of $316 million.
After 5 years, the facility will:
- Create or support over 3,900 jobs.
- Add $277 million to resident’s incomes.
- Increase county and sub-county tax revenue by $3.5 million.
- Increase total output by well over $654 million.
After 30 years, the economic impact will have:
- Created or supported an astounding 21,800 jobs.
- Added $1.5 billion addition to resident’s incomes.
- Increased tax revenue by over $19 million.
- Increased total output by $3.6 billion.
