Blue Abyss Diving Ltd. has agreed to purchase a 12-acre property in Brook Park, Ohio, to build its first extreme environment research, development and training center in the United States.
The Cornwall, England-based startup plans to build a $235 million center that would include a 164-foot-deep pool, microgravity suite, astronaut training center, and hotel, said John Vickers, its founder and CEO.
The land purchase agreement is set to go before Brook Park City Council on April 11 for ratification, the company said in a statement.
Blue Abyss, which is seeking local and state tax incentives to build its center, expects to create 198 jobs, the company said.
“Today, the city of Brook Park and its residents make history," Brook Park's mayor, Edward Orcutt, said at the purchase agreement signing, according to Blue Abyss.
Executives of Blue Abyss, which also is evaluating ground conditions at a site adjacent to Newquay airport and Spaceport Cornwall for its first research center, had considered Texas as the site of their first U.S. center.
But once introduced to Greater Cleveland, Vickers and his colleagues were drawn to the area by people such as John Sankovic, CEO of the Ohio Aerospace Institute, and NASA's research presence.
The Brook Park site is next to Cleveland Hopkins International Airport and close to NASA's Glenn Research Center and Neil A. Armstrong Test Facility, as well as the aerospace institute and Cleveland's International Exposition Center, Blue Abyss said.
"The city of Brook Park is the perfect home for Blue Abyss' ground-breaking U.S. facility," Vickers said in a statement.
The blue abyss pool — expected to hold as much water as 17 Olympic-sized swimming pools — could be used for the research and development of space, aerospace, medical and marine technologies and techniques, the company said.
It is being designed to prepare people, such as astronauts and researchers, and their technology for operations in space or ocean travel and exploration.
The center also is expected to include a mock section of the International Space Station for commercial astronaut training.
