Deflated California Deal Kills Expansion Hopes In Florida for Pratt & Whitney

WEST PALM BEACH, FL-Uncertainty over who would ultimately pay for environmental cleanup costs killed a deal between Pratt & Whitney’s space propulsion division here and Aerojet-General Corp. of Sacramento, CA, according to industry sources familiar with the transaction. The arrangement would have brought 400 rocket engineers from the California company to Florida and required expanding Pratt & Whitney’s quarters by another 100,000 sf, sources tell GlobeSt.com.

Aerojet-General, the defense segment of GenCorp Inc., and P&W had planned to form a new rocket propulsion company in northwestern Palm Beach County, about 80 miles north of Downtown Miami. P&W designs and builds rocket engines at the site. The company has 800 rocket engineers and 350 technicians, down from its peak work force of 8,300 in 1989.