Because of Mica's role as chair of the House Transportation Committee, many of his comments at RealShare about the prospects for new development in the Tampa-Orlando corridor were transportation-oriented. Among his points:

Extending Central Florida's SunRail commuter line to Orlando International Airport will create new development opportunities near the airport and along the route.
An even greater impetus to development around Orlando's airport will come with the doubling of the airport's capacity with the construction of a new southern terminal. The project includes $1.4 billion worth of infrastructure and transportation improvements, including an intermodal center to connect the north and south terminals. But, he cautioned, “transit-oriented development takes awhile.”
When Port Canaveral, which is on the Atlantic coast just north of the space complex, upgrades to a greater focus on container shipping, as opposed to its current emphasis on passenger cruise liners, another 5,000 jobs should be created. Improvements at the port could include new freight-rail lines to connect ports on the Atlantic and Gulf coasts of Florida.
Shifting much of Florida's freight traffic on railroads to the spine of the state through a new intermodal center at Winter Haven “will take more trucks off Interstates 4 and 75 than anything else we could do over the next 50 years.”

Mica insisted he is bullish on growth and new economic opportunities in the Tampa-Orlando corridor. “We're about to explode in development in central Florida,” he said.

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