There seems to be no holding back Embraer’s expansion of its Melbourne, Florida, manufacturing home, as the company opened an expanded Legacy 450/500 business jet production facility on June 2. The site originally opened in 2011 as the final assembly location for the Phenom 100 and 300 family of jets.
This week’s ribbon cutting added 236,000 square feet of production space to the company’s existing 213,000-square-foot facility already in operation at Melbourne International Airport.
The facility features four new buildings, an assembly hangar, a paint facility, a completion center, a flight preparation facility and a new delivery center. Embraer’s facility, which already employs 600 people, will add 600 new jobs, ramping up hiring through 2020.
More than 170 Phenom jets, valued at over $1 billion, have been produced in Melbourne. Most of its customers reside in the United States, but aircraft have been delivered to customers in 14 different countries. Embraer recently delivered its 1,000th business jet, a Legacy 500.
