Embraer Executive Jets in Melbourne — Melbourne, Florida

Embraer's Melbourne story begins with a groundbreaking in December 2008 on airport land at what was then Melbourne International Airport. According to the company's groundbreaking release, Florida Governor Charlie Crist and Melbourne Mayor Harry Goode handled ceremonial shovels beside Embraer chief executive Frederico Fleury Curado, and the site was billed as the company's first U.S. aircraft assembly plant and customer center. The plan called for completion in 2010 and an eventual rate of up to eight Phenom business jets per month from the Melbourne line.

The project was announced shortly after the Phenom 300 prototype began flying in May 2008, AVweb noted when the plant was ready. Curado said at the 2008 ceremony that Embraer's presence in Florida dated back to 1979, but the Melbourne airport site was the first place the Brazilian manufacturer would put an aircraft final assembly line on U.S. soil. The EDC of Florida's Space Coast later recalled that Embraer chose Brevard County in 2008, at a time when companies were downsizing.

The 2008 plan described a 150,000-square-foot complex: a final assembly line able to build both the Phenom 100 and Phenom 300, a paint shop, and a delivery and customer design center. The pieces opened in two steps in 2011. AVweb reported on February 15, 2011 that the 90,000-square-foot assembly plant would be opened with a ribbon cutting on February 21, that the plant represented a $50 million project, and that about 200 people would work there, with flight testing and delivery preparation also handled at the Melbourne airport.

The second step came in December 2011. AVweb's December 6, 2011 report describes a 58,000-square-foot customer center that cost $50 million and took three years to build, with a showroom, five design studios and a delivery hangar, located next door to the assembly plant. The same day Embraer delivered the first U.S.-assembled Phenom 100 from Melbourne. The company then employed more than 100 workers in Melbourne and planned 90 more positions, and AVweb noted that former employees of NASA's space shuttle program had provided some of that talent. Embraer also held an option on an additional 70 acres at the airport for future expansion.

The second chapter began on October 30, 2013, when Governor Rick Scott announced at Melbourne International Airport that Embraer had chosen the site to build its Legacy 450 and Legacy 500 midsize jets. Trade and Industry Development reported 600 projected jobs and $28 million in capital investment for equipment, with the decision contingent on final approval of a partnership between the company, state and local officials; Melbourne Mayor Kathy Meehan joined the announcement. Flying magazine reported that the plan added 236,000 square feet to the 138,000-square-foot facility then in use, plus a 74,000-square-foot engineering and technology center.

Ground was broken on October 13, 2014. In the groundbreaking report, Embraer described the addition to an existing 212,000-square-foot campus at Melbourne International Airport and called its recently inaugurated Engineering and Technology Center the first engineering center outside Brazil. The Legacy complex opened on June 2, 2016. The EDC of Florida's Space Coast called it Embraer's third facility expansion at the airport, made up of four new buildings: an assembly hangar, a paint facility, a completion center and flight preparation facility, and a dedicated delivery center. Embraer Executive Jets chief Marco Tulio Pellegrini said the addition doubled the size of the Melbourne campus.

Production at the airport grew one model at a time. AVweb's June 2016 report states that the Melbourne production facility began operations in February 2011, that the first Phenom 100 was delivered in December of that year, and that the Phenom 300 was added to the multi-model, paperless final assembly line in August 2012. By June 2016 more than 170 Phenom jets, valued at over USD 1 billion, had been produced in Melbourne for buyers in the United States and 14 other countries.

In May 2015 AIN reported that Embraer was transferring all Phenom assembly to Melbourne in 2016, and that the Florida plant had capacity for up to 96 Phenoms per year. Wings and fuselages for the two light jets continued to be made in Brazil, so the Melbourne line is a final assembly operation. A 2022 Florida Trend item lists the work done on the campus that year: the assembly line for the Phenom 100EV and Phenom 300E, final assembly of the Praetor 500 and Praetor 600, a 58,000 square foot Global Customer Center, and an Engineering and Technology Center. The same item describes Melbourne as the headquarters of Embraer's Executive Jets unit on a 67-acre campus.

Each phase was negotiated with public partners. The 2013 and 2014 announcements credit Governor Scott and Enterprise Florida, the Economic Development Commission of Florida's Space Coast, Brevard County, the City of Melbourne and the Melbourne Airport Authority, and the 2013 list also includes Space Florida and Brevard Workforce. At the October 2014 groundbreaking Scott pointed to Florida's removal of the sales tax on manufacturing equipment as an advantage for companies such as Embraer. The dollar value of any local award to Embraer does not appear in the sources reviewed for this page.

Announced employment rose with each building. About 200 jobs were planned for the 2011 Phenom plant. In October 2014 the company said it would add 600 hires to almost 400 employees in the area over four years beginning in 2016. At the June 2016 opening, the EDC said the 600 new positions would bring Embraer's announced jobs in Brevard County to 1,000 since 2008, and Scott said the company already employed more than 1,000 Floridians. In April 2022 Florida Trend reported more than 150 open positions at the Melbourne facility, including assembly technicians, aircraft painters and quality inspectors, with a hiring event run with CareerSource Brevard County in Rockledge.

Today the airport authority's Land Development and Growth page lists Embraer among the notable tenants of Melbourne Orlando International Airport, alongside Northrop Grumman, L3Harris, Dassault Falcon Jet and Satcom Direct. The Embraer buildings stand on the same airfield where the assembly plant opened in February 2011, and the 70-acre option reported that December shows how the airport land was set aside for the growth that followed in 2016.