ICE outside UCF? Agency may be looking at office space near university

Ryan Gillespie, Orlando Sentinel on Feb 11, 2026

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ORLANDO, Fla. — The rapidly expanding Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency may be looking at office space near the University of Central Florida, the second-largest university by enrollment in the United States.

Wired, a news outlet focused on science and technology, cited a tranche of records in reporting Tuesday that the feds were looking at office space across the country for the agency, which has doubled in size over the past year to nearly 22,000 officers and agents.

Among the dozens of addresses listed was 12249 Science Drive, which sits in the Central Florida Research Park, a 1,000-acre, 68-structure technology and innovation hub next to UCF that houses 9,500 employees.

Across the country, ICE locations have become the focus of protest and controversy, with plans for a new detention center in an East Orlando warehouse generating particular ire locally. But it’s unclear precisely what ICE’s intentions are for the research park.

Joe Wallace, the executive director of the Central Florida Research Park, said that the park has deed restrictions on all of the property within its boundaries – including the Science Drive office building at the center of the rumors – and that he’d have to approve any such company seeking to locate there.

So far, he’s received no inquiries related to ICE, he said.

But it seems likely that Research Park administrators would encounter the same challenges in managing ICE’s interest that Orlando and Orange County governments have faced in recent weeks with the warehouse project.

Attorneys representing both governments have concluded in recent weeks that the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution prevents local governments from asserting local zoning rules on the federal government, or even on a private company carrying out a federal directive.

ICE didn’t respond to emailed questions. The Canada-based investment company that owns the Research Park building was recently sold to Morning Calm Management, which also didn’t respond to an emailed request for comment.

Spokespersons for UCF, which allotted the first 260 acres for the Research Park in the 1970s and whose researchers and students often work there on projects, also didn’t comment.

County Commissioner Kelly Martinez Semrad, whose district includes the Research Park and who sits on its Board of Directors, said such a facility could be disruptive in one of the region’s economic engines and high-wage job centers.

“To my knowledge, there has been no federal inquiry, and the property is deed-restricted for technology and space industry purposes. An ICE field office does not meet that requirement,” she said in a statement.

“Placing an immigration enforcement or detention operation in the middle of Orange County’s premier space and technology corridor, next to one of Florida’s leading universities, is a serious misalignment that could disrupt research, talent recruitment, and private investment,” she said. “Innovation districts are not built to house detention centers, and decisions that threaten the economic and academic backbone of this region will not go unquestioned.”

The Wired report states that such a facility would be used by rank-and-file agents and attorneys, and it cites documents showing that ICE would be “expanding its legal operations” into numerous cities, including Fort Myers, Jacksonville and Tampa.

The Science Drive address appeared within the report in a table of 54 locations around the country, described as a “detailed listing of planned ICE lease locations as of January, and includes current ICE offices that are set to expand and new spaces the agency is poised to occupy.”

ICE already has an location in Orange County, an Enforcement and Removal Operations office on Delegates Drive near the interchange of State Road 528 and Florida’s Turnpike. The office is where migrants report for mandatory check-ins with authorities and also where people suspected of being undocumented have been taken by law enforcement ahead of booking at the Orange County Jail.

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