From INside Indiana business section and the Mayor's Office:
An application for state certification of South Bend's first technology park designates Innovation Park @ Notre Dame and the Studebaker Industrial Park as noncontiguous sites where research will be commercialized and new high-tech businesses will locate.
The South Bend Redevelopment Commission today unanimously approved submission of the application to the Indiana Economic Development Corp., which establishes requirements for Certified Tech Parks and awards grants from the state's Technology Development Grant Fund. This will be the first tech park in Indiana to be affiliated with two research universities and one of only three statewide with research- based intellectual property.
While an application for Innovation Park has been long anticipated, the inclusion of the Studebaker Industrial Park as a satellite site emerged only in recent months in conversations between the City of South Bend, the University of Notre Dame and Project Future. The campus site will contain research laboratories, offices, conference rooms and related support facilities and programs associated with the Notre Dame and the Indiana University School of Medicine at South Bend. Other area universities and colleges will also be involved through cross-institution collaboration projects. The Studebaker location will provide sites and facilities to accommodate business activity emerging from the commercialization process at Innovation Park (IP@ND).
"We think it is a great win-win opportunity for everyone involved. This state-certified technology park will strengthen Notre Dame's commitment to being a top-tier research university and will spur economic growth in South Bend. We are laying the foundation for good, high-paying jobs in clean and green industries," said Mayor Stephen J. Luecke. "With Innovation Park as the launch pad, the Studebaker Corridor will be the satellite booster that propels our new high-tech companies into global orbit."
Located on 12 acres along Edison Road just west of Twyckenham Drive, Innovation Park will move into an implementation phase this spring with construction beginning on the first 50,000-square-foot building. The Studebaker Industrial Park, on 82 acres southeast of Chapin and Sample streets, is being developed after the culmination of more than two decades of efforts to remove former industrial buildings and remediate the state's largest brownfield site.
The city's formal application, prepared by Patrick McMahon, executive director of Project Future, and David Brenner, executive director of IP@ND, includes a business plan with a strategy for the tech park's long-term growth. The campus site also includes a narrow strip of the proposed Eddy Street Commons, including the hotels and office areas, as well as the research and study area of the IU School of Medicine.
"The location of a Certified Technology Park on the common doorstep of these two research and educational entities enables the State of Indiana to capture the economic impact of the largest untapped source of commercializable research capacity in the state," the application said.
Included in the application is the identification of a company, EmNet LLC, which plans to locate in the tech park. EmNet has been working with the City of South Bend to commercialize a system that uses a wireless sensor network to monitor the flow of sewage and storm water in city sewers. The system will save South Bend and communities across the nation millions in dealing with U.S. Environmental Protection Agency mandates on overflows. EmNet has received funding assistance through the IEDC's 21st Century Technology Fund.
In addition to EmNet, other activities in the tech park are expected to include advanced computing, project engineering and lab testing, technology related to human health and the environment, and product research and development, according to the application.
State certification will allow the tech park to capture up to $5 million in incremental sales and business taxes. Innovation Park, in part, will receive financial support through businesses now being developed at Eddy Street Commons. The tech park also is applying for two $2 million state grants through the IEDC, McMahon said.
"It is our anticipation and expectation that businesses that are incubated and get legs in the greenhouse element ... will be willing to open up locations elsewhere," McMahon said. "The State has indicated they are receptive to our satellite site proposal."
After review by the state, the application will return to the Redevelopment Commission in April for a public hearing and final approval, McMahon said.
"The timing couldn't be better," said Brenner, who joined participants in reviewing more than 120 other tech parks across the country. "What we're trying to do is to optimize the resources we have, making it right for this area."
IP@ND, which will eventually include up to 200,000 square feet of lab and office space, has a mission to "transform research into marketable enterprises," according to its business plan. Tenants are expected to include:
- Start-up companies based on intellectual property or technology platforms emerging from Notre Dame, or its collaborative efforts with other colleges and universities.
- Start-up companies recruited from elsewhere that seek to harness intellectual property or a technology platform at Notre Dame.
- Liaison offices and/or collaborative laboratory space for larger business that anticipate an ongoing research/technology development relationship with Notre Dame.
- Conceptual development ventures pursuing proof of concept before company formation and market entry.
- "Surge" space for university research awaiting campus facilities or for cross-institutional endeavors with other organizations.
Every job in a research park generates an average of 2.57 jobs in the economy, according to a national study of 174 research parks developed on behalf of the Association of University Research Parks. In the past five years, nearly 800 firms have graduated from tech park incubators, while only 13 percent firms failed. The study suggests that tech parks are economic drivers for their regions, with fewer than 10 percent of companies started in incubators leaving their region of origin.
Redevelopment Commissioner Greg Downes thanked Luecke, the City, Notre Dame, Project Future and all the partners for years of planning to make this initiative possible.
"It's the dawning of a new age in South Bend, and it is really exciting news," Downes said.
Source: South Bend Mayor's Office