South Bend
Scores Technology Park
Certification
The Indiana Economic Development Corporation announced today that Innovation Park at Notre Dame is now a state-certified technology park, paving the way for the region to leverage state funds to transform university-created technology into high-tech businesses.
The designation of the nearly 100-acre park includes two sites in the northern Indiana city - one on the southeast corner of the University of Notre Dame campus that includes the adjacent Indiana University Medical School campus and a small section of Eddy Street Commons and one on the 83-acre former Studebaker manufacturing facility downtown.
"Notre Dame and north central Indiana have a rich history in innovation and technology. By investing in this park, we are providing the foundation for those technologies to be transformed into job-creating businesses for Hoosiers across the region," said Governor Mitch Daniels.
Certification of the soon-to-be-constructed university-led research park allows local leaders to capture up to $5 million annually in the growth in payroll and sales taxes generated within the park to invest in laboratories and other infrastructure needed to boost the transfer of technology into new entrepreneurial businesses. The certification also makes up to $2 million dollars in state grants available to offset the cost of constructing the park, and additional state funds may also be available once the park is operational.
Construction of the park's first 54,000-square-foot facility near the university is set to begin immediately at and will house start-up companies, laboratories and administrative offices when completed in 2009. The site will serve as an incubator for companies developing products or services based on innovations or technologies discovered at Notre Dame or other colleges and universities in the region. The site will also serve as a platform for the university to advance research and accelerate the development of products and services for commercial sale.
Construction of the park at the former downtown Studebaker manufacturing site will begin as research park companies grow and require additional space.
"Notre Dame has a wonderful history of entrepreneurial spirit that is perhaps best exemplified by the great Notre Dame priest and professor Father Julius Nieuwland, who discovered the formulae for synthetic rubber in the early 20th century," said Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C., president of the University of Notre Dame. "The certification of Innovation Park is a significant step toward our goal of fostering further innovative achievement in this community in the 21st century."
David Brenner, founder and managing partner of Grand Rapids, Mich.-based business accelerator firm IdeaWorks, will serve as president and chief executive officer of Innovation Park at Notre Dame. The 1973 Notre Dame graduate will manage the research park as an independent not-for-profit company wholly owned by the university.
"Innovation Park will be a vital economic driver for this region, building on our local tradition of ingenuity and entrepreneurship. It strengthens the key partnerships we have built that are transforming South Bend," said Mayor Stephen J. Luecke. "We are excited about the research that will happen here and perhaps are even more excited to see that research transformed into viable commercial products. South Bend is committed to the success of this research park and bringing new investment and jobs to the greater South Bend area and to Indiana."
The news of Innovation Park at Notre Dame earning certified technology park status follows a March announcement from IBM and the Semiconductor Research Corporation on the consortium's plans to open a new $61 million nanoelectronics research center at Notre Dame. Designed to link Notre Dame and Purdue University with the development resources of national laboratories and the trillion-dollar per year technology industry, the nanoelectronics research center is one of four nanoelectronics research centers sponsored by the research initiative with the others located on university campuses in California, Texas and New York. While each is aimed at furthering the development of the nano-sized transistors, the centers have become the seed for expanded technology investment and economic development for local communities. Technologies developed at the nanoelectronics center are expected to spur the formation of new technology companies that could be housed at the new certified technology park. Daniels and legislative leaders have committed to fund up to $12 million for the new center.
Innovation Park at Notre Dame is the 19th research park in the state to earn certified technology park status. Similar university-led parks such as the Purdue Research Park located in West Lafayette near Purdue University, is home to nearly 150 entrepreneurial companies that collectively employ more than 3,000.