Drawing a NEW crop of companies

Chemical Alliance Zone's incubation center to open at technology park in January

Publication: The Charleston Gazette
Published: 14 December 2004
Headline: Drawing a NEW crop of companies
Byline: Jennifer Ginsberg, Staff Writer

Sunlight illuminates scratches in the white countertop in one of 77 vacant laboratories inside Building 701 at Dow's South Charleston Technology Park.

The countertops rest on blue cabinets once full of supplies for scientists working on research and development projects. The hood space that was used to keep testers isolated from the rest of the lab is also empty.

When Union Carbide and Dow merged in 2001, the research and development companies using the more than half-century-old brown brick building left.

But soon, more than dust and sunlight will fill those vacant labs and offices.

The Chemical Alliance Zone plans to open its Biotechnology and Allied Sciences Incubation Center at the end of January. The incubator will occupy 10,000 of the building's 85,000 rentable square feet.

Incubator firms will share an auditorium, loading dock, locked storage area and conference rooms. Shared administrative and purchasing staff will also be available.

Last week, the city of South Charleston received a $1.5 million state grant to give to the Chemical Alliance Zone. The group will use the money to lease the incubator space from Dow and continue renovating it, said John Maher, CAZ executive director.

In the future, the CAZ will use some of the money to bring in high-tech equipment for the building's businesses to share.

A few tenants are negotiating leases for incubator space. Some possibilities include a foreign technology firm that wants a U.S. presence, branch offices of large research corporations and small firms just getting started, Maher said.

The five to six firms will hire a total of 15 to 20 people. Initially, there is space in the incubator for 10 to 20 firms. Maher sees the eventual potential for 40 firms.

"The commonality is all these operations would be small to start with. As tenants in the incubator need to grow, they can lease more space in the same building," he said.

The facility will allow firms to move a molecule from creation to manufacturing to distribution.

The Mid-Atlantic Technology, Research, Innovation Center and West Virginia University Tech are both planning to lease space in the building. Marshall University is already leasing classroom and laboratory space.

MATRIC will use its space to continue its research and development efforts in chemical products, biosystems and software development. WVU will use its space for labs and classes.

Each lab/office pair can support two to four jobs depending on how the firms structure the space. Maher estimates there could be 150 to 200 new jobs when the building is fully occupied. He hopes to have the first 10,000 square feet filled within six to nine months.

The incubator offers companies an available work force with technical expertise plus access to the infrastructure of the Valley's other chemical companies, Maher said.

Earlier this month, Dow announced about 70 workers at the South Charleston Tech Park had to apply for transfers to Dow sites in other states or apply for other positions in South Charleston. Otherwise, they would be looking for work.

Less than four months ago, 165 Dow employees lost their jobs as part of a companywide-restructuring plan.

Nearly 30 years ago, more than 10,000 people worked for Union Carbide in the Kanawha Valley. About 2,400 people worked for the company when it merged with Dow. Once all the recent changes take place, less than 1,000 people will work for Dow in South Charleston.

It's up to everyone in the area to create an environment to help generate new business using the skills of innovative, local people, instead of just relying on corporations like "Uncle Dow," to open large facilities, said Rudy Henley of the commercial real estate firm McCabe-Henley. The company is working to sell or lease the rest of Building 701.

A lot of growth is occurring in the small-business sector - particularly in biotechnology, nanotechnology and advanced chemical products, Maher said.

These are some of the specialties that the Chemical Alliance Zone is trying to bring to the incubator.

Having Building 701 already in place, gives the CAZ a cost advantage. Maher estimates it would cost $350 a square foot to build the building from scratch.

"They could have closed and leveled this facility; this is a big leg up," he said.

Instead of demolishing the building when Dow consolidated its research and development into two buildings a few years ago, the company chose to work with the state Development Office and the governor's office to bring more jobs to West Virginia, said Clifton Dedrickson, Dow's West Virginia Operations business development leader.

"We're hoping to get some entrepreneurs to bring something creative to West Virginia," he said. "We had some underutilized assets and thought, 'why not make them available to others in West Virginia?'"

To contact staff writer Jennifer Ginsberg, use e-mail or call 348-5195.