Huntsville, Ala., is home to Redstone Arsenal, a sprawling U.S. Army base that includes the Aviation and Missile Command, the Space and Missile Defense Command, and major components of the Defense Intelligence Agency and the Missile Defense Agency. The Marshal Space Flight Center is also located on Redstone Arsenal.

Numerous private sector companies count the various agencies inside Redstone as their customers. But because Redstone is a military post, these companies cannot locate on site.

However, they still want to be close to these customers so, for these companies, the next best thing to being there is the Cummings Research Park, located just minutes from Redstone.

The 43-year-old research park is situated on more than 3,400 acres of land and has 9 million square feet of space for research and development, administration, warehouse, sales and manufacturing.

Research parks play a critical role in the effort by communities to attract expanding and relocating companies, and the incubator portion included in many research parks is a critical component of startup companies’ efforts to get their businesses get off the ground.

Cummings Research Park is an important cog in the effort to attract aerospace and defense companies to the Huntsville metro area.

“If you are in Cummings Research Park, everybody knows you’re doing science and technology development,” said Rick Davis, director of Cummings Research Park. “That’s what the park has become known for.”

The Park is the Incentive

The city of Huntsville is the largest owner of available land in Cummings, and it is very protective of that property, Davis said.

The city will not allow a company to buy land and speculate on it, nor will it allow developers to build an office building that doesn’t have lease commitments from tenants.

“This land is for companies that want to buy property, build a building and create jobs,” Davis said.

The primary incentive for companies locating in Cummings is the park itself, he said. The price of property in the research park is significantly lower than the price of other land in the region, and the city has invested in a state-of-the art utility and telecommunications infrastructure that is service-ready.

“When a company comes in, all they have to do is tie into the infrastructure,” Davis said.

In addition, companies locating in Cummings Research Park are eligible for the numerous incentives offered by the state of Alabama, including the Alabama Industrial Development Training, which provides work force development for expanding and relocating companies.

Two companies with large customer bases at Redstone have announced expansion projects during the past year.

Northrop Grumman broke ground in June on an $80 million, five-building complex. Currently, Northrop Grumman has about 1,200 employees working at 20 sites across the Huntsville metro area. Most of those operations will be consolidated in the new facility, which will include offices, laboratory space and research centers.

Lockheed Martin is in the midst of adding 160 jobs to its existing work force in Cummings as part of a government air defense program. The $767 million contract is for the battle management and control systems of the Medium Extended Air Defense System (MEADS), which is a joint project involving the United States, Germany and Italy.

“Many companies that come into the park want to deal with Redstone Arsenal,” Davis said. “They want to be close to their customers.”

An Academic Relationship

Many research parks have operational relationships with colleges and universities. These research parks are designed primarily for private/public research and development facilities, high-tech and science-based companies, and support services.

The parks assist in the transfer of technology and business skills between university and industry and play a role in promoting technology-led economic development for the community or region. University-related research parks usually include an incubator for startup companies.

Purdue University has found success with the Purdue Research Park, located less than 2 miles from the main campus in West Lafayette, Ind.

Purdue Research Park is home to more than 90 companies that employ 2,500 workers. Many of these companies are developing Purdue-licensed technologies and use researchers employed by the university.

Any technology-based company that wants to form strong ties to Purdue will be considered for park tenancy. Startup ventures may apply to lease space in the park’s business incubation complex.

FuturaGene Inc., a biotechnology company that is developing ways to grow crops in extremely unfavorable conditions, decided to keep its headquarters at Purdue Research Park following its graduation in January from the park’s incubator system, where it started operations four years ago.

FuturaGene has moved from the incubator to 1,400 square feet of office space at Vistech 1, a privately owned building located in the park.

While in the incubator, FuturaGene obtained exclusive rights to commercialize their gene discoveries, which decode the plant genome to produce varieties of crops resistant to traditionally hostile environments, such as salty soil, drought, frost and fungal attack, while avoiding the introduction of foreign genes into plant species.

Purdue opens a Satellite Facility

Purdue Research Park has enjoyed so much success that the Purdue Research Foundation, which owns and manages the park, decided to expand to another part of the Hoosier State. The 48,000 square foot Purdue Technology Center of Northwest Indiana opened in January in Merrillville.

Seven companies involved in various types of technology development are currently located at the Purdue Technology Center.

“Our charge is to do technology incubation,” said John Hanak, director of the Purdue Technology Center. “We work directly with Purdue Research Park.”

The center’s proximity to the Chicago metro area’s business and medical sectors and airports, as well as being only being an hour from Purdue’s pharmacy program in West Lafayette, were factors in the decision to site the facility in Merrillville.

There are also numerous universities located within short distance of Merriville, including Notre Dame, Valparaiso and the various Chicago universities.

“The advantage of being located in Merriville is that there is a lot of human capital that we feel hasn’t been utilized,” said Joseph Barr, chief scientist and general manager of the Indiana operations for ProLogic Inc., which was one of the first companies to locate in the Technology Center. “We hope to be amongst those who reap the benefits of that potential.”

ProLogic is a software company that does much of its work in the defense- and homeland security-related sectors.

Barr said locating in the Technology Center benefits ProLogic because the cost of doing in business in Northwest Indiana is less expensive than in Chicago itself, which allows the company to put more money back into its operations.

“That’s always a consideration when you’re in a growth mode,” he said. “We are dependent on federal contracts, so our money is not limitless. We have to find optimal ways to position ourselves to grow within that budget.”

Hanak said the Technology Center has the ability to help growing companies like ProLogic. It can build office and lab space for companies and amortize the cost over the term of the lease, so companies avoid the initial capital requirements involved in constructing a facility.

“That can be a huge benefit because you can save into the six figures with a wet lab build out,” he pointed out.

Leases can be as short as six months.

“As these companies develop their technologies, you can’t be certain how quickly they will need new space, more space or different space,” Hanak said. “We want to be as flexible as possible.”

Plus, there is the standard shared services offered by an incubator, including clerical and office staff.

“We also provide business services by way of coaching, counseling and nurturing, relative to the commercialization of products,” Hanak noted.

There is no specific commitment required that states a company must stay in Northwest Indiana once it outgrows the Technology Center. But Hanak said the hope is these companies will stay in the region and contribute to the economy.

One of the aims of any research park is to help a particular region diversify its economy with a variety of cutting-edge technology companies, which leads to increased job opportunities

Ken Krizner is the managing editor of Expansion Management magazine and can be reached at mailto:KKRIZNER@PENTON.COM