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