Getting enough space to nuture emerging biosciences businesses is the goal for the Arizona Bioscience Park.
"Biotech is the future," said Bruce Wright, associate vice president for economic development for the University of Arizona. "We are very strong in the light sciences, medicine and biosciences, but our ability to successfully compete nationally and internationally for these firms depends on our ability to have adequate and available space for them to come to Tucson."
 Site of Arizona Biotech Park at Kino Parkway and 36th Street. |
The Bioscience Park is being planned for 65 acres on the southwest corner of Kino Parkway and 36th Street. The UA acquired the site last year in a land swap with KB Home.
The park is part of a larger, master-planned, mixed-use development called The Bridges, which will include a 110-acre regional shopping center and 175 acres of residential development.
As part of The Bridges, the Bioscience Park will provide a community environment where researchers, students and the surrounding neighborhoods can interact. Nicknamed "the bio park," it will create high technology job opportunities at all educational levels and new educational opportunities with a proposed bioscience high school.
A hotel and conference center is also planned in addition to office and laboratory space.
The Bioscience Park, a project the UA had its eye on for the last four years, will be a place where the transfer of inventions and technologies to the marketplace can be facilitated.
"It will have an enormous impact on the people of Southern Arizona," Wright said.
The current marketplace has not slowed down any plans for the park. Currently, the county is conducting flood control studies of the land and plans.
"We hope to be breaking ground in infrastructure improvements soon," Wright said. "We will install roads, water and sewer. We hope to have the park development-ready by December 2009 or January 2010.
Looking into the future, Wright and the team working on the Bioscience Park tried to determine what the property could and would need to accomodate demand 25 years from now.
"We found that this property could facilitate nearly three million square feet of biotech space when it is fully developed," Wright said.
The first phase starting in late 2009 or early 2010 will encompass 660,000 square feet of space. That will include biotech space as well as the hotel and conference center.
Wright was unable to say who prospective tenants might be, but he did say there have already been talks of interested parties both on the national and international levels that have shown interest in the new site as well as several local companies.
"We really have done our research and due diligence on bio parks around the world to find out what the needs and requirements are for these companies to really make this a real hub for the biosciences," he said.
The UA also operates the Science and Technology Park on the southeast side on Rita Road and the Biosphere north of Tucson, near Oracle.
"The Bioscience Park for the university is part of a large set of assets and a great addition to the area’s bio corridor," Wright said. "We have the Biosphere 2, the biotech group in Oro Valley with Ventana and Sanofi-Aventis, the campus agricultural center in Campbell Avenue, the Cancer Center, Bio 5, main campus and the Science and Technology Park on the southeast side. There is a varied array of outstanding community assets of biotechnology. The new park will be an important asset but it won’t be the only one."
The UA also is working closely with Phoenix and its efforts for bio technology downtown such as the Translational Genomics Institute.
"We are all convinced if Arizona is to play a big part in this new bio world, we need to work with Phoenix and the rest of Arizona to make it happen," Wright said.
The major focus of efforts right now is trying to find some private sector developers and investors who might be interested in developing the park with the university.
"We will be meeting with several of them over the next six months," Wright said.
Currently, the university is seeking public comment for the proposed master land use plan for the Arizona Bioscience Park.
"We want to really gauge what the interests and concerns of the community are and make sure those are reflected in our master plan to the board," Wright said.
Contact Joe Pangburn at jpangburn@azbiz.com or (520) 295-4259.
Public meeting The University of Arizona will hold a public meeting seeking comments on the proposed land-use plan for the Arizona Bioscience Park. • 7 p.m. April 23 in Quincie The master plan will be presented to Arizona Board of Regents in June.
Douglas Neighborhood Center, 1575 E. 36th St.
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