Bossier Parrish and the state have provided funds for infrastructure work for the project, situated between Interstate 20 and US Hwy 80 beside Bossier Parrish Community College and right outside the gates of Barksdale Air Force Base, where the USAF houses a cyber development center. The first phase of the Cyber Innovation Center, now housed at the community college, will be a 120,000-sf headquarters building. It is scheduled for completion by October 2009.

G.B. Cazes, assistant director of the Cyber Innovation Center, says the center will fill some of the class A office and the balance will be leased to other companies for office, laboratory and conference uses. He says it's uncertain how much will be retained by CIC and how much will be leased out.

Cazes says it's also not been determined when construction will launch on the remaining 480,000 sf. "Some of it we'll build ourselves and some we'll build for member companies," he tells GlobeSt.com. "It'll be dual purpose."

Prevot Design Services and Mike McSwain Architects, both of Shreveport designed the complex. The general contractor for the buildings hasn't been selected.

The Cyber Innovation Center and National Cyber Research Park is a public-private development geared to bring together defense contractors, academicians and researchers to determine how to best protect the nation from cyber warfare as well as to develop additional cyber technologies to remain globally competitive. The 64-acre development could be just the tip of the iceberg. "There are approximately 2,000 acres in this area, owned by multiple partners, zoned for research," Cazes says. "We may not buy and develop all of it. Someone else may buy it to develop their own R&D facilities. But, it's there."