"We have 20 start up biotech firms lined up if we could do it now," says Robert Elde, dean of the College of Biological Sciences at the University of Minnesota and chairman of the board of University Enterprise Laboratories.
The project has attracted about $7 million in private donations from such companies as Xcel Energy and 3M, but hopes to reach $8.5 million before it pulls the trigger on the project, he says.
The incubator is also talking with potential anchor tenants for the center. Among them is Athersys, the Cleveland-based biotech company that is looking for a new headquarters, but Elde thinks a few other unnamed prospects are more likely.
This summer, the City of St. Paul—-the University of Minnesota's partner in University Enterprise Laboratories—-agreed to buy a vacant 132,000-sf building in the city's Westgate office-industrial parkland surrounding the 11-acre lot for $6.8 million. The city will sell the property to the partnership once it has its financing in place. The building would then be renovated and outfitted for biotech start up firms.
Architectural Alliance, the firm that designed the University of Minnesota's Genomics building, is working on the building design, Elde says.
The building is near Highway 280 and Energy Park Drive—-strategically located between the Minneapolis and St. Paul campuses of the University of Minnesota, the expected source for many of the biotech startup companies.
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