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Spokanes budding University District could well become a thriving center for research and development over the next few years, and that, say proponents, could provide big economic-development benefits here.
The district is home to Gonzaga University, Washington State Universitys Spokane branch campus, and a host of programs offered by Eastern Washington University, as well as the states Spokane Intercollegiate Research & Technology Institute. With that educational and research firepower, and the technological infrastructure thats going in there, school officials and others say theres a huge potential to incubate new businesses there and capitalize on the growing research dollars that will be spent.
We have an opportunity to build an urban research campus with a very strong bio-medical focus, says Brian Pitcher, chancellor of WSU-Spokane.
Coordinating its efforts with WSUs main campus in Pullman, where much of the schools pure research is done, WSU-Spokane is developing an applied science laboratory here that has the potential to team up with private industry on a contractual basis.
Dr. Yogendra Gupta, a leading researcher at WSU-Pullmans Shock Physics Laboratory, says 20 to 30 well-paid researchers will be employed at Spokanes applied science lab in the next three or four years to solve problems for private businesses, as well as state and federal agencies. He anticipates some of the researchers will be entrepreneurs who will branch off and establish spinoff businesses here.
The applied science lab will bring industry to Spokane for contract work, says Pitcher. He sees WSUs role as first leading the effort to develop a bio-medical campus here, and secondly to develop an applied science laboratory to complement economic growth.
Developing a close relationship with Spokane-area hospitals is a key piece of that strategy, he says. New labs with ties to those hospitals could be located in the U District and remain in proximity to and connected electronically with the hospitals.
Research dollars will be a major factor in future U-District growth.
Of the about $250 million generated for research last year by WSU, about $10 million was for research at its Spokane campus, and that amount is growing rapidly, says Jim Petersen, vice provost of research at WSU.
Pitcher predicts that WSU-Spokanes research dollars will jump to $20 million in the next three to five years, and to about $50 million within 12 years.
That alone could have a big impact here, he says, pointing out that collegiate researchers are highly paid, hire support staff, and purchase supplies in the community. Petersen asserts that every additional $1 million spent on research directly or indirectly creates an estimated 34.5 jobs in the local area.
Among the research projects planned by WSU here that have strong economic potential are those planned in the Sleep Research Institute, directed by Dr. Greg Belenky, and in the new Shock Physics Lab, which will soon employ four researchers here as an extension of work done by Guptas group in Pullman.
The sleep lab could attract new businesses eager to capitalize on Belenkys research into finding ways to determine in advance when workers, including drivers, pilots, or even medical or laboratory workers, need to be relieved from duty due to lack of sleep. The possibility of developing an indicator strip that could be placed under the tongue of a worker to determine his or her need for sleep was suggested as one potential new technology that could come out of the lab, says Dennis Dyck, vice chancellor for research at WSU-Spokane.
Belenky, said to be one of the nations leading researchers in the study of sleep, is currently doing studies involving city of Spokane police officers, workers at Hollister-Stier Laboratories here, and pilots at Fairchild Air Force Base, Petersen says.
Shock Physics studies have been funded in the past by the U.S. Department of Defense and U.S. Department of Energy, and focus on what happens to different materials that have been hit by a wave of shock.
By testing cutting-edge materials and determining how they handle stress and strain, even how they are impacted by laser technology, gives us the opportunity to attract both control work and industries to support that kind of work, Pitcher says. The implications for mining, environmental, construction, and manufacturing interests could be huge, he says.
Opportunities already have begun to emerge for business spinoffs from research being done on the campus.
Dyck says a medical diagnostics company currently is close to deciding whether to establish a business within the U-District. He declines to name it.
Perhaps the best example of the opportunity might be the establishment here of Signature Genomic Laboratories, which was founded by two researchers who now are at WSU-Spokane, Lisa Shaffer and Dr. Bassem Bejjani. The business, which employs about a dozen people, commercially diagnoses chromosomal abnormalities in humans. It currently occupies space in Sacred Heart Medical Centers Health Resource Center, but plans in the future to have its own building.
Bob Schwartz, EWUs entrepreneurship professor, says the U District is the perfect place for entrepreneurial outreach, but hes heard nothing new about the district recently.
Instead of attracting generic small businesses, Schwartz says the district has the potential to attract creative and innovative businesses that can generate higher sales and higher-wage jobs.
Meanwhile, SIRTIs new 40,000-square-foot technology center, being built on the southwestern portion of the Riverpoint campus, is scheduled to open in November and is being marketed as a place for bio-medical businesses and research-related organizations, says SIRTI spokesman Patrick Jones.
SIRTI Foundation board president Steve Helmbrecht says they are actively marketing space in the building, but have not yet inked any leases.
Other factors from the state level also could boost the U District.
A recent change by the state Legislature in the states ethics law will dramatically enhance the ability to have faculty engage their efforts with industry, says Petersen.
Part of that laws intent is to avoid conflicts between the personal interests of state workers, such as university researchers, and their duties as public employees.
Adds Dyck, Its highly speculative as to which research-and-development projects could become highly successful. Every now and then you hit pay dirt, but theres no way of knowing how many jobs will be created.
WSU is just one of a group of schools that will have programs in the district.
Gonzaga, the campus of which is almost entirely situated in the district, offers comprehensive programs in both liberal arts and the sciences, including a law school, engineering program, and a host of business programs. It has built strong academic relationships with WSU and Whitworth College through the Intercollegiate College of Nursing consortium, and with EWU involving a joint law and social work program.
Gonzagas job, though, isnt to create businesses in the U District, says Stephen Freedman, academic vice president.
Its not our responsibility to start those businesses, Freedman says. We need to make our faculty available, and develop strong student programs and partnerships.
High-tech infrastructure
Efforts, meanwhile, are being made to ensure that the U District has the technological muscle to handle todays high-tech research needs.
One of those efforts is whats known as the Virtual Possibilities Network, or VPnet, a high-speed computer network through which regional researchers, educators, and entrepreneurs at business incubators can share information. One of VPnets two hubs is located in the soon-to-be-opened SIRTI tech center, say Steve Trabun, VPnet president and customer business-development manager for Avista Corp., which dedicated fiber optics and grants toward the creation of VPnet.
Trabun says all universities and colleges in the Spokane area, and some out of town, too, belong to the consortium, which among other things allows for live broadcasts of guest speakers at EWU, Whitworth, WSU-Spokane, North Idaho College, and others, as well as the capacity to save those programs digitally on a central server for later, on-demand use.
Each organization or school pays from $850 to $1,250 a month for unlimited access to the nonprofit organizations network, says Trabun. He says administrative and operational network support expenses, equipment maintenance, and working to make VPnet self supporting by 2008 consume its revenues. VPnet is now funded by members and in-kind contributions, most of the latter of which will go away by 2008, Trabun says.
While VPnet can handle 155 megabits of information per second, another, much faster, fiber-optic communication network, called gigapop, also is slated to become available in the district.
That connection should be in Spokane, most likely centered in the U District, by the end of 2006, and will have the capacity to handle up to 10,000 megabits of information a second, Trabun says. That connection, he asserts, will help the district attract researchers and scientists who need to move huge amounts of data as part of their work.
The Legislature recently approved $1 million of a $5 million request to help pay for a gigapop connection between Seattle and Spokane. Although that appropriation is not enough to finance the connection, efforts are being made to secure other money to finance the project, says Trabun. He says connections to gigapop can be made by private as well as public entities, and that the cost for each months access will be $1,000.
Another technology planned for the U District will be free wireless Internet access. Such a hot zone is already available downtown, and plans are in place to extend it east into the U District, says Robin Toth, director of community projects at the Spokane Area Economic Development Council.
She says the expansion should happen within the next six months to a year, and that the universities in the district are behind the effort.
There already are about 100 to 200 hot spots in the downtown area, says Toth, plus Wind Wireless Inc. and Cutting Edge Communications Inc., both of Spokane, have announced plans to provide free connections to the Internet in some other areas of Spokane.
A mall manager
Pitcher says WSU-Spokane has been assigned to administer the about 50 acres of land owned by the state of Washington within the district, some of which hosts the other schools.
We are sort of a mall manager of educational services, he says, adding that the university will do what it can to attract cutting-edge researchers capable of developing patents that can be commercialized. He also hopes the university will have a role in attracting housing, restaurants, and bookstores that are compatible with the vision of the campus.
WSU-Spokane, including its nursing school located near Spokane Falls Community College that is scheduled to move to the U-District in 2008, now has about 1,500 students at the two sites, and EWU has another 1,500 students there, says Jones, who also heads EWUs Institute for Public Policy and Economic Analysis.
Some have speculated that EWU will close its building in downtown Spokane, where another 3,000 students attend classes, and move those programs to the U District. EWU spokesman David Rey, however, says no decisions have been made concerning that building or any possible move of the programs there.
Gonzaga, which has experienced rapid enrollment growth in the past three or four years, now has about 5,500 students and plans for the near future not to expand on that number.