Published: September 07, 2007 09:58 am      

Excitement building for Purdue project in New Albany

University officials speak to business leaders about under-construction Technology Center

JEFFERSONVILLE — Two top Purdue University officials and area business leaders gathered Thursday morning to celebrate the forthcoming Purdue Technology Center and talk about the potential the 40-acre site off Charlestown Road has for New Albany and the region.

Under construction on donated land valued somewhere between $10 million and $12 million, the center represents an expansion of a model already working effectively in Merrillville and West Lafayette, Purdue Research Foundation official Joseph B. Hornett told a group of more than 100 area business leaders at a Thursday morning meeting at Kye’s in Jeffersonville.

“If you want to know what’s possible in Southern Indiana, you just have to look to West Lafayette,” Hornett said, stressing that it’s not about what the new facility will look like, but the job creation and investment a technology park in Southern Indiana will spur.

The 591-acre research park near the main campus of Purdue in West Lafayette hosts 139 companies, 91 of which are technology-based, and 49 of which are housed in the business incubator. The average annual wage of the 2,878 employees in the park is $58,000, Hornett said.

The concept is for there to be a mix of companies — established ones locating to the park because of the proximity to university researchers and talented college graduates and ones started from scratch by university researchers and students.

Among the businesses in the park are Butler Engineering, which opened in July 2005 in a former Whirlpool factory. The company — which provides outsourcing services to customers for engineering design — employs more than 100 workers with a payroll of $6.5 million in space that when still vacant represented the dried-up manufacturing industry.

Another is the pharmaceutical research company SSCI Inc. Started in a sewing room in 1991, the business grew out of the research park’s incubator and today has 100 employees and a revenue stream of $30 million, Hornett said.

He said stories of businesses growing from humble beginnings are what excites him about the potential of another research park in the state — completing the Interstate 65 circuit from New Albany, to Indianapolis, to West Lafayette to Merrillville.

“I can tell you from the day-to-day operations at West Lafayette, it’s exciting,” Hornett said.

The Merrillville park opened in December 2004 and is already 75 percent full with plans to expand again next year, Hornett said. The 400-acre park boasts 19 companies, 13 of which are technology-based and the average annual wage for employees working there is $52,000, he said.

Dennis R. Depew, dean for the College of Technology at Purdue, spoke about the impact the new center will have on academic programs. Classroom space at the campus will more than double the area available — from 7,600 square feet on the IU Southeast campus to a total of nearly 20,000 square feet at the two locations, Depew noted. The technology center is slated to open next year.

Joe Reagan, chief executive officer of Greater Louisville Inc., said the combination of higher education offerings and a business incubator would help attract as opposed to losing a knowledge-based work force.

Reagan shared an anecdote about famed inventor Thomas Edison, who lived in Louisville briefly, but left after being fired for experimenting on the job to illustrate the importance of attracting and keeping highly skilled workers.

The Purdue Technology Center would be a place just over the Ohio River where the “next Thomas Edison” could go, Reagan said.