PROVIDENCE – Gov. Lincoln D. Chafee said that he will be the one driving the state’s economic agenda regarding ways to build up the new so-called “Knowledge District,” following a two-day fact-finding trip to Houston to visit the Texas Medical Center.
“I take the responsibility; it’s the top priority, getting our economy going, creating new jobs, increasing revenue,” Chafee said. “I’ll be watching this on a daily basis.”
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The trip’s goal was to learn more about the Texas Medical Center, one of the largest medical centers in the world, and see what kinds of partnerships might be able to replicated as part of the new Knowledge District in Providence, which will be anchored by the Brown University medical school.
The next steps, according to Chafee, are “to have conversations with the hospital campuses, Lifespan and Care New England, and to talk about what we saw in Houston, and the potential that might exist here.” No meetings to do this have been put on his schedule yet, Chafee said.
Conversations in Houston focused on research and collaboration, Chafee said. “It was stressed at every meeting, it’s all about collaboration, over and over again, as to the reasons for their success in Houston,” the governor said.
The research component, Chafee continued, was seen as the fuel for the economic engine for this kind of enterprise, with the need to tap into a wide range of federal research funds, including the U.S. Department of Defense, the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, and NASA, among others.
Some of Chafee’s initial assumptions about the Knowledge District may have changed as a result of the trip. “I went down there assuming that private, tax-paying entities were part of the Texas Medical Center,” he said. “They presented a whole different view; the Texas Medical Center is 100 percent not for profit.”
According to Chafee, the nonprofit institutions, with their championing of top quality health care, research and education, were the drivers of the Texas Medical Center and its success, according to the Houston medical officials.
“Economic growth will occur as a result, attracting the property-owning, tax-paying industries, which will want to locate there,” he said, recounting what was told to Rhode Island representatives.
Chafee said he was still thinking about what will be appropriate in terms of real estate development for the Knowledge District. “I’m still digesting everything,” he said.
Still, Chafee said that Rhode Island was in a very fortunate position in its development of the Knowledge District. “We have 20 acres of land that are under the state’s control, we don’t have to have any condemnations or acquisitions, we’re in a good position to make good decisions,” he said.
