URI seeks to build a park for research, technology

The building boom is set to continue at the University of Rhode Island.
School officials have unveiled details of preliminary plans to construct a 30- to 40-acre research and technology park adjacent to the Kingston campus that could contain as many as six buildings and employ as many as 1,000 people.
The plans come as the university is in the midst of constructing a $60 million biotech and life sciences building and is preparing the break ground on a new $65 million facility for the College of Pharmacy next year.
URI officials said the research and technology park probably will center on the school’s areas of expertise, including pharmacy, oceanography, engineering and biosciences.
There are no definite tenants yet, but Peter Alfonso, vice president of research and economic development at URI, said the park might include some big-name corporations. It is likely to be home to spin-off and startup companies, however.
“Instead of chasing large smokestacks, a lot of tenants could very well be those startup companies that were created by faculty or at least where our faculty is heavily involved,” Alfonso said last week.
The park isn’t going to sprout up overnight, URI officials said.
Robert Weygand, URI’s vice president of administration, said the project would likely be constructed in phases, taking up to a decade to be completely built out, with an estimated 300,000 to 350,000 square feet of research space.
Groundbreaking on the first building is still at least two years away, said Weygand, who estimated that the initial structure would be between 50,000 and 60,000 square feet and would cost $12 million to $15 million to construct.
Weygand said officials still must add the research park to URI’s master plan and develop a more defined site proposal.
URI is releasing more details of its research park plans as it publicly discusses an 18-month feasibility study and business plan assembled by consulting firm Henry George Henry Partners.
The study examined four possible locations for the park but recommended a site north of Flagg Road on the north side of campus. Weygand said that location was deemed best because it would create a “nexus” with developments on the other side of Flagg Road. That’s where the biotech building is under construction and the pharmacy building is planned. Weygand said the university is also planning chemistry and nursing buildings in the vicinity.
URI officials said they also would follow the recommendation that the university seek out tenants before building starts, instead of constructing a “field of dreams,” as Weygand put it, in which buildings are erected in hopes that businesses will move in.
Weygand said the university will seek bond issues next year to fund the early stages of the project.
One recommendation in the study was rejected by URI officials: constructing a four-lane Route 138 bypass north of the campus to deal with the traffic from the research park. Weygand said school officials deemed it unnecessary because workers in the park will have different travel times from the students and faculty on campus, avoiding additional congestion.
Asked why URI is seeking to build a research and technology park, Weygand replied that “the university can no longer be funded in the way it used to be,” noting the state’s dwindling financial support of the school. “We need to look at different ways of operating, such as a relationship and a partnership with private industry.”
More than the financial incentive, Weygand said, the park “will provide an opportunity for faculty and graduate students to be more involved with business in a learning manner that is really beneficial to the university.”
The research park plans coincide with URI’s stepped-up efforts to attract more corporate sponsorship for research. Earlier this year, the university hired Alfonso and formed the URI Research Foundation as a separate arm of the university.
Noting that URI has generated $1 million from managing its intellectual property so far, Alfonso said constructing a research park would build upon that. “This is a big step forward,” he said.
“The research park should serve as a benefit to the faculty involved in the research as well as to the private sector,” Alfonso continued. “This is where we bring together the new technologies that come out of the university with the needs of the regional economic development folks. One of the best things we could do is creating more high-paying jobs, and this is a way to do that.” •