Chandler eyes new site for biotech incubator 

Chandler had the option of building a new multimillion-dollar biotechnology business "incubator" at a Price Road site touted by Mayor Boyd Dunn this year, but an alternative arose that was too good to pass up.

The City Council Thursday is slated to consider dropping $5.7 million on what's being called the Innovations Technology Incubator/Accelerator in a former Intel research and development facility at 145 S. 79th St., just west of the Chandler Fashion Center. If the council approves, renovations are expected to begin within 30 days, said Pat McDermott, an assistant city manager.

The facility's purpose is to provide research space to biotech start-ups such as software design, engineering, biosciences, nanotechnology and sustainable technologies. The incubator provides space to allow them to take a concept from a scientific idea to a marketable product, and to find investors, McDermott said. Successful companies would remain in the city and add to its employment and economic base, he said.

"Generally, these jobs are going to be well-paying. We want them to locate in Chandler," McDermott said.

Dunn, in his State of the City speech earlier this year, had indicated the city's intent to put the incubator on a 152-acre site formerly owned by Motorola at 2501 S. Price Road to take advantage of the Price Road technology corridor's infrastructure.

Christine Mackay, Chandler's economic development director, said the Motorola site was sold to Capital Commercial Investment about six weeks ago. The investment firm also owns the former Intel building that officials are now considering. The firm gave city officials the option as to which building they preferred for the incubator, she said.

The Intel site was chosen because it already had technology infrastructure in place like gas lines, compressed air, vacuum lines and clean rooms, and because officials determined the labs at the Motorola site were too deep within the core of that building to be useful, Mackay said.

McDermott said the Motorola site was unwieldy.

"It doesn't lend itself as well to being split up into smaller spaces," he said.

Ex-Motorola site offers new opportunities

Mackay said the city already has three or four possible tenants lined up, including the University of Arizona's McGuire Center for Entrepreneurship, and a local medical device company called Invoy Technologies, which specializes in noninvasive therapies.

The city's $5.7 million investment would pay for renovations and other things like furniture, fixtures and equipment. Chandler officials set aside the money about four years ago as a one-time expense for the business incubator, Mackay said.

McDermott said the city would pay Capital Commercial Investment between $4.5 million and $6.5 million over the course of a 10-year lease for more than 36,000 square feet of space within the Intel building, but would recoup the money in rent payments from tenant businesses to which the city sublets space. Those start-ups would pay a reduced rate of rent compared with the market rate for a similar space.

"We think there's a real demand for this kind of space," McDermott said.

Mackay said the building was built in 1979, and has been vacant for about five years. The renovations are expected to be done by April 2010, she said. The landlord is in the process of renovating the building's exterior and landscaping, out of the firm's own pocket.

The City Council Thursday also is expected to seal a yearlong, $96,000 deal with Gilbert-based consultant Jeff Morhet, nationally recognized as a biotechnology start-up expert. Morhet founded ThirdBiotech Research Group, a nonprofit organization whose mission is to promote the growth of biotech companies.