'Incubator' expected to create jobs in 2 years

Chandler's multimillion-dollar biotechnology business "incubator," now under construction, could begin spinning off businesses and creating new jobs within two years of its planned spring opening, city officials say.

The city is spending $5.7 million to convert a former Intel research and development facility at 145 S. 79th St., west of the Chandler Fashion Center, into the planned Innovations Technology Incubator/Accelerator. The facility's purpose is to provide research space to biotech startups in areas such as software design, engineering, biosciences, nanotechnology and sustainable technologies to allow them to take a concept from a scientific idea to a marketable product and find investors.

Christine Mackay, Chandler economic development director, said the incubator could house between 20 and 30 startups. Some of those companies could be ready to take their products to market within two years of the facility's planned May 1 opening, she said.

"We will take them out of the incubator and help them find commercial space in Chandler," Mackay said.

So far, the city has four 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. She said she's not at liberty to reveal the other planned tenants.

"They're in other spaces. They're not ready to announce yet," she said.

Vance Chapman, general construction manager with contractor LGE, said interior renovations began last week.

"We're still in the process of demolition," Chapman said.

The Intel site was chosen because it already had technology infrastructure in place like gas lines, compressed air, vacuum lines and clean rooms, city officials have said.

"There is millions of dollars of infrastructure already in here," said Jane Poston, a city spokeswoman.

Businesses that spin off from the incubator are expected to create the kind of high-paying technology jobs that Chandler has long sought to bring to the community. Poston said the incubator gives those startups a reason to locate their corporate offices in Chandler.

Corporate headquarters are more likely to remain afloat in times of economic distress, when many companies are shutting down satellite offices, she said.

"We want to make sure we're working with companies with marketable ideas," Poston said.

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

The former Intel building was built in 1979, and has been vacant for about five years. The city would pay the owner, 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, but would recoup the money in rent payments from tenant businesses to which the city sublets space, officials have said. Those startups would pay a reduced rate of rent compared with the market rate for a similar space.

The City Council in September also approved a yearlong, $96,000 deal with Gilbert-based consultant Jeff Morhet, nationally recognized as a biotechnology startup expert, to help with getting the incubator up and running.

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