UA Tech Park wants to add retail and residences as part of makeover plan

Publication by: Inside Tucson Business

February 14, 2014

Written by: Kayla Sabino Samoy

UA Tech Park is planning changes to the Eastside tech-biz incubator, including attracting international business, increasing community access and adding residential and retail facilities.

The 1,345-acre research park allows developing and established technology companies to work side-by-side with a focus on getting technology out of the University of Arizona and the laboratory and into the marketplace.

"The park has evolved over the years and we find more and more the public wanting access to it," said Bruce Wright, Associate Vice President of Tech Parks Arizona.

A series of planning meetings last year with community and UA representatives helped establish the park's plans for the future. The most recent meeting in December focused on the physical aspects of the park and its usability.

The discussion included improving parking and signage directing people to the park, and the possibility of a visitor center.

"There are many different dimensions to what we're trying to do. So it's a comprehensive examination of the park and its interaction with the outside world and how we manage that more effectively," Wright said.

One of the goals of the university park is to teach the community about science and technology, something Wright believes can be facilitated by making the park more accessible and easier to navigate.

"For example we have our solar zone, which is a large testing and evaluation center," Wright said. "People are trying to understand what solar energy means for our region and our country so there's a need for people to be able to come on site to see what this is all about."

The park's leaders especially hope to generate interest among young people for the STEM fields by allowing students to tour the site and exposing them to the sciences.

"So we have school groups and students coming on site to see what we do in the park and how science and technology is relevant to their lives and their educational pursuits," Wright said.

Last week, Ashley Evans took her sixth-grade class from La Paloma Academy to visit the tech park and learn about solar energy.

The students participated in an experiment where they built a solar powered fan, saw a solar go-kart like the ones local high schools are building as part of the Racing the Sun program, and saw the large solar panels up close.

Evans said the tour helped give the children a better understanding of in-class material they were learning by showing them its real life application.

"For a few of them it opened their eyes to the amount of jobs that are available," Evans said. "They were excited and asking questions about what they'd have to learn in college and what jobs those courses would allow them to pursue."

One of the biggest priorities is to strengthen the connection between the park and the main UA campus, not just physically but also through better coordination of program offerings.

This means working to get faculty on site to engage in research, testing, evaluating and demonstrating the technologies they've been working on in their laboratories as well as increasing classes offered on site. Wright said he also hopes to offer students more internship opportunities not only with the Arizona Tech Parks office but also through the companies on site.

"We are also trying to be more strategic when it comes to the attraction of companies to the park," Wright said. "We want to try to attract technology companies that are relevant and important to the university, companies in the research areas where the university has strength."

There are many different ways for companies to get involved with the tech park. There is an active business attraction and recruitment program that focuses on sectors in the university's strengths, including renewable solar energy, homeland and border security, and mining technology and analytics.

There also are companies who have approached the tech park to see if they could get a location at the site and start a relationship with the university. Many of these companies are directed to the parks by university faculty or organizations such as the Arizona Commerce Authority and the Tucson Metropolitan Chamber.

The tech parks also help with the development of new companies using licensed technology that's been developed at the university.

Now the tech parks are looking to expand their collection of businesses to include international companies. The newly launched business attraction program called Global Advantage aims to attract international companies into the park through the partnership formed by Tech Parks Arizona and The Offshore Group, which provides outsourcing opportunities in Mexico.

This partnership will allow international companies to use the tech park's facilities for research and development and The Offshore Group's high-tech manufacturing and connection to the market in Mexico.

Michael Varney, President and CEO of the Tucson Metro Chamber, said it's fantastic to have Tucson be an attractive place for overseas investments.

"These are brand new dollars to our area, they're coming from outside of Arizona and that's always an advantage," Varney said. "And if these companies can get a foothold at the tech park and then grown their operations in the United States, hopefully in Arizona, that creates jobs and that creates more of a global economy."

One of the biggest challenges technology companies face is the ability to track and retain skilled employees, Wright said. There is a lot of competition for skilled workers and as a result the companies involved with the park have committed to making it a great work site for their employees.

They're also considering residential and retail private sector development in the park.

"One of the things that we've learned by looking into research parks around the world is that they want to be what are called communities of innovation, they want to be more than just a collection of research buildings," Wright said.

This would give people who work at the park the opportunity to live closer to their work site, access to recreational facilities for health and fitness, and even access to a childcare facility.

"The whole point is to try and make this one of the most attractive work sites in the region," Wright said.