UA Tech Parks Mark 30th Year as Tucson Tech Hub
Arizona Daily Star article August 9, 2024
Written by David Wichner
The University of Arizona celebrated the 30th anniversary of Tech Parks Arizona on Wednesday with a new tree, proclamations, breakfast noshes — and a look forward to a new apartment development and child day care center at the UA Tech Park on South Rita Road.
A crape myrtle tree was planted in a courtyard area as part of the University of Arizona Tech Park’s 30th Anniversary celebration on Aug. 7. The UA Tech Park hosts about 6,000 workers and has an estimated $2 billion annual economic impact.
Photography credit: Mamta Popat, Arizona Daily Star
The planned development on the park’s northwest side is an example of the UA’s focus on future growth, Carol Stewart, vice president of Tech Parks Arizona, said at a small gathering at the tech park’s Building 9070.
“As Tech Parks Arizona enters a new era of growth, we have big plans,” said Stewart, who has headed the UA tech-park enterprise since 2018. “We only look forward, we don’t look backwards. And we’re going to enhance that live, learn, work, play and stay environment through exciting development — commercial, residential, hospitality and amenities offered for the UA Tech Park and the community.”
The new housing will be developed by The Boyer Company, which developed the four-story The Refinery building at the UA Tech Park at The Bridges, a second tech park site at East 36th Street and South Kino Parkway.
In the project’s first phase, the company plans to build a 315-unit apartment complex on a 15.5-acre parcel just east of Interstate 10 and northwest of Vail Academy and High School.
Boyer hopes to break ground on the apartments within the next year, after some necessary utility infrastructure work is completed, said Matt Jensen, project manager with Salt Lake City-based Boyer.
The day care center is still in the planning stages and construction will start after the apartments are completed, Jensen said.
A plan for up to 100 townhomes on a roughly 10-acre parcel adjacent to the apartment site will come later and likely be built in phases, he said.
Supporting workers
Jensen said the housing project grew out of conversations he had with Stewart about the kinds of new development that would help the tech parks grow.
“As you look at most of the tech parks really around the country, they’re places where not only do businesses come together, but their support services support employees that make that an attractive location,” Jensen said.
“Those amenities — housing, retail, day care, those types of things — will only help enhance the offering, so now the Tech Park has 100-plus companies that are actively engaged here and we’ll be having those additional amenities that will help attract companies.”
Stewart said the UA has been working to upgrade amenities at the park, citing a recently opened fitness center for tenants, but nearby child care is an exciting and much-needed addition.
“People have asked about day care since the day I got here,” she said, adding that she and other park officials have sought advice from the Vail School District and toured some of its day care facilities.
Looking forward, Stewart said new hotel development at the UA Tech Park also is being considered, citing a Hampton Inn & Suites opened across the street from the UA Tech Park on South Rita Road that has been doing very well.
Making an impact
ABOVE: An aerial view of the University of Arizona Science and Tech Park in January 2001. The site is bounded by Interstate 10 on the left, Rita Road in the foreground, the Union Pacific Railroad line on the far right and Kolb in the background.
Elliott Cheu, UA interim vice president for research and innovation, said the tech parks are a key part of the UA’s effort to turn its faculty research into technology that can impact lives.
He cited a treatment for the fungal lung disease Valley Fever that was developed at the UA and, after successful trials in dog subjects, recently won funding from the National Institutes of Health to develop the drug for human trials.
“The ecosystem that we have created, including the tech parks, it’s an amazing opportunity for us to bring together companies from outside, have them collaborate with the University of Arizona and then bring those ideas to fruition,” said Cheu, a UA distinguished professor of physics.
The small anniversary celebration featured proclamations from Gov. Katie Hobbs and Rep. Juan Ciscomani, and attendees overlooked a crepe-myrtle tree planted on the UA Tech Park grounds to commemorate the milestone.
Tech Parks Arizona was formed following the UA’s landmark acquisition of the sprawling IBM Corp. campus on Rita Road in 1994, after the computing giant moved its storage-device manufacturing operations out of Tucson in 1990.
IBM’s storage research and development operations stayed on as an anchor tenant and remains today, along with major employer Raytheon, Citi and more than 100 other smaller tech companies.
The UA Tech Park, which is supported by rents and is 89% occupied, hosts about 6,000 workers and has an estimated $2 billion annual economic impact, including $359 million in direct wages.
Beside the two tech parks, Tech Parks Arizona includes the UA Center for Innovation, a business incubator based at the Rita Road tech park, with offices at The Refinery and outposts in Oro Valley, Vail, Sahuarita and Biosphere 2.
More than 50 startups, including UA technology spinoffs, are UACI client companies that use the UA Tech Park as their corporate headquarters.
The tech parks and UACI also work closely with Tech Launch Arizona, the UA’s technology commercialization arm now based at The Refinery.
High-tech tenants
The UA Tech Park is the longtime home to several tech companies, including Darling Geomatics, a 15-year tenant that specializes in high-tech land surveying, and NP Photonics, a UA faculty tech spinoff and 20-year tech park tenant that makes fiber-based laser devices.
The Rita Road park also has been home to the UA’s renowned Department of Astronomy and Steward Observatory for the past five years.
Other tenant arrivals in recent years include:
- Immersion Labs, a Phoenix-based company that specializes in spatial computing using artificial intelligence for defense systems, industrial automation and smart infrastructure;
- UA optics spinoff iCRx, which has developed one-minute eye exams;
- Germany-based MicroHybird, an international innovator in microelectronics and infrared sensors;
- Applied Energetics, which develops directed energy systems for defense;
- GEOST, a Tucson-based provider of optical sensors and collector systems that set up a test site at the park last year;
- Dimensional Energy Home, a startup developing a process to produce fuels from airborne carbon dioxide;
- Semiconductor maker Strike Photonics.
UA Tech Parks timeline
1987: The University of Arizona establishes the UA Office of Economic Development (later to become Tech Parks Arizona).
1994: The Arizona Board of Regents acquires the IBM Corp. campus on South Rita Road on behalf of the UA in a bond-financed deal worth $98 million, with plans to transform the 2 million square feet of buildings and more than 1,300 acres of adjacent land into a research park.
IBM, which closed its computer storage manufacturing operations at the Rita Road site in 1990, stays on as a tenant with its research and development and is joined by then-Hughes Missile Systems (now Raytheon).
1996: The UA Science and Technology Park attracts its first major tenant when Microsoft leases space for a customer tech-support call center.
1997: The park works with Vail School District to provide a location within the park for the district’s first charter high school – Vail High School.
1999: The first UA faculty-founded company, fiber-laser maker NP Photonics, joins the UA Tech Park as a tenant.
2001: The UA Tech Park is named the top research park in North American by the Association of University Research Parks, and has remained among the top 10.
2003: Tech Parks Arizona establishes the UA Center for Innovation, the university’s business incubator, to accelerate technology commercialization by helping entrepreneurs. Building 9070 opens as the first new building in the park since the UA acquisition.
2007: The UA acquired a property at East 36th Street and South Kino Parkway to develop a second research park – UA Tech Park at The Bridges.
2009: Vail School District expands Vail High School and launched its innovative K-12 program, Vail Academy and High School.
2010: Development begins for the Solar Zone technology demonstration area at what has become known simply as the UA Tech Park.
2012: Land dedicated to Julian Wash Greenway is developed as part of The Loop public pathway, a collaborative effort between the City of Tucson, Pima County and the UA Tech Park.
2014: Phase One of the Solar Zone is completed with the capacity to generate 25 MW of power creating the nation’s largest multi-technology testing site for new grid-level solar technologies.
2016: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is honored with the naming of the street M L King Jr. Way at the UA Tech Park at The Bridges.
2020: Development starts at the 65-acre south-side UA Tech Park as The Bridges broke ground for the first building within a larger 350-acre mixed-use development project.
2022: The first building in the UA Tech Park at The Bridges, The Refinery, opens in early 2022 with development partner The Boyer Company.
2022: University of Arizona opens the Mission Integration Lab (MIL), a specialized research building to accommodate balloon-borne astronomy testing and development, at the UA Tech Park at The Bridges.
2023: The 110-bed Marriott Springhill Suites opens at the UA Tech Park at The Bridges.
2024: Arizona Public Media breaks ground on a new, state-of-the-art facility at the UA Tech Park at The Bridges to meet current and future technical and broadcast requirements.
Above: Construction continues on the new home for Arizona Public Media at he University of Arizona Tech Park at the Bridges on Aug. 7.
Photography credit: Mamta Popat, Arizona Daily Star
