PEDA Awarded $55K for Life Science Center Study
 The William Stanley Business Park was awarded $55,000 to begin studies for a life sciences incubator on the former GE land. |
PITTSFIELD, Mass. — The William Stanley Business Park is taking a long anticipated step toward a life sciences incubator with the help of a $55,000 state grant.
The capital planning grant released Wednesday from the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center will be used to study opportunities for life-sciences related economic development.
"Now there's some validation that we're taking a step forward and it's not just talk," said Corydon Thurston, executive director of the Pittsfield Economic Development Authority. "Having money from the state delivered for this takes it from the talking, dream phase to the action phase. ... This is a huge step."
Some $6.5 million was set aside in 2008 to fund a 20,000 square foot facility at the former GE site. But the path to that pot of money will require a number of steps, the first being the initial study. Thurston said it will be a two-phase process with the a second study being done on the financial sustainability of the model.
"Until you validate what you want to do you can't really design a building," he said. "We have to put that into an overall financial model and then, hopefully, that will release the funds for construction."
Thurston and members of PEDA and the city's Department of Community Development made a presentation before the MLSC on Tuesday.
"What we proposed in Boston yesterday is that this phase would be done and complete and we would back asking for additional funds by the end of the year," said Thurston. He estimated the initial study would be completed around October.
The goal is to construct an incubator for life science startups that will not only help grow jobs but do it in a financially sustainable way.
"I am optimistic that the planning for a life science business presence in Pittsfield will offer enhanced opportunity for employment and will be the first step in making the Berkshires a meaningful part of the dynamic Massachusetts life science industry," said Mayor Daniel Bianchi in a statement.
It took nearly a year of preparation to get to this point. The key was getting the consultant, New England Expansion Strategies, in place through a request for proposals process to show exactly where the money was going to be spent and what it would accomplish. Thurston expects further efforts to go smoother now that it's understood what the quasi-public agency expects.
"We finally got into the system," he said. "Massachusetts Life Sciences Center has an excellent track record in its first five years of being able to invest in projects to leverage additional investments and create jobs.
"Hopefully, now we're in the queue, we just keep this moving in a systematic way."
The state Life Sciences Center was created in 2008 by an act of the Legislature with the mission to implement a 10-year, $1 billion initiative to create jobs and support research. Its most recent investment was $100 million to the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and the Pioneer Valley Life Sciences Institute.
Thurston envisions the proposed Pittsfield center as being complementary to those efforts in developing the life sciences industry in Western Massachusetts, including the newest elements of the science center at Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts and the cancer center at Berkshire Health System's Hillcrest campus.
He also credited the PEDA baord and foundation partners Nuclea Biotechnologies and Berkshire Community College for playing a major role in developing the vision and local collaborations that resulted in this initial funding.
"Everything goes together," he said. "Everything will go hand in hand to make this work."
Tags: business park, life sciences, PEDA,
