BIC Expansion to Begin This Fall
PITTSFIELD, Mass. — With about $8 million in public funding secured, the Berkshire Innovation Center is expected to break ground on its expansion this fall.
An 8,000-square-foot addition is planned for the BIC to welcome a new company, Myrias Optics Inc. Executive Director Ben Sosne recently gave the Pittsfield Economic Development Authority an update on the future advanced optics tech hub, the larger vision for this project.
Myrias, a meta-optics producer, has a partnership with BIC tenant Electro Magnetic Applications for testing and simulation services. They will be able to work side by side once the expansion is complete.
"There is not a part of me that thinks Myrias wouldn't be here looking to work with the BIC if we weren't already working with EMA," Sosne said.
"That was the draw, 100 percent."
Governor Maura Healey visited the Berkshire Innovation Center last week to see where millions in state funding will help build a tech hub for advanced optics.
On the same day, her administration announced a $2 million award to the BIC for its upcoming Advanced Manufacturing for Advanced Optics Lab. This is on top of $5 million from the MA Tech Hub designation and a total of $1 million from the city’s economic development funds.
Myrias will bring up to 55 employees to Pittsfield with an average salary of $110,000. The project's budget is being finalized, and PEDA will have to conduct a design review process for the addition.
Sosne reported that they hope to break ground this fall, and construction will happen "relatively quickly." Earlier in the meeting, the PEDA was notified that Mill Town Capital has closed on space on Site 9 and on Woodlawn Avenue for development.
"I think the theme of today is momentum, here at the Pittsfield Economic Development Authority meeting," Chair Jonathan Denmark said.
"… All of this momentum is great for the city of Pittsfield to accomplish the mission here, which is to develop this land to get jobs to the city of Pittsfield, good-paying jobs, and see this kind of center of development in the city of Pittsfield, not be a moonscape, but become a center of action and opportunity."
Sosne credited the movement with Site 9 for helping spur development in the rest of the park, "just that visual difference as people come through here."
The BIC has five goals with this tech hub initiative: build a nano imprint lithography cleanroom manufacturing lab to scale Myrias Optics; establish world-class optics simulation, metrology, and optimization labs in partnership with EMA; recruit and support early-stage firms through accelerator programming and direct outreach; promote a specialized optics talent pipeline; and integrate regional contract manufacturers into the advanced optics supply chain.
NIL is basically using a mold to imprint microscopic patterns on substrates used in electronics, optics, and other nanotechnologies. This builds lenses in an additive way, and cuts costs if lenses don't have to be made in factories that also produce chips for technology.
Myrias can manufacture these lenses in mass with a smaller footprint.
There are two optics hubs in the Northeast, located in the Boston area and Rochester, N.Y., with about 355 optics companies just in Rochester.
In 2023, the University of Massachusetts at Amherst was awarded a $5 million grant from the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative to boost advanced optics in Western Mass, a partnership between MassTech, the university, and two private companies: EMA and Myrias Optics.
EMA conducts testing in harsh environments, and they have worked together organically without competition, Sosne said.
"EMA provides testing and simulation services that Myrias needs to work commercially to commercialize and demonstrate proof of concept, and demonstrate that their technology is going to not just work the first time, but works within six months, or 12 months, or 36 months or longer, or just have a quick iteration of what does work and what doesn't work," he explained.
Tags: BIC, business park, optics, PEDA,
