$1.2M grant for high-tech park

BYLINE: BOB FOWLER fowlern@knews.com. Bob Fowler, News Sentinel Anderson County editor, may be reached at 865-481-3625.

OAK RIDGE - A year from now, the first tenant in the nation's first high-tech park at a national lab should move in.

That relocation by engineering firm Pro2Serve will come at the same time that a network of utilities is finished for the first 12 acres of the Oak Ridge Science and Technology Park.

Helping fund that park infrastructure on the Oak Ridge National Laboratory campus will be a $1.2 million federal Economic Development Administration grant.

U.S. Rep. Zach Wamp, R-Tenn., announced the grant Monday during ceremonies at the lab. The state earlier awarded a $750,000 grant to help with site work.

The park "is an unparalleled opportunity for startup businesses to grow in a supportive atmosphere,'' Oak Ridge City Councilwoman Lou Dunlap said.

Jeff Smith, assistant lab director, said when finished, the park would be about 40 acres. It could accommodate about 500,000 square feet worth of buildings and mean 500 to 600 new jobs, he said.

That estimate is too low, said Paul Martin, an executive with Pro2Serve. Martin predicted

as many as 2,000 new jobs.

Pro2Serve expects to double its payroll to 400 people when it moves into its 100,000-squarefoot, $15 million building.

Other firms are also interested in sites, said Tom Ballard, the lab's director of economic development and partnerships.

Within the past two weeks, representatives of an international appliance maker and a wood products manufacturer looked at park sites, he said.

Those firms are looking for ways to form partnerships with the lab to enhance their research, he said.

"Collaborations will flourish'' between the lab and park tenants, Ballard said. "Hopefully, they will establish new divisions, new product lines'' in area industrial parks, he said.

A Knoxville firm is still in talks to construct a 100,000-square-foot building there, Smith said. Dunlap said other plans are to lease an existing building as an incubator for startup firms.

Gerald Boyd, manager of the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge Operations, called the new park "a major step in economic development.''

DOE transferred the initial park land to the Community Reuse Organization of East Tennessee.

CROET, a nonprofit economic development group given the task of finding new uses for DOE land and buildings, will manage the Oak Ridge Science and Technology Park.