RESEARCH PARK ENVISIONED 'Dream' for fairgrounds Project backers begin lobbying Legislature to acquire State Fair Park for UNL's use Future of the Sta
BYLINE: Matthew Hansen, WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER
A group of Lincoln businessmen has begun lobbying the Legislature to move the Nebraska State Fair and clear a prime chunk of land near downtown for a development that University of Nebraska President J.B. Milliken calls "a dream."
The vision: A "research corridor," inspired in part by Omaha's Peter Kiewit Institute, where University of Nebraska-Lincoln researchers could rub elbows with entrepreneurs and startup companies could spring from professors' inventions.
But giving the 250 acres of fairgrounds land to the university also is fraught with difficulty, say the city's university, business and political leaders.
Research park backers must figure out how to pay to move the fair to east Lincoln without using new tax dollars. And they must convince lawmakers that the ambitious economic development plan is practical for the land the fair has called home since 1901.
"There's a lot of discussions that need to be had, a lot of people who need to be consulted and brought into the fold," Milliken said. "But we shouldn't be afraid of thinking big. We need to dream big."
Outside research funding at UNL has skyrocketed in the past decade, topping the $100 million mark for the first time last year. But it soon will plateau if the school's researchers don't find more space, UNL leaders say.
Researchers currently occupy 1.2 million square feet at UNL. They need 850,000 square feet more in the coming decade for biology and genetics labs, the newly created Nebraska Transportation Center and nanotechnology research, according to university projections.
The fairgrounds or a similar piece of land could ease the research crunch and be used to build "incubator space" to house young companies started because of a UNL research breakthrough, said Prem Paul, UNL's vice chancellor of research.
UNL Chancellor Harvey Perlman envisions a mini-ethanol plant on the fairgrounds so professors could improve the efficiency of ethanol production. He foresees a small auto track that the university's newly funded transportation center would use to test vehicles.
Milliken says the university needs a large parcel of land near the campus if Nebraska wants to compete with other states that are aggressively turning their public universities into giant economic development engines.
He points to North Carolina State University, where 1,000 acres of former state property now houses a graduate engineering program, the headquarters of a software company, a bioprocessing plant and several other public-private partnerships where professors and businessmen share expertise.
Milliken also wants Lincoln to look at the state's largest city, where the private sector, led by the Peter Kiewit Foundation, provided $47 million to help build the Peter Kiewit Institute on the University of Nebraska at Omaha's south campus.
That institute combines engineering, information science and technology programs, utilizes both UNL and UNO professors and regularly works with Omaha's largest companies.
The 2015 Visioning Group -- a small group of Lincoln business leaders including attorney Kent Seacrest, construction magnate Jim Abel and Terry Fairfield, president of the University of Nebraska Foundation -- has noticed what's happening in Omaha, Milliken said.
"It's fair to say that the private sector leadership in Lincoln has looked with some admiration . . . at what the private sector in Omaha has been able to accomplish," he said. "There's a sense among some of these folks that they ought to be able to do some of the same things in Lincoln."
Tam Allan, a Lincoln businessman and member of the Nebraska State Fair Board, puts it more bluntly.
"They're afraid UNL is losing its flagship status," he said of the 2015 Visioning Group.
Opponents of moving the State Fair see a big difference between the Omaha public-private partnership and any similar plans in Lincoln.
The Omaha group put up serious money to make the Kiewit Institute a reality. But the Visioning Group hasn't come up with a fiscally responsible way to pay to move the fair, said both Allan and Barney Cosner, the fair's executive director.
Instead, the Visioning Group presented a plan that would leave the fair some $41 million in debt and beholden to taxpayers, Allan and Cosner said.
"They don't have any clue where the money is going to come from," Cosner said.
It won't come from taxpayers, Gov. Dave Heineman said. He urged both sides to keep an open mind about relocating the fair and to patiently look for a solution.
However, Heineman warned, "If we're talking about increased taxes, this isn't going anywhere."
University leaders, Visioning Group members and several state lawmakers dispute the conclusion that keeping the fair at its current location ultimately would please taxpayers.
Perlman, the UNL chancellor who's also a member of the State Fair Board, said financial projections make him believe the fair eventually will need a large-scale investment in capital construction -- money the fair currently lacks -- for it to succeed at its current location.
Milliken and Tonn Ostergard, visioning group member and CEO of Crete Carrier, are leaving open the possibility that the visioning group and the university may sweeten the deal to entice the State Fair to move.
Under the Visioning Group's original proposal the group's members would pay for 10 percent of the move, UNL would give the fair land in east Lincoln for free and the University of Nebraska Foundation would help find corporate sponsors to help pay for a move.
Members of the group have met with Heineman and most of the state senators from Lincoln and Lancaster County. They have hired the firm of Kim Robak, a former University of Nebraska vice president, to lobby the Legislature.
Seacrest said he hopes lawmakers will decide the question before they adjourn in 2008.
He said the issue is one that affects all Nebraskans: "What's best for the state? Expanded research and development area growth for the University of Nebraska? Or the continuation of the State Fair at its current location?"
Future of the State Fair Park
Who: The 2015 Visioning Group is a loose coalition of Lincoln business leaders, most of whom are closely affiliated with the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and the University of Nebraska Foundation.
What it wants: A 250-acre tract of land currently occupied by the Nebraska State Fair to be given to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln for research and research-related entrepreneurial activity.
What it proposes: That the fair combine with the Lancaster Event Center in east Lincoln, with the Visioning Group paying for 10 percent of the move and the university donating land near the event center.
Roadblock No. 1: Gov. Dave Heineman says a move must not use new tax dollars.
Roadblock No. 2: State Fair Board members say rebuilding the fair at its current location will cost far less. The Visioning Group disagrees with this assessment and says a relocation wouldn't cost taxpayers.