Reprinted with permission of the Times Union, Albany, N.Y. East Greenbush — Science and business unite at increasingly popular and populous Sterling Winthrop site
By Claire Hughes
Business writer, Times UnionPaulette McCormick and Albert Millis saw an opportunity to market their gene research Wednesday.
The University at Albany scientists had a chance to meet Albany Molecular Research chief executive Thomas D'Ambra to talk about ways to collaborate with the fast-growing pharmaceutical company. It was the first time the scientists, who soon will work near each other, were in the same location.
They later called on the office of Eugene K. Schuler, the university's director of technology development, with an idea: Wouldn't it be good to start regular get-togethers, to bring together the businesspeople and academics at the site?
Schuler quickly nodded yes.
"I guess we've gotten that big,'' he said to a visitor. "Up until now, the introductions have been one on one.''
Such are the signs of renewed life at the East Campus, a 58-acre parcel that was once part of the sprawling 158-acre Sterling Winthrop pharmaceutical company complex. Sterling, which had been there 40 years, pulled 1,200 employees out in 1991. Four years ago, the site that is now the East Campus was a virtual ghost town, a constellation of abandoned buildings that had become both an eyesore and a potential hazard.
In the last three years — with noteworthy developments just in the last month — that's changed.
The university's School of Public Health there is attended by 300 students. Ten companies and eight other organizations employ 350 people. More activity and jobs are expected.
The latest announcement came last week, celebrating the relocation of five laboratories by the state Department of Environmental Conservation to the site, adding up to 50 jobs there.
The news came two weeks after Albany Molecular announced plans for a 25,000-square-foot drug manufacturing facility on site that would employ 150 people within the next three years.
With commitments for other space and some room left for university expansion, that nearly fills the 370,000-square-foot complex purchased by the university three years ago.
Still, given that Sterling moved out, the turnaround is a success story in economic development — or redevelopment. It's based on the idea that growth is better nurtured through collaboration than competition.
By working together, the idea is, businesses and research institutions:
- Share resources and stimulate ideas.
- Bring in more contracts and research through joint initiatives.
- Bring university discoveries to business experts who know how to make them commercially viable.
- Create a community of scientists and other professionals that can help small- to midsize organizations attract top talent.
Last week, one could see signs that the site may be nearing the critical mass of organizations and staff needed to bring it to another level.
Evidence is in both the big developments, like Albany Molecular's plans, and in the small — the conversation among D'Ambra, McCormick and Millis. Or the fact that Sodexho Marriott now believes there are enough people on site to begin full cafeteria service.
"You build a critical mass, and it's that that enables you to leverage money from different sources,'' said UAlbany President Karen Hitchcock.
Three years ago, the university secured state funding of $5 million to purchase the site and establish a research center and business incubator.
Garden Way Inc. bought a portion of the site in 1993, and Regeneron Pharmaceuticals bought another parcel in 1994.
University officials' vision involved establishing a business incubator that not only created jobs for the region, but would maintain its ties with university students and faculty in the long run.
"For a university to run an incubator program, there has to be some theme, some focus that ties into the university's programs,'' Schuler said. "If you don't, it's a real estate venture.''
The theme became health, with emphasis on biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies. That drew on both the university's need to relocate its School of Public Health and on the laboratory resources available at the East Greenbush site.
VEC Technologies was one of the first tenants to arrive, in April 1996. Co-founders Peter Del Vecchio Jolene Clarke, had been colleagues at Albany Medical College, were starting a company to provide cultures of endothelial cells, which line blood vessels, to researchers.
The benefits of the East Campus were obvious to Clarke and Del Vecchio: Lab space that had been recently renovated by Sterling, with special non-fluorescent lighting to safeguard cell cultures and "hoods,'' or air filters that keep bacteria away from the product; equipment-sharing with other small firms, especially for the unusual or one-time job; and — particularly important for a two-person firm — collegiality among other scientists.
"You get ideas mostly by talking to other people,'' Del Vecchio the scientist said. Then, Del Vecchio the businessman added: "You're not going to sell these (cell cultures) on the corner. You have to be networking with people who are in the business.''
Albany Molecular has had its satellite office on the East Campus, now encompassing 14,000 square feet, since May 1996. The company has been able to expand and retract as needed due to the space, Schuler said.
Now that the company is looking to expand significantly with the creation of a manufacturing facility to produce batches of drugs for clinical trials, the East Campus was a natural selection to be able to expand where it already had operations, said D'Ambra, who once worked at Sterling Winthrop.
And, though he's not committing to any particular joint venture, he thinks the site holds potential for the future.
The university now has the most coveted of problems for anyone developing a site: It's running out of space — sort of. As state Senate Majority Leader Joseph L. Bruno joked at a recent news conference on the campus, there always is room for a third floor on the facility's lab building. Or, for that matter, to construct a new building on the acres of undeveloped land there.
One of the things that has distinguished the campus from other incubators is its ability to allow small companies to expand, Schuler said.
In one case, Albany Molecular is expanding so much, it is becoming an "anchor tenant,'' one of the businesses that the start-ups can look to for mentoring. Schuler expects Taconic Biotechnology, a subsidiary of a Columbia County company that breeds mice and rats for research, to become an anchor, too.
Others, he expects to see "hatch'' or "graduate,'' in incubator lingo, to other locations, like Rensselaer Technology Park in North Greenbush.
Some have to move on, after all, so that new start-ups are always coming in, and the incubator remains an incubator. Schuler is wondering now, for instance, if he has the right space available for growth that's anticipated by VEC Tech, or if he will need to help them move on.
In the meantime, he is talking to five new start-ups, but he won't reveal the names.
And who knows what else could be coming? Bruno, who has been credited for securing state funds for the university's purchase of the site and for Albany Molecular's planned expansion there, continues to drop hints that there will be further developments there.
The senator wasn't at the DEC announcement but sent a letter, which was read by Hitchcock. "Stay tuned,'' it said, repeating his previous line at the announcement of Albany Molecular's expansion.
