Gateway Partners Enthusiastic From The Start
The editorial “Building on Gateway’s Success” (WBJ, Feb. 16, 2009) was greatly appreciated for its endorsement of the continuing development of Gateway Park. Its call for an “all out blitz” to advance the project is welcome also, but such a position is not new for the Gateway Park partners, WPI and the WBDC. This team has been working aggressively on further expansion and is making significant headway.
Even in the current economic climate, Gateway is poised for growth and will continue to have a positive impact on our region.
Off And Running
The original plan for Gateway called for the first building to be constructed only when at least 75 percent of the space was pre-leased, and with WPI occupying just 25 percent of that building.
With no other prospective tenants anywhere in sight, however, WPI stepped forward, purchased the parcel from the partnership, and invested $53 million to construct the first building on its own.
By placing our graduate life science programs at Gateway we attracted related companies to collaborate with our faculty, foster technology transfer, and nurture business development, all of which created jobs and built an important new neighborhood for Worcester.
To fill the first building and to recruit developers and tenants for future buildings, WPI hired D’Anne Hurd, an experienced lawyer, venture capitalist, and life science executive, to be WPI’s vice president for business development at Gateway Park.
She and her staff are fully supported by WPI. They continue to work relentlessly with our partners at the WBDC to promote Gateway Park to prospective developers and tenants. They have maintained high visibility at such venues as BIO International and the State House. They have vigorously promoted it within the life science, venture capital, and real estate development communities.
The results include an MBI business incubator facility and the tenancy of both RXI Pharmaceuticals and Blue Sky Biotech in the WPI building. Today, 226 people work in its various companies and academic units. The building is bursting at the seams, and additional facilities are needed for expansion of the growing life science companies—facilities that pay property taxes. This year, Gateway Park will pay Worcester nearly $300,000 in property taxes.
Further progress at Gateway has been hindered by the same factors constraining other developments in Worcester, namely the credit crunch and the weak economy.
With financing standards tighter than ever, we are hurt by the need for prospective tenants to be deemed “credit-worthy” before developers will risk the cost of construction.
Although Ms. Hurd succeeded in developing a long list of aspiring tenants, nearly all are small life sciences companies that have promising technology but aren’t “credit-worthy” in the current climate.
Progress and interest to date validate the vision for Gateway as a mixed-use neighborhood of life sciences, office, retail, and residential facilities.
In fact, Gateway Park was named the commonwealth’s first “Growth District” by the Patrick-Murray administration. Relatively modest assistance with the costs and a reasonable degree of underwriting of the risk in pre-leasing to small but growing companies would stimulate construction of one or more buildings, and hundreds of jobs, in short order. It is an opportunity made to order for the Commonwealth and the nation’s program in economic recovery.
Dennis Berkey is the President and CEO of Worcester Polytechnic Institute.
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