The Forum - 08/03/2005
NDSU park plans growth
By Mike Nowatzki, The Forum
An expansion of the North Dakota State University research park could have tech businesses taking off beside airliners.
A piece of land at Fargo's Hector International Airport is one area being considered for expansion of the NDSU Research and Technology Park, said Tony Grindberg, the park's director.
The university already leases the 41-acre parcel from the Fargo Airport Authority for agricultural production.
An amendment to the lease in 2002 gave NDSU a 10-year window to sublease the land to the research park.
The five-year-old park could be looking for additional land sooner rather than later if the manufacturing plant being built by Alien Technology Corp. spins off as many businesses as expected.
Concrete walls are now going up for Alien's 50,000-square-foot facility, which will eventually produce billions of tiny radio-frequency identification tags
Alien, based in Morgan Hill, Calif., expects to start moving equipment into the plant early next year.
At the same time, the research park's board of directors will begin evaluating sites for expansion, Grindberg said.
Six spots remain open in the original 55-acre research park, but those are expected to fill quickly once Alien ramps up production.
The path of the airport's main runway restricts the park from expanding to the immediate west, said Shawn Dobberstein, executive director of the airport.
That narrows the park's options to the airport land bordered by Dakota Drive and old U.S. 81, or larger tracts of land that NDSU owns west of I-29 on the north and south sides of 19th Avenue North, Grindberg said.
While park officials would prefer the expansion site be as close to the existing park as possible, size will be a more important factor, he said.
"There's some key things we have to decide: Do we go to 40 acres, which is what that (airport parcel) is, or do we go to 80 or 100 acres?" he said.
The airport's master plan calls for leasing the 41-acre parcel to generate revenue, Dobberstein said. The Airport Authority will work closely with the research park to ensure that potential tenants are compatible with airport operations, he said.
"It's a good problem to have," he said.
Much of the 41-acre parcel is covered in a mountain of rubble left over from a runway reconstruction project. The concrete material will be recycled into ongoing airport projects or hauled away this fall, and the parcel will be returned to farmland, Dobberstein said.
As NDSU's research portfolio grows, the need for more research buildings will likely arise, Grindberg said.
The park hopes to break ground later this year on a $6.4 million technology business incubator. It's also common for more-developed research parks to have multitenant buildings for full-scale operations, Grindberg said.
"I see that — probably down the road five, 10 years — as something we'll consider," he said.
Readers can reach Forum reporter Mike Nowatzki at (701) 241-5528
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