Research Park to get fabrication centerDon Dodson, The News Gazette Fox considers sale of two office buildings CHAMPAIGN - Fox/Atkins Development is planning a fabrication center in the University of Illinois Research Park and considering selling two of the five large office buildings it owns there. The new Technology Development and Fabrication Center would be built on the southwest side of the park, on land west of Oak Street and south of Hazelwood Drive. Park developers are negotiating with Anvik Corp., a microelectronics company from New York, to occupy 10,000 square feet in the building. Peter Fox, a founder of Fox/Atkins, said Anvik was founded by Kanti Jain, an electronics engineering professor recently recruited by the UI. If negotiations are successful, Anvik would occupy about half the building, which would be fitted for companies needing lab, office and light assembly space, he said. In a related matter, Fox said he and partner Clint Atkins are considering selling both the SAIC Building at 1901 South First Street and the Strata/State Farm Building at 2001 South First Street. "it's something Clint and I are debating," Fox said Thursday. "If we sold them, we would use the proceeds to reinvest in the park." Fox said it's an "opportune time" to sell commercial real estate, with a lot of institutional buyers in the market. "If we consider selling them, the university has the right of first refusal," he said. Fox/Atkins would continue to manage the properties, he added. Fox said his company is also negotiating with a transporation research and engineering office to occupy 16,000 square feet in the newest office building in the park. If the company decides to move to the Research Park, it would occupy about one-fourth of the building at 2021 South First Street, he said. "We believe we've negotiated a letter of intent, but we don't have an executed lease," he added. Elsewhere in the Research Park, iCyt Visionary Bioscience is expected to expand later this year and occupy 75 percent of its building at 2100 South Oak Street, said Laura Frerichs, Vice President of Business Development and Marketing for Fox Development. Bytemobile, a software design company based in Mountain View, California recently opened a small office in the iCyt Building. Fox said Constantine Polychronopoulos, a UI electrical and computer engineering professor, is a founder of Bytemobile, which has major telecommunications firms as clients. Among other recent developments in the Research Park: - In the SAIC building, the Caterpillar Simulation Center has moved across the hall to space formerly occupied by the National Center for Supercomputing Applications, Frerichs said. In doing so, the simulation center expaned from 5,000 to 13,000 square feet. The HDF Group, a spinoff of NCSA, has moved into the old Caterpillar space. The nonprofit group helps clients support the management of scientific data and provides tools for analyzing, visualizing and converting data. - In the Strata Building, State Farm has increased its space to 5,000 square feet. Other new tenants in the building include the UI Division of Campus Recreation, which has taken a two-year lease there, and the China Executive Leadership Programs at UIUC, which brings Chinese executives to campus for lectures and exposure to American business. - A few companies now housed in the EnterpriseWorks business incubator are expected to graduate to new space in the Research Park this year. Fox said he's in discussions with RiverGlass, Inc. and woudl like to get Tekion adn HC Materials to lease space at the park. - Progress continues on the hotel and conference center planned on the south side of St. Mary's Road east of First Street. Fox said he expects the design for UI's new conference center to go before trustees at their May meeting. An operator for the hotel and restaurant has not yet been selected. Fox said he still expects work on the 125 room hotel to begin in August and be completed in 12 months. - Several projects are on tap for the Research Park in 2007. They include: a 26,000-square-foot mixed use development on the East side of First Street just North of Windsor Road; the 90,000-square-foot Illinois Natural History Survey building on South Oak Street just north of Hazelwood Drive; and a 48,000-square-foot "park-and-ride" day care facility at the northest corner of First Street and Hazelwood Drive Feburary 19, 2006 |