Investors pursue new park

Trio predicts life sciences to be 'growth opportunity'

Sam Campbell looks out over 17 acres of land near 15th Street and Wakarusa Drive and sees a very small piece of a very large puzzle.

But it is a puzzle that excites him like none before. Campbell and a trio of Topeka investors are awaiting final city approval for the Lawrence Life Sciences and Business Center, a new high-tech business park that will be just southwest of the former Oread Laboratories campus.

A group of investors plans to build a new life sciences business park adjacent to the KU Life Sciences Research Laboratories at 1501 Wakarusa Drive. Pictured Tuesday at the location are, from left, Valentino Stella, distinguished professor in the Kansas University department of pharmaceutical chemistry and founder of ProQuest Pharmaceuticals Inc. in Lawrence; Ozzie Wong, president of ProQuest; and Sam Campbell, manager of the Lawrence Life Sciences Group.

Campbell said the park, which may begin construction by spring of 2003, would be key in helping Lawrence establish itself as a major player in the emerging life sciences industry.

The thought of Lawrence with a significant base of life sciences businesses is what gets Campbell’s excitement growing.

“The life sciences industry will be the biggest growth opportunity this country has seen since, well, really the beginning of civilization,” Campbell said. “The next 20 to 30 years will be the era of biotechnology and will revolutionize our lives.

“We really want Lawrence to be a part of that.”

A place to grow

The park is expected to have as many as nine buildings ranging from 6,000 to 20,000 square feet. But Campbell said he and his partners which include Topeka investors Jack McGivern, Jim Parrish and Kathleen Urbom won’t construct any buildings until they have tenants.

The first building to be constructed is expected to be for a group of five Kansas University researchers who have formed a new business partnership called the Lawrence Life Sciences Group.

Campbell said the partnership plans to use the building to house a company or companies that spin off from their KU research, which involves pharmaceuticals and bio-technology.

The management of the park also will ask all tenants to take either a partial or full ownership interest in the buildings.

“We feel like we have the opportunity to get started in Lawrence some very good small companies that can grow into some very good large companies,” Campbell said. “But we don’t want the companies to grow and just leave. We want them to stay here, and we think giving them a way to build up equity in a building should help them stay in Lawrence.”

Playing to strengths

The project also will be unique in that it will accept only tenants that are involved in the life sciences industry or firms that provide direct support to the industry, such as accountants, law firms or information technology companies that specialize in serving such endeavors.

Campbell said the strict focus made sense for a variety of reasons. The biggest is that it would allow the park to capitalize on pharmaceutical and bio-medical research being done at KU.

“This really plays to our strength as a community,” Campbell said. “We’re so fortunate to be well positioned for growth for the next several decades. The Human Genome project will change the way medicine will be practiced, it will change the way we treat diseases, and it will be the biggest growth industry in this country for decades.

“And the best news is that our people at KU have the expertise in that area. They are doing the research. They are considered to be experts in the field.”

Another reason the park will focus its efforts on the life sciences movement is that it won’t be working alone. Campbell said the project expects to be a major player in the Kansas City area’s Life Sciences Initiative, which seeks to make the greater Kansas City area one of the top 10 life sciences research hubs in the country.

Kansas City support

Campbell said leaders of the Kansas City initiative already have discussed with him potential tenants for the new park, though he declined to release the names of any companies.

“I’m confident we’ll get enormous support from the leaders in the Kansas City area,” Campbell said. “They have made it clear that their intention is to recognize Lawrence as a major player in this effort.

“What we have to do now is not jealously guard our turf but support them as a community as well.”

Limiting the tenant mix also will allow the park to better use its location, immediately adjacent to the laboratories of the former Oread campus. Campbell’s partners were involved in buying those facilities when the bankrupt pharmaceutical company’s assets were sold last year.

The lab space has since been purchased by KU’s Center for Research Inc. to house many of the university’s biosciences research projects. Campbell said that the laboratories eventually would become the “focal point” of KU’s life sciences efforts and that it only makes sense for spin-off companies to locate in a business park that is near the university’s research center.

“We think this project can go a long way in trying to fulfill the vision of people like Dr. Higuchi and Bob Billings and Howard Mossberg when they first envisioned this area developing as a true research park,” Campbell said. “This area around here has developed successfully but not necessarily along the lines of its original vision.

Takeru Higuchi, the late KU professor who gained notoriety with his pharmaceutical research, and Mossberg, a former leading director of research efforts at the university, helped found Oread Laboratories in the 1980s. Billings is the Lawrence developer of Alvamar, which master planned much of the property near the 15th and Wakarusa area.

“I’ve got to tell you, I’m 100 percent confident that we’re going to be able to make that happen,” Campbell said.

Making an investment

Some might say that is remarkable optimism given that Lawrence has significant amounts of vacant office space, including more than 50,000 square feet along the Wakarusa Drive corridor that is designed to accommodate high-tech businesses.

But Campbell said he’s not concerned about the corridor’s vacancy rate, and that he expects his group’s development to be different from a traditional office park.

“The big difference is I’m not in the real estate development business,” Campbell said. “I’m in the business of developing companies, and that’s what this project will be about.”

Campbell has 18 years of experience as a high-tech investor in his Lawrence-based business Campbell-Becker Inc. He said his company has invested in more than 30 technology companies, including many that were spun off from KU research, during that time.

Campbell said the new business park would produce future companies for his firm to invest in.

“The building and the office space will really almost be a secondary part of what we’re doing,” Campbell said. “What we haven’t had in the past for these types of businesses is the support structure. Whether it be the availability of space, of financing or of a broadly trained work force. That’s what we’re looking to provide out here.”

Part of the solution

KU officials said last week they were excited about the project, but that the community still needs to add more pieces to its puzzle before it is truly ready to begin building a base of high-tech and life science-oriented businesses.

In particular, both Jim Roberts, associate vice chancellor for research, and Bill Sepic, president of the Lawrence Chamber of Commerce, said a true incubator space is still needed for the community.

“I’m not sure I would call this project an incubator site, at least not in the way a lot of people think of an incubator,” Roberts said. “I think we will still need some type of facility that will be able to provide some space for companies when they are really just getting off the ground and are still at their most susceptible point.

“We need some type of facility that gives a true startup company some rent-free space or really charges rents that are well below market rates.”

Roberts, though, said he’s very excited about the park’s ability to house life sciences companies once they emerge from the incubator stage.

“Once these companies kind of hatch from the egg, so to speak, they have to have a place to go, and it sounds like this project should definitely fit that need,” Roberts said. “I look at this project and say that Sam and his group are trying to solve a lot of the issues we have here.”