An auction next week will clear the way for work to begin on converting part of the former Oread Inc. campus into laboratory space for a new industrial park for life sciences companies.

An investment group headed by Lawrence businessman Sam Campbell will have an auction at 9 a.m. Wednesday to sell equipment from Oread, the former Lawrence-based pharmaceutical firm that went bankrupt last year.

The equipment was part of the company’s bulk actives pilot plant, which was housed in one of four buildings on the campus near 15th Street and Wakarusa Drive. With the equipment out of the way, the 15,000-square-foot building can be renovated for laboratory space to attract start-up life sciences companies.

“We’re already talking to both an East Coast and a West Coast company that are both interested in working with the university and in occupying some laboratory space out here,” Campbell said. “It remains to be seen if we’ll complete either one of those deals, but there seems to be a high level of interest, not only locally but nationally.”

Converting the building to laboratory space will be the latest step Campbell’s group has taken to redevelop the former Oread campus and the vacant 17 acres surrounding it.

The group  which includes Topeka investors Jack McGivern, Jim Parrish and Kathleen Urbom  last year and earlier this year bought the four buildings on the campus through bankruptcy auctions. Three of the buildings were then sold to Kansas University’s Center for Research, which plans to use the 50,000 square feet it purchased to house KU life science researchers.

Campbell is hoping the KU researchers will spawn or attract start-up companies that need laboratory and office space nearby.

“We think this building we’re working on will help companies get located here and get them in a building quickly and allow them to start working quickly,” Campbell said. “And then when the need arises, we can build them a building right next door.”

The vacant property surrounding the former Oread campus will have room for as many as nine buildings ranging from 6,000 to 20,000 square feet. The business park has received preliminary city approval to build a new road, 16th Street, to serve the vacant land. Campbell said construction of the street would begin in the spring, and work on new buildings could begin shortly thereafter.

The business park already is drawing interest from KU researchers who have start-up companies. Valentino Stella, a KU researcher and co-founder of ProQuest, said the pharmaceutical company plans to build an office and laboratory space at the park, but the company is not releasing specifics about the plan.

“We’re pretty committed to building a facility out there, and it may not be in the too distant future,” said Stella, whose research also helped spawn CyDex Inc., a growing Overland Park-based pharmaceutical firm.

KU has begun filling its buildings at the campus with researchers who recently were awarded large federal research grants. Gunda Georg, a KU researcher who received a $9.9 million grant to study cancer therapeutics, is occupying part of the space. Robert Hanzlik, a researcher who received a $10.1 million federal grant to study proteins, also will use lab space there.

Hanzlik said the new research space would be a first step for KU and the community to become a hub for life sciences research.

“Lawrence is still a long way below the national radar screen. We’re still a stealth research community,” Hanzlik said. “That will be a fact of life for a while before something really significant happens. But we definitely have the potential.

“This (the project) just adds to the fire we have going. It is pouring on a lot more fuel.”