FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – As the first walls on the Enterprise Center go up, the Arkansas Research and Technology Park will celebrate with the university community and with potential clients for the 65,000-square-foot facility at 10 a.m. Thursday, July 30, on the lawn next to the Innovation Center.

The “Construction! Celebration” will include speakers, posters of the architectural and engineering drawings and tours of the foundations.

The Enterprise Center will allow for growth at the Arkansas Research and Technology Park, which in recent years has seen a boom of companies created from University of Arkansas research. The park currently houses 25 companies at various stages of development.

“We’re happy that we’ve been running at 100 percent capacity, but at the same time, you must maintain an inventory of available space in order to grow,” said Casey Mileham, administrative assistant for the Arkansas Research and Technology Development Foundation. The building is part of the foundation’s master plan, which includes almost 1 million square feet of office and laboratory space, and follows five years after construction of the Innovation Center, a 35,000-square-foot building that now houses self-sustaining companies.

“The Enterprise Center is a testament to the growth of cutting-edge basic research taking place on our campus,” said Chancellor G. David Gearhart. “We look forward to seeing that growth continue as the Arkansas Research and Technology Park expands.”

The Enterprise Center will be a LEED-certified building and will be laboratory ready, meeting power and air-handling requirements and vibration controls needed to build wet labs or clean rooms.

The core and shell of the building are expected to be finished by February 2010. It should take two to three months after that to finish out the interior space designed specifically for the tenants.

“We have been meeting with several potential tenants in order to identify their specific needs,” Mileham said.

The mission of the University of Arkansas Technology Development Foundation is to stimulate a knowledge-based economy in the state of Arkansas through partnerships that lead to new opportunities for learning and discovery, that build and retain a knowledge-based workforce and that spawn the development of new technologies that enrich the economic base of Arkansas.

The University of Arkansas Technology Development Foundation is a 501(c)(3) organization formed to grow and manage the Arkansas Research and Technology Park. In cooperation with public and private business development entities, the foundation will bolster university efforts to catalyze a technology-based economy in Arkansas. Specifically, the foundation will validate, develop and transfer inventions made at the University to Arkansas companies and start-up ventures.

Phil Stafford, president
University of Arkansas Technology Development Foundation
479-575-8411, psstaff@uark.edu