South Bend, Ind., Partners with Notre Dame to Attract High-Tech Talent, Companies
July 04, 2011
by Sandi Burtseva
South Bend, Ind., has partnered with the University of Notre Dame to retain talent and attract innovative, high-tech companies to the city. In February, the partnership paid off when Notre Dame’s Innovation Park incubator graduated its first business to its sister site, the city’s Ignition Park incubator.
On February 9, South Bend Mayor Stephen J. Luecke announced that the city would sell land in Ignition Park — the city’s developing, state-certified technology park — to Data Realty LLC, a startup company based at Innovation Park. Breaking ground this summer, Data Realty will build a nearly 50,000-square-foot Tier III data center — the first private, high-tech business in Ignition Park. The data center will serve small- to mid-sized businesses in South Bend and throughout the Midwest.
The data center will be built on a 4.94-acre site, with space to accommodate a future 40,000-square-foot addition. Construction is estimated to cost $20 million and take about 14 months. When the data center opens, Data Realty anticipates creating 14 full-time positions, and expanding to as many as 30 over time. The project is being developed under the auspices of Graham Allen Partners LLC, an Innovation Park-based private holding company that invests in early-stage, high-growth businesses.
“I am excited to welcome Data Realty as the first Innovation Park client to ‘graduate’ to Ignition Park. On land where once Studebaker automobiles were made, Data Realty will manage and analyze data to help businesses succeed in a competitive global environment,” Mayor Luecke said. “Besides demonstrating a potential future flow of prospective businesses from Innovation Park, Data Realty exemplifies the kind of high-tech ventures we expect to locate at Ignition Park.”
“South Bend’s future has begun at Ignition Park,” he added.
Ignition Park was originally designated to be 83 acres, but is now being expanded to as many as 140 acres. Since 2000, some of Indiana’s most aggressive brownfield reclamation efforts have been focused on South Bend, with the city demolishing derelict buildings in the former Studebaker Corridor.
“We are positioning South Bend for the next wave of computing,” said Rich Carlton, Data Realty president and chief operating officer. “Ignition Park offers … an opportunity to create a green data center that gives us a competitive edge.”
The South Bend Redevelop-ment Commission is working with Data Realty to ensure that the facility meets Ignition Park architectural and design standards, including a LEED designation.
They are also collaborating to create a unique energy exchange partnership with Transpo, an adjacent LEED Platinum transit facility. Transpo’s geothermal system will provide some base cooling for the data center, and exhaust heat from Data Realty’s servers will provide heat for Transpo.
“This sharing is an innovative approach that saves energy, helps the environment and reduces our carbon footprint,” Mayor Luecke said.