BioSpace1 offers local jobs boost
October 12, 2005
The Oct. 5 opening of BioSpace1 in Shreveport's InterTech Science Park is great news in a state that has been short on positive economic development reports in the days since Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
It is a fine example of forward-thinking leadership and community efforts to attract start-up companies nurture them, watch them grow into going concerns and ultimately fill the 800-acre InterTech Science Park. With that growth, some 6,000 new jobs likely will develop in the next 25 years.
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As much as from the jobs -- which sorely are needed now more than ever -- the Shreveport area and the state will benefit from a burgeoning, knowledge-based, regional economy boosted by life-science enterprises and related technologies.
With the support of visionary area benefactors, state and federal funds, and the nine north Louisiana colleges and universities, good ideas will grow into products such as improved medical equipment and pharmaceuticals, or even computer software and hardware.
The $12.1 million BioSpace1 facility is the state's first wet lab incubator, a modernistic facility located on Kings Highway just down the road from the LSU Health Sciences Center and the Biomedical Research Foundation, which oversees the triangular-shaped neighboring area that is designated as InterTech Science Park.
The building officially opens with three tenants, another three close to signing leases and room for several more in its 60,000 square feet that include 16 wet lab suites, a well-equipped shared core lab and unfinished spaces that can be customized. Plans are to fill the incubator in three years with companies that are either born in Shreveport or attracted to the area by Louisiana investors who want their projects nearby.
Congratulations to all those who have had a hand in the effort to support new venture technology in the Shreveport area. With the life sciences industry expected to have the highest job growth in the next 10 years, this region is poised not only to grow, but to lead in this critical and rapidly changing field.
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©The Shreveport Times
October 12, 2005