Washington State University

The objective of this proposal is to determine the economic and technical viability of renovating the existing buildings of the WSU Research Park.  The project’s long-term goal is to expand the overall facilities within the WSU Research Park to promote economic development by providing the properly equipped physical space to facilitate the creation of businesses based on technologies developed within the university system as well as from within the community.  This will create job opportunities for students as well as local community residents (e.g., construction and manufacturing jobs).  Ultimately, these efforts will contribute to both the regional and state economies.

The location of the WSU Research Park in relation to WSU and the University of Idaho presents two untapped economic opportunities.  First, both institutions are contributing large numbers of educated, highly-skilled individuals to the workforce.  Unfortunately, the investments made in training students are realized outside of the target region because of the limited number of skilled professional/technical employment opportunities. Second, inadequate access to physical space (e.g., wet labs) limits the development of innovations and technologies that can lead to spin off companies.

The current space constraints also prohibit established businesses from relocating to the target region to take advantage of the emerging workforce.  If determined feasible by the proposed study, the anticipated renovation and expansion of the WSU Research Park will leverage these economic opportunities.  Specifically, the grantee expects to support approximately 20-30 new companies with the potential to generate about 200 new jobs initially in the region (within three years of finalizing phase one of this project).  Although conservative, these estimates are representative of previous requests and would account for an increase of about 1% of the total direct employment and about the same to the retail sector.