Agenda - 03-13-2012 - 4b - Laserfiche WebLink

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14 Downtown Hillsborough has Weaver Street Market, new office space, additional restaurants, growing street life and events, and attractive historic areas. The town is attracting creative self- employed persons who are serving the local market, but it is unlikely to attract entrepreneurs growing spin-offs from iJNC. Hillsborough is as expensive as southern Orange County, less urban than downtown Carrboro and less central in the Triangle. Although less viable for startups, Hillsborough is the best place in the county to find expansion space. Also, the county owns or leases underutilized or vacant office space in Hillsborough and in the other two towns. Recommendations 11 To provide attractive space for LTNC spin-offs, OCED should consider the following recommendations for Chapel Hill, Carrboro and Hillsborough. In general, Orange County locations have limited potential to compete with downtown Durham or suburban areas around RTP/RDU. Instead of competing, Orange County needs to fill more specialized niches in the startup/expansion landscape. Chapel Hill In the long term, the new campus at Carolina North should give LTNC the same capability to capture spin-offs from the life-science and IT sectors as Centennial campus at NCSU. Equally important is the potential to attract well established corporations to Carolina North. The combination of large corporate entities and entrepreneurial companies is a potent mix for innovation often catalyzed through centers of excellence. In the medium term, OCED should consider facilitating the development of office/flex space for the life-science companies that want to grow in Chapel Hill. These companies have options on campus during their very early stages but usually head for RTP when growth occurs. OCED should facilitate development or rehabilitation of space in the Route 54 corridor. A 3-4 story building with 20-30,000 SF floor plates would work well. If developed as a public-private partnership, rents could be negotiated on a case-by-case basis. Life-science companies should be willing to pay some premium above rents in RTP in return for shorter and less time-consuming commutes for managers and employees. Clearly, companies drawing from the Durham or Wake County labor markets would not be attracted to this space. In the near term, Odum Village is a 30-building complex strategically located on south campus near the Medical School and the Kenan-Flagler Business School. Although currently used for student housing and generating about $lOK per unit in annual revenue, some buildings could be devoted to lab space, office space or live-work units for campus-based startups. This space is which has convenient access, proximate free parking and an easily identified location. One Durham location serving this function is Beyu Cafe on Main Street. 11 Some of these recommendations were stimulated by the Working Group for Economic Development which met on November 16, 2011. After this research was presented, the group was asked to generate recommendations for OCED. 11