Tech-park panel visits Fayetteville complex

FAYETTEVILLE — Five Little Rock Technology Park Authority Board members traveled to Fayetteville’s technology park Friday, a visit that reiterated what they had learned in previous trips to parks in St. Louis and Winston-Salem, N.C.

“What I heard, in general terms, is you need everybody cooperating together, which was critical to the success of the park so far,” said technology park board member Kevin Zaffaroni, an Acxiom Corp. executive, after his visit to the Arkansas Research and Technology Park in Fayetteville.

“We heard much of the same information — which is uncanny to me — in St. Louis and Winston-Salem, especially the information about university-related funding and commitment.”

Some of the advice garnered from the visit Friday was:

The importance of support at all levels from the universities, the city, state and federal governments.

The difficulty in obtaining investment money and the advantage of being able to tie fledgling companies to a university so that investors can apply for governmental-based research funding.

The need to be close to the research institutions so that they can share their equipment, staffing and property management.

The importance of flexibility in the physical building so that it can accommodate different kinds of research that might develop over time.

At their August meeting, University of Arkansas at Little Rock Chancellor Joel Anderson urged the board’s seven members to make the Fayetteville park visit. He said he believed that visiting a park already successful in Arkansas would yield relevant information, adding that the Fayetteville park likely faced advantages and hurdles similar to what the Little Rock Technology Park will face.

The Fayetteville park is tied to the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville but is run by a separate 501c3 nonprofit. The facility has been running as a research park for more than a decade but took several years to get up and running, and has several more developments planned for an eventual 70-acre complex that’s a mile to a mile and half from the main university campus and from downtown Fayetteville.

Two of the three buildings finished in the park complex were built with university funds. One was built as part of a public-private partnership.

Little Rock’s proposed park is different in that it has several research partners — UALR, the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, Arkansas Children’s Hospital and the city of Little Rock. Each agreed to supply $125,000 in startup money, and the city agreed to give an additional $22 million from its 2011 voter-approved sales-tax increase that can be used for construction.

The goal of the park is to help startup companies and entrepreneurs bring in new ideas and build on the research already underway at universities and medical institutions.

On Friday, several board members asked to see the articles of incorporation for the nonprofit that runs the Fayetteville park and asked about what resources the park’s partners share, like marketing, Internet, maintenance, equipment and others.

“We maintain the buildings, service housekeeping, provide specialty gases, provide access to a glass blower for production of specialty glassware, provide access to a machine shop,” said Phillip Stafford, president of the University of Arkansas Technology Development Foundation, which runs the park.

Stafford said most of those services are provided at cost by the university departments through a contract agreement.

“The other thing I would tell you that is of great importance is our responsibility,” he added. “We manage the day-today and make sure that these companies succeed. We created an entity to do that, instead of borrowing from this entity and that entity to get it done. That was and is important.”

The park has had success attracting research grants but has had difficulty finding investors to put money into a company’s last stage of commercial development.

Stafford said the park has raised more than $4.3 million in external funding and more than $5.6 million in sponsored research funding. The park also anticipates creating 2,000 permanent jobs during its lifetime — more than 340 of which have already been created and pay on average $80,000 each annually.

The Little Rock board — formed in late 2011 — has focused on finding a location for its park. A site-selection process that started in December 2011 was cut short when the Little Rock Board of Directors asked the tech park board to drop three residential sites from consideration and instead focus on commercial sites.

Four commercial sites were chosen as finalists in October 2012. One of those sites was dropped last December, and another was added in February.

In June, the board decided to stop looking for sites and to re-examine the mission of the park. However, the board’s August meeting revolved around three new proposals and the elimination of a finalist — the more than 80- acre former Coleman Dairy site across Asher Avenue from UALR — because another buyer was purchasing a part of the property. The remaining finalists are: About 10 acres east of Interstate 30 between College and Collins streets.

About 35 acres on John Barrow Road near Interstate 630.

At least 12 acres at the Sears store location on South University Avenue.