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Spec Space Coming to Medical Campus

The Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus, Inc. (BNMC) is renovating a four-story annex of the Trico complex at 640 Ellicott Street into an "Innovation Center," a 120,000 sq.ft. building offering state-of-the-art office and wet laboratory space to house local, national, and international life sciences and biotech companies. The $20 million project received a $4.5 million Restore NY grant earlier this year. Economic development officials believe having new laboratory and office space available is critical to attracting life sciences and biotech companies to the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus.

BNMC recently received a $100,000 Strategic Economic Development Outreach Program grant from National Grid. The grant will be used as matching funds to assist with architecture and engineering costs and marketing of the Innovation Center.

Flexible floor plans allow customization for individual needs and tenants will have access to shared conference rooms and support services. There will also be on-site management support, dedicated parking, and accessible shipping docks.

BNMC is being proactive. Risk-adverse developers have been reluctant to put buildings up on spec, particularly expensive lab space.

Access to talent, academic resources and equipment is critical and is expected to support job incubation. The space will allow companies to get their operations up and running as quickly as possible and is in close proximity to collaborators like Hauptman-Woodward Medical Research Institute, Roswell Park, Kaleida Health, and the NYS Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics and Life Sciences.

A new logistics firm has signed on for space. Catapult Life Science Logistics, an integrated eCommerce, commercial operations and logistics company that exclusively serves the specialized needs of the Life Sciences industry, will have its headquarters in the building. The firm’s initial 20,000 sq.ft. of warehousing and operational space will be located in a new building in Tonawanda’s Riverview Commerce Park.

The future of the main Trico plant building at Washington and Goodell streets is unclear. BNMC purchased the properties along with the Century Centre II complex (former M. Wile factory) in September 2007.