Wake Forest BioTech Place debuted Tuesday as a symbol of collaboration as much as a promise of transformative life-science research in the community.
The 242,000-square-foot facility is the biggest project - at a cost of $100 million - since plans for Piedmont Triad Research Park surfaced in 1994. It also is considered the largest capital investment in downtown Winston-Salem history.
Although it is the park's sixth building, it will serve as an anchor and potential economic magnet for its North District. In a stunning fashion, it blends design and innovation, including a five-story skyline atrium, and the community is banking on the project being a significant part of its economic future.
The building, a former R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. warehouse, features two floors filled with rows of lab space for biochemistry, microbiology, immunology, physiology and pharmacology.
It also contains an incubator space to entice startup companies and researchers wanting to be near prominent Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center researchers.
It shows the potential for a public-private partnership that includes up to $34 million in historic tax credits, local government infrastructure buy-in and property-tax payments.
It also brings together scientists and entrepreneurs in a setting intended to be conducive to trading ideas and spurring commercialization of products and research.
"The opening of this modern, high-tech research and innovation center represents a major milestone in Wake Forest Baptist's development and growth of a new biotechnology-based economy in Winston-Salem designed for the 21st century," said Dr. John McConnell, chief executive of Wake Forest Baptist.
The facility will house about 350 Wake Forest Baptist researchers and scientists, with some moving in next week. There also is room for 100 other employees from Wake Forest Baptist affiliates, such as the park's administrative and marketing offices, a business-accelerator space, the Childress Institute for Pediatric Trauma and Carolinas Liquid Chemistries.
The entrance to the building will have a branch of Allegacy Federal Credit Union and a cafe open to the public, but the main atrium and other spaces will have restricted access.
Wake Forest Baptist said it will open the facility to the public for tours from 2 p.m. to 4:45 p.m. Friday.
Wexford Science and Technology LLC of Baltimore is the developer of BioTech Place. It is leasing the facility to Wake Forest Baptist, which oversees the park.
