Wake Forest Innovation Quarter

[zalo]

The latest press release from WFIQ: Two of Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center’s preeminent School of Medicine programs will move to Wake Forest Innovation Quarter in the spring of next year.

The Medical Center today announced that its nationally recognized Division of Public Health Sciences (PHS) and its nationally rated Physician Assistant (PA) program will relocate approximately 450 staff, faculty and students to state-of-the-art education and high-tech research space in the newly developed 525@Vine building, located across Vine Street from Wake Forest Biotech Place. The move is expected to begin in March 2014.

“The move of Public Health Sciences and the Department of PA Studies to our downtown campus is part of our overall strategy to create synergies between our world-class research and education programs embodied in the School of Medicine and our commitment to public-private partnerships to advance the economic development of the region,” said John D. McConnell, M.D., chief executive officer, Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center.

“Our PHS researchers are involved in meaningful studies to improve specific aspects of public health; its faculty and staff are dedicated to determining the cause of chronic diseases and ways to prevent them. In addition, our scientists, biostatisticians, logistics personnel and project managers – nationally known for coordinating multi-center clinical trials across the United States – are right here in Winston-Salem,” said Edward Abraham, M.D., dean of Wake Forest School of Medicine. “Our nationally recognized PA program is preparing the next generation of physician assistants for positions that are key to providing quality health care to wider populations than ever before. These are just some of the strengths that our School of Medicine programs bring to companies and institutions that locate here.”

Gregory L. Burke, M.D., director, Public Health Sciences added, “We’re excited to seek synergistic relationships with our new neighbors, including Inmar, the Emerging Technologies Center of Forsyth Tech and the numerous startup companies located in and around the Innovation Quarter,” he said.

The Division of Public Health Sciences received more than $74 million in fiscal year 2013 in external research funding. Historically, the division has been ranked among the top two of similar groups nationally in National Institutes of Health funding. More than 260 of the division’s staff, faculty and students currently based in the Wells Fargo Building in downtown Winston-Salem will relocate to the third, fourth and fifth floors of 525@Vine.

Wake Forest Baptist’s Physician Assistant Studies program, which is rated by U.S. News & World Report as one of the nation’s top physician assistant programs, will move 24 faculty and staff and its 128 students from its present location at Victoria Hall to the fifth floor of 525@Vine.

“This new space will allow us to scale up our program, support new curriculum advancements as well as create a high-tech home base for community-based interventions throughout the region,” said Reamer Bushardt, Pharm.D., P.A.-C, chair, Department of Physician Assistant Studies.

In September, Wake Forest’s physician assistant program was approved by the Accreditation Review Commission on Education for the Physician Assistant to expand its program with a new distant campus at Appalachian State University beginning in July 2014. This initiative, which is partially funded by a three-year, $375,000 grant from The Duke Endowment, seeks to help address the need for physician assistants in underserved communities.

Graduates of the PA program complete a 24-month course of study and are awarded the Master of Medical Science (MMS) degree. One class of 64 students is enrolled on the Winston-Salem campus in early June each year. Beginning in June 2014, one additional class of 24 students will be enrolled each year on the Boone, N.C. campus.

Combined, the PHS and PA programs will occupy 120,000 square feet of space in the newly developed 525@Vine building, bringing new synergy to Wake Forest Innovation Quarter and an expanded workforce to downtown Winston-Salem.

“The addition of the Public Health Sciences and Physician Assistant programs to the Innovation Quarter will be a huge boost to this expanding downtown area,” said Eric Tomlinson, D.Sc., Ph.D., chief innovation officer, Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center, and president, Wake Forest Innovation Quarter. “Together with the impending move of more than 800 Inmar employees beginning in February 2014, the opening in late 2014 of Forsyth Technical Community College’s Emerging Technologies Center, which is expected to train more than 1,200 students annually, and the opening by the YMCA of Northwest North Carolina of a new express branch, the Innovation Quarter continues to be one of the fastest growing urban-based research parks in the United States. We fully anticipate that the energy these students, staff and faculty will bring to the area will create new sparks for growth and lead to fascinating collaborations.”

Wexford Science & Technology, a BioMed Realty company, is currently renovating this former “90 series” R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company building using private investment and the application of federal and state tax credits. When the renovations are completed in late 2014, Wexford’s investment in the Innovation Quarter and Winston-Salem will total more than $250 million.

Edited December 11, 2013 by zalo

[Urbanity]

A friend of mine in New York actually may be moving to WS this spring.  He has a a job offer (he is a Project Manager in bioinformatics) and according to him the city and the research park is getting good buzz.

Edited December 28, 2013 by Urbanity

[zalo]

In 2014, the Nurse Anesthesia Program at North Carolina Baptist Hospital will begin a new educational journey. The degree awarding entity for the program will transition from UNCG where it was located in 1988 to Wake Forest University Medical Center. For the class that enrolls in 2014 and beyond, the graduate degree will be awarded by Wake Forest University. A potential new home for Wake Forest's Nurse Anesthesia Programis 525@Vine.

The opportunity to upgrade our facilities is one of the most exciting aspects of our degree transition to Wake Forest. Our current location in the Progressive Care Building is considered “historic”, since we are in one of the original buildings of the medical center campus. However, our space in the building is also built around a very traditional teaching environment, which makes it challenging for us to conduct interactive and group learning activities. Modern educational environments are designed to be modular and adaptable. Most importantly, they are designed to facilitate many types of student interaction, both within and across disciplines. One potential new home for us lies in the Wake Forest Innovation Quarter. This mixed-use hub for innovation in biomedical science and information technology is transforming the historic R. J. Reynolds Tobacco factories into modern industrial-designed centers for education and research, with some significant components of the Wake Forest School of Medicine already slated for the move. Plans for our new facility include two modernized classrooms, an expanded skills lab, small group rooms for problem-based learning, and a dedicated nurse anesthesia simulation laboratory.

[zalo]

From the TBJ:

 

The grassy patch at Fourth and Patterson in the Wake Forest Innovation Quarter research park will start its transformation into downtown WInston-Salem's newest park next week. The new park, to be dubbed Bailey Park at East End, will cover 1.6 acres of land and be highlighted by a large covered stage with a lawn area for viewing the concerts, movie nights and other events, according to Christy Turner with Stimmel Associates, the landscape architect on the project. Stimmel is working with building architect Stitch Design + Development and LMI Builders on the project. The site is big and uniquely situated amongst the ongoing renaissance of what was once the industrial heart of the city's tobacco industry, Turner says. A variety of former R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. facilities and sites have been or are being converted into the Northern District of the Innovation Quarter, including the neighboring Biotech Place and a former power plant slated for future redevelopment.

"It's a great renovation story because the site itself was kind of a mess" before being cleaned up and turned into the informal green space there now, she says. "It's going to be in the center of all these renovated buildings with great exposure and great views of downtown ... It should really become the core of the whole development."

The topography and setting will be the most prominent features of the park, but the stage and an accompanying restroom-storage-office structure are also important, says Pete Fala with Stitch Design + Development.  "The main feature is the stage where there will be a lot of activity," including a movie series and other entertainment events as well as food trucks, he says. "It opens up to the northeast and the sloped lawn" and will feature both exposed steel and wood in an architectural nod to the industrial buildings and tobacco barns of old. The cost is being jointly funded by the Innovation Quarter and Wexford Science & Technology, which is developing several of the nearby buildings.

The vision of the Innovation Quarter, as one of the largest downtown scientific research parks in the country, is to be a place where people work, live, play and learn, and Turner says the new park will serve all those ends. "There will be amenities for residents and a way to draw more downtown residents, and also an amenity for tenants of the Innovation Quarter," she said. "People will be able to meet with friends, have lunch meetings. I think it will fill a niche for all of those goals."

[DCMetroRaleigh]

Very nice

[RichardC]

An informative write up in the Triad Business Journal.

 

http://www.bizjournals.com/triad/blog/2014/03/new-park-coming-to-winston-salems-wake-forest.html

[zalo]

Inmar Inc. opened the doors Monday to its new headquarters, showing off downtown Winston-Salem’s latest signature building and the energy generating from the largest workforce within its research park. Inmar, founded in 1980, is a technology firm that offers consulting and digital software services in the promotional, health care and supply chain industries. It announced plans to move downtown in August 2012.

The company began moving into the 242,000-square-foot building in Wake Forest Innovation Quarter in January, but only had its workforce of about 900 together for the past two weeks. As promised, the five-story headquarters is stunning in terms of natural lighting, creative architectural touches, LEED-certified energy savings, glass-enclosed workspaces and lavish branding of all things Inmar. It’s also quickly becoming a big selling point in recruiting clients and new employees, said David Mounts, Inmar’s chief executive.“The location, along with all the momentum occurring downtown, is attracting not only young professionals and millennials, but skilled employees across all ages,” Mounts said.

http://www.journalnow.com/business/business_news/local/inmar-employees-officially-move-into-new-downtown-office/collection_c16c17da-b91e-11e3-9600-001a4bcf6878.html

Gayle Anderson, president and chief executive of the Winston-Salem Chamber of Commerce, said having Inmar’s workforce downtown “will make a huge impact on retail, restaurants, housing, and daycare. Those groups are all celebrating with you today,” Anderson said. Mayor Allen Joines called Inmar “the poster child” for how the community is transitioning its economy toward a knowledge-based economy.

Winston-Salem business leaders have pointed to Inmar's downtown move as a tipping point and game changer for diversifying the research park beyond biotechnology and life sciences. Inmar has been made eligible for $7.3 million in performance-based local and state incentives. Mounts and Eric Tomlinson, president of the research park, repeatedly cited the Inmar move as a prime example of the emergence of the local digital health sector.

So much so that Inmar and the Division of Public Health for the Wake Forest School of Health announced Monday they already have formed the first of what could be several collaborative initiatives. The project involves using Inmar’s digital analytics to help the division more quickly locate and enroll patients for its clinical trials. Tomlinson said the initiative could reduce the enrollment process from as much as two years to as little as two to three months, “which can be a significant cost savings for the clinical trial and hopefully bringing treatments to the patients quicker.” The opportunities for digital health “are unprecedented, and investors and health care officials are awakening to that,” Mounts said. Mounts said that the initiative shows that “we can help deliver innovation through technology that improves the lives of people in our community and across the globe.”

[zalo]

Here's an announcement on a new to the Triad concept.

 

Three Winston-Salem companies have made plans to open a co-working space they’ve dubbed Flywheel in the new 525@Vine building in the Wake Forest Innovation Quarter. Flywheel has signed a lease for 11,585 square feet of space in the building with plans to open in June. Flywheel will offer independent contractors, entrepreneurs and others flexible short-term and long-term memberships, allowing access to both open and enclosed work spaces and support services 24 hours per day, seven days a week.

“Co-working is a national trend that’s taking hold, especially in urban markets,” said Peter Marsh, vice president of Workplace Strategies Inc., a Flywheel partner firm along with Storr Office Environments Inc. and Wildfire LLC. “We are excited to bring this concept to life in Winston-Salem. We are creating a knowledge-sharing environment driven by innovation, not just a place for people to work.” Part of the space is a one-quarter-scale basketball court that can be converted into an auditorium seating 100 people for events that will be open to the community.

Members will pay for various levels of access to the space and its services, from as little as $20 for a day pass up to $1,500 per month for an enclosed office space with room for multiple people. Memberships will come with certain levels of access to amenities such as copier use and video conferencing.

The space isn’t set up for laboratory-based businesses, but Bennett said Flywheel should appeal to a wide variety of entrepreneurs, from software developers to interior designers — anyone who could thrive from a collaborative, community-oriented space, he said. “Ultimately, the success will come from having helped a person with a single great idea grow to the point that they need office space for six or eight, and then 30 and then 75 and 100,” Bennett said. “We want to get these folks started, and then out into bigger space.”

http://www.bizjournals.com/triad/news/2014/04/08/co-working-space-for-entrepreneurs-planned-for.html?page=all

Edited April 8, 2014 by zalo

[RichardC]

Things are getting really rolling with this announcement and with the opening of Inmar downtown.  Downtown Winston-Salem is becoming a cool place to work, and live.  I wish I could be there to take in some of the RiverRun Film Festival this week.

Edited April 9, 2014 by RichardC

[zalo]

The North Carolina Biotechnology Center awarded nearly $2.5 million in the third quarter of its 2013-2014 fiscal year, released in a recent news report. Wake Forest University Health Sciences received an Institutional Development Grant in the amount of $195,764 to establish a molecular imaging, manipulation and force measurement core resource at Biotech Place in the downtown Innovation Quarter research park in Winston-Salem. Researchers throughout the region will use the facility for nanometer-scale imaging, probing and measurement, the Biotech Center said.

[zalo]

News Release courtesy of WFIQ:

Clinical Ink, a provider of data-capturing technology for clinical research, will move its headquarters to Wake Forest Innovation Quarter this summer. Clinical Link has signed a lease for 7,676 square feet of space on the first floor of the 525@Vine building, a former R.J. Reynolds Tobacco facility that has been renovated and revitalized by its owner, Wexford Science & Technology, a BioMed Realty company.

Clinical Ink expects to complete the move from its current offices on North Cherry Street in downtown Winston-Salem in July. Between 25 and 30 employees will be based at the Innovation Quarter site. “The Innovation Quarter is an ideal location for us,” said Doug Pierce, Clinical Ink’s president and co-founder. “We’re looking forward to being surrounded by like-minded, innovative companies in the area that’s helping to transform Winston-Salem.”

Clinical Ink’s lead product is SureSource, a proprietary electronic platform that provides users with a paperless system for the fast and accurate recording of data, comments, explanations and other information required in clinical trials. The company, founded in Winston-Salem in 2007, also has an office in Horsham, Pa., a Philadelphia suburb. “We’re very pleased to welcome Clinical Ink to 525@Vine,” said Eric Tomlinson, D.Sc., Ph.D., president of Wake Forest Innovation Quarter. “Its pioneering work at the crossroads of information technology and clinical research fits perfectly into the community of discovery and development that’s evolving here.”

By the end of 2014, Clinical Ink will be sharing 525@Vine with Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center’s Division of Public Health Sciences and Physician Assistant Program, Forsyth Technical Community College’s Center for Emerging Technologies, the Innovation Quarter branch of the YMCA of Northwest North Carolina and Flywheel, a co-working innovations space.

[zalo]

Eric Tomlinson of the Innovation Quarter announced that a food truck island will be a part of the new Bailey Park at East End which is currently under construction in the IQ. The plan is to include spaces for several trucks along with tables and seating areas. Plans are to increase the frequency of the food trucks at the park to five days a week, based upon demand . Currently food trucks are locating at Krankie's and other nearby spots.

[zalo]

The TBJ reports:

 

An event space housed in a basketball court, complimentary snacks and beverages, billiards and darts may seem more at home in a fraternity house than an office. But those amenities fit right in at coworking space Flywheel, which opened this week at the Wake Forest Innovation Quarter. Flywheel is located in 11,585 square feet of the research park’s 525@vine building. Its flexible, collaborative working space offers a “casual and contemporary” environment for entrepreneurs, independent professionals and innovators to work “on the fly.”

Coworking spaces are flexible, shared offices that provide a place for people to work without the overhead of owning an office. Flywheel offers short- and long-term memberships with access to work and play areas — such as the basketball court/event space dubbed the “IQ Court” — as well as state-of-the-art conference rooms with teleconference capabilities, mailboxes and other office tools and private phone booths.

Local companies Wildfire LLC, Workplace Strategies Inc. and Storr Office Environments Inc. jointly collaborated to bring Flywheel to life. “The vision for Flywheel extends far beyond on the space we provide,” said Brad Bennett, Wildfire CEO. “We are creating a knowledge-sharing environment driven by innovation, not just a place for people to work.”

Flywheel is open 24/7.

[RichardC]

Spaces such as the one here, Flywheel, are important and crucial for encouraging entrepreneurial ideas from professionals who cannot afford the overhead of office space among their peers.  This type of space is already being copied in other cities and communities.

 

I was in the WFIQ last week, and the new development is quite impressive at night with the newly renovated buildings lighted.  It is truly like a totally different high tech section of the city, especially directly adjacent to BioTech Place, 525@Vine, and Inmar.  The new park should create tremendous energy for the area.

Edited July 17, 2014 by RichardC

[Urbanity]

Spaces such as the one here, Flywheel, are important and crucial for encouraging entrepreneurial ideas from professionals who cannot afford the overhead of office space among their peers.  This type of space is already being copied in other cities and communities.

 

I was in the WFIQ last week, and the new development is quite impressive at night with the newly renovated buildings lighted.  It is truly like a totally different high tech section of the city, especially directly adjacent to BioTech Place, 525@Vine, and Inmar.  The new park should create tremendous energy for the area.

Honestly - the whole WFIQ is the most interesting development to me in the whole state.  

 

To have the facilities for start-ups as an integral part of your downtown (and not just on the outskirts of the city)  is what every other city in NC is missing.  I think Winston Salem is being very smart right now about the foundation of for their future.

[RichardC]

Honestly - the whole WFIQ is the most interesting development to me in the whole state.  

 

To have the facilities for start-ups as an integral part of your downtown (and not just on the outskirts of the city)  is what every other city in NC is missing.  I think Winston Salem is being very smart right now about the foundation of for their future.

That's true.  Even the white collar jobs are being siphoned off across the state line by South Carolina here in Charlotte.  The high tech jobs are hard enough to recruit, but they're even harder to keep.  It's rather odd that one day Susan Cameron helps Greensboro retain, for the time being at least, local tobacco manufacturing jobs thru the brand swapping between RJR and Lorillard and Imperial in the announcement of RJR's purchase of Lorillard, and the next day, Greensboro loses 250 high tech jobs to Raleigh with the move of MERK's North American headquarters.

 

There are no assurances in manufacturing, regardless of the product.  High tech jobs and knowledge-based jobs are the wave to ride on for the future, and Wake Forest has at least this area of Winston-Salem on the right track.  The investment in this section of the city in the last 5-6 years is staggering, compared to what has happened in the last 25 years in the entire Triad.

[DanRNC]

Honestly - the whole WFIQ is the most interesting development to me in the whole state.  

 

To have the facilities for start-ups as an integral part of your downtown (and not just on the outskirts of the city)  is what every other city in NC is missing.  I think Winston Salem is being very smart right now about the foundation of for their future.

I would look at downtown Durham as the start-up innovator in the state.  

[Urbanity]

I would look at downtown Durham as the start-up innovator in the state.  

How nice for you. I don't honestly.  Triangle as a whole - yeah -definitely.  Downtown Durham alone as "start-up innovator in the state".  Nope. 

 

 I guess though it is moot as my point is about where Winston Salem will be when WFIQ is fully functional. 

Edited July 17, 2014 by Urbanity

[RichardC]

I would look at downtown Durham as the start-up innovator in the state.  

 

I would not consider downtown Durham an innovation leader....but perhaps RTP or Brightleaf Square, yes

[zalo]

A great honor for Wexford & outstanding publicity for the IQ.

The Novogradac Journal of Tax Credits today announced the winners of the 2014 Historic Rehabilitation Awards, which recognize exceptional achievement in preservation using the historic rehabilitation tax credit (HTC). Winning projects and their development teams will be honored in a ceremony at the Novogradac Historic Tax Credit Conference, Sept. 18-19, 2014 at The Drake Hotel in Chicago, Ill.

“Recipients of the Historic Rehabilitation Awards represent some of the very best work in historic preservation,” said Michael J. Novogradac, CPA and managing partner of Novogradac & Company LLP. “We are pleased to commend their accomplishments and to spotlight the importance of the historic tax credit in revitalizing communities.”

Major Community Impact

• Winner: Building 90 of the Wake Forest Innovation Center

• Developed by Wexford Science and Technology, a BioMed Realty Company

Winners receive:

• One complimentary entry to the conference to receive the award;

• Coverage of the project in the Novogradac Journal of Tax Credits;

• Copies of the Journal of Tax Credits to share with industry contacts; and

• Recognition on the Novogradac & Company website and YouTube channel, and in a national press release about the event.

• Winners will also be supplied with a press release for their distribution.

• http://www.novoco.com/company/press/201 ... 081514.pdf

• http://www.novoco.com/awards/historic/index.php

 

[zalo]

The TBJ reports Wake Forest Innovation Quarter has requested a state designation that would make it easier to develop 28 acres in its central district, the next phase of the downtown research park that’s already proven a major economic and employment hub for Winston-Salem. Innovation Quarter last week requested brownfields designation for 28 acres north of Business 40, with U.S. 52 to the east, Church Street to the west and terminating at Third Street. Innovation Quarter estimates the total development of the 28-acre central district would take between 15 years and 20 years and cost upward of $750 million. “Who would be the developer, how they would develop it, for what purpose, is a big, big opportunity and challenge,” Tomlinson said.

The N.C. Brownfields Program is part of the N.C. Department of Environment and Natural Resources. When a parcel is designated as a brownfields site, that helps alleviate some of the significant development costs incurred by redeveloping an environmentally tainted or contaminated site. If approved as a brownfield by the state, the high-profile 28 acres at Wake Forest Innovation Quarter would join several other sites at the research park that have already received the brownfield designation. The largest of those pieces is a 40-acre tract bounded by Business 40 to the north, U.S. 52 to the east, Stadium Drive to the south and Salem Avenue to the west, Tomlinson said. That 40-acre tract was initially requested to receive a brownfield designation in January 2011, he said, and it connects to the 28-acre piece that’s up for consideration as a brownfield site now.

Wake Forest had initially intended to develop the 28-acre parcel early on, but those plans were pushed back after R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. gifted over its former tobacco factories and warehouses, which comprise a bulk of the existing development at the park.“All of our attention has been on the northernmost part of the research park,” Tomlinson said. “Now that that is nearing a completion, we are turning our attention to this parcel of 28 acres.”

Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center, Wake Forest Innovations and national consultants have been working on a master plan for the 28-acre site for more than a year. Tomlinson said the potential buildout would top “several millions of square feet” and would likely be mixed-use development. The goal is to create a development that’s highly impactful economically and socially and benefits quality of life for the entire Triad. “We’ve got a prime site in an urban setting, which has all of its utilities and transportation requirements,” Tomlinson said. “It’s an amazing site, actually. We want to make sure that we propose a truly remarkable development for that site, and are trying to get that ready. We’re not too far away from starting to get this out in the community.”

[RichardC]

This is confirmation by Wake that the research park is ready for the next exciting level.  What has taken years to get existing real estate repurposed to the tune of hundreds of millions at BioTech Place, 525@Vine, the 90 and 60 series buildings, and with Inmar up and running, the renovation and rehab of old structures has reached its maxed out phase.  Now we get to see some new and interesting development in the central and south districts to complement the water feature between the parkway and US52, and the Center for Design and Innovation that is currently under construction.

 

I'm eager and anxious to see what is on the plate.  This will be the beginning of putting the icing on the cake for the WFIQ.

Edited August 27, 2014 by RichardC

[zalo]

Here's a great article from the most recent edition of Winston-Salem Monthly magazine that really does a great job of updating the WFIQ's status, along with photos. The WSM article gives a great overview of the IQ in both physical terms as well as the type of research "innovations" that are currently being conducted there

http://www.journalnow.com/winstonsalemmonthly/window-to-a-new-world/article_54387f86-2c6f-11e4-b326-0017a43b2370.html

http://www.journalnow.com/winstonsalemmonthly/innovation-quarter-highlights/article_7a8c3748-2c76-11e4-ab95-0017a43b2370.html

Edited September 1, 2014 by zalo

[zalo]

Winston-Salem-based KeraNetics is quadrupling its manufacturing space in Wake Forest Innovation Quarter as it prepares to hopefully begin human clinical trials next year. The regenerative medicine firm, headed by CEO Kim Westmoreland, is moving into space at 200 E. First St. that was formerly occupied by drug development company Targacept, and using a $250,000 small business research loan from the N.C. Biotechnology Center to help finance the renovation. Westmoreland said Thursday that the roughly 9,000-square-foot facility will provide the "good manufacturing practice" space to create the products used in upcoming human clinical trials. The space will meet higher standards for ventilation, hygiene and process control necessary for medical manufacturing.

http://www.bizjournals.com/triad/news/2014/10/23/keranetics-expanding-in-winston-salem-renovating.html?page=all

[zalo]

Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center CEO Dr. John McConnell announced Monday the relocation of the Wake Forest School of Medicine's main campus to a new $100 million home in downtown. That home within Wake Forest Innovation Quarter is the first major construction project for the medical school in 50 years, and continues the development of the downtown research park as a hub for medical education. The project continues the partnership between the medical center and Baltimore-based Wexford Science + Technology. “The introduction of this prestigious institution into the Innovation Quarter is further validation that it is one of the top knowledge-based communities in the U.S.” said Daniel Cramer, Wexford’s senior vice president of development.

"Obviously the influx of these young students and the vibrancy they bring will amplify what's already here," said Eric Tomlinson, president of Wake Forest Innovation Quarter and chief innovation officer for the quarter. "It will become a role mode for the U.S." The new medical school will be housed in the so-called "60s series" buildings, which were formerly part of R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co.'s manufacturing operation in downtown and are a third phase of redevelopment of RJR buildings. The 283,000-square-foot U-shaped complex on Vine Street north of East Fourth Street will include close to 170,000 square feet in the northern half for the medical school, with the remaining 115,000 square feet for a mixture of retail, office and laboratory space.

“We will soon be introducing a leading-edge medical education curriculum that will prepare our highly qualified students to become outstanding physicians, and thus we must have the appropriate facilities to accommodate current learning and teaching styles and space to grow.”

The new medical education building adds to the growing synergy among the city’s academic institutions and supports technological collaboration, entrepreneurial opportunities and community involvement as well as social, economic and professional growth to its residents. President, of Wake Forest Innovation Quarter and Chief Innovation Officer, of Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center, Eric Tomlinson, D.Sc., Ph.D., said, “The addition of Wake Forest Baptist’s medical education program to the rapidly expanding Innovation Quarter marks a further milestone in our development as a leading hub for innovation in biomedical science and information technology with an emphasis on research, education, business and product development. The vibrancy of the growing student base here demands the Innovation Quarter be ready for their presence with opportunities for further learning, accommodation and recreation. We will be ready.”

http://www.bizjournals.com/triad/news/2014/12/08/addition-of-wake-forest-medical-school-continues.html?page=all

http://www.innovationquarter.com/news-events/wake-forest-baptist-build-new-medical-education-facility-wake-forest-innovation-quarter/

Edited December 8, 2014 by zalo