Columbus gets IT.

• Author: Mayer, Kathy
• Position: Focus - Information technology business park planned

What do you get when you combine 60 acres, two staff people, an annual budget under $300,000 and a dream?

If you're the Columbus Economic Development Board, the plan is to get a high-tech park packed with information-technology companies from around the world while maintaining its strong manufacturing base.

That's the vision in year one of a 10-to-15-year outlook, says Brooke Tuttle, president of the development board that's 95 percent privately funded.

The board's vision is aggressive, impressive and doable, he and other members say. They believe they'll achieve it because they have a plan, a focus and access to venture capital; because they've done something similar before--building their industrial base in the last 15 years; and because board members volunteer their time and pay their own international travel expenses.

The future of Columbus is at stake, they believe. "Our standard of living is going to be determined by how effectively we use our comparative advantages to create and expand our technology and knowledge assets and convert them into economic value," Tuttle says. "We're focusing our strategy on higher-end jobs."

Two simultaneous efforts are now under way. The first is preparing Columbus for IT business; the second, taking Columbus on the road to tout its benefits.

Getting things ready at home involves connecting and wiring the community, so IT companies can function efficiently in Columbus, and finalizing the IT park, known appropriately as InfoTech Park.

With the assistance of Purdue professor Jim Goldman, a community network strategy is under way. "We're working diligently on that plan," Tuttle says. "That effort has to succeed to con leveraging Columbus."

In the bricks-and-mortar area, water, sewer and fiber optics are in place for the InfoTech Park, and its first tenant, ArvinMeritor, is about to open its 48,000-square-foot information-technology center.

"ArvinMeritor will anchor that park, and they're serious about us getting other companies in there," Tuttle says.

The park is north of Columbus, next to Columbus Municipal Airport and across from the campuses of Ivy Tech State College, Indiana University/Purdue University, and the site of the proposed Columbus Learning Ceter.

Meanwhile, Tuttle and others are hopping airplanes. "We've been on a search worldwide for IT companies," he says. In March, they hit Japan, Korea and Taiwan; in June, Ireland, Germany and Netherlands. Their approach is to invite 20 to 40 companies...