One Discovery Square aims to foster innovation.

Byline: William Morris

Even in a digital era, Rochester and Mayo Clinic leaders think the best way to foster innovation, collaboration and new discoveries is to put people next to each other, face-to-face.

That's the vision behind Golden Valley-based Mortenson's One Discovery Square, a 90,000-square-foot biomedical sciences building in downtown Rochester that next month will welcome its first tenant, medical software company Epic. The $35 million project is one of the early cornerstones of the Destination Medical Center redevelopment initiative, which seeks to attract $5.5 billion in new development around Mayo Clinic over 20 years.

During a preview tour of the building Wednesday, officials touted a design aimed to boost collaboration, from an open lobby area that can double as a lecture theater to conversation niches and "living room" areas, some with white boards and other tools, scattered around the four-story building. Collaboration also was at the core of how officials marketed the building, Destination Medical Center Executive Director Lisa Clarke said.

"We will be bringing companies to this community that have never seen Rochester before," she said.

Collaboration was also a goal in how the building will bring together those tenants, including three different Mayo Clinic departments, said Chris Schad, director of business development for the Discovery Square subdistrict of the Destination Medical Center.

"Right from the beginning, it was a fairly easy decision to say those three groups are going to be on different floors. They're not going to be all bunched up in one space behind closed walls," Schad said.

Instead the three teams advanced diagnostics, biomedical imaging and regenerative medicine will have space on floors two, three and four to be closer to partner companies that will occupy space immediately next to the researchers and scientists.

The space can also be reconfigured as needs change. Jay Hesley, chief of staff at the...