Seven-year checkup: spanning 230 acres, the Anschutz Medical Campus is taking shape as a veritable city of health sciences.

AuthorJackson, Margaret
PositionREAL ESTATE ROUNDUP - Cover story

SEVEN YEARS AFTER the former Fitzsimons Army post was redeveloped as a hub for health care, education and research, the campus is doing exactly what it was created to do: breeding companies based on research developed at the hospitals and school on the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus.

Located on one square mile at Colfax Avenue and Peoria Street in Aurora, the campus is a critical engine to Colorado's economy with an economic impact of $2.6 billion annually.

Nearly 50 companies are located on the campus' north end in the Colorado Science + Technology Park at Fitzsimons, a 150-acre portion of the Fitzsimons Life Science District set aside for new development.

The Science + Technology Park serves companies at every stage of growth. An incubator with fully outfitted office suites and labs, it provides young companies with an array of advisory and administrative services. Construction has started on the 112,000-square-foot Bioscience 2 building, which will combine research, business and education under one roof. University of Colorado programs will occupy half of the building when it's finished in August 2015.

The Charles C. Gates Center for Regenerative Medicine, which focuses on stem cell research to treat cancer and other diseases, is building a 12,000-square-foot good manufacturing practice (GMP) facility in one of the park's existing buildings. GMP laboratories also will be available to local commercial companies.

"Last year we added nine companies," said Steve VanNurden, president and chief executive of the Fitzsimons Redevelopment Authority (FRA), which oversees the Science + Technology Park. "A lot of the companies come from the university. It's great to see new intellectual property is coming right across the street."

In 2012, the FRA recruited VanNurden from Mayo Clinic Ventures, the invention arm for the Minnesota-based medical group, a testament to increased attention the medical research community is paying to the Anschutz campus.

The former Army base has become a city of 18,000 people who work and study on campus. Researchers receive about $400 million in grants each year, and since 2002 1,150 patent applications have been filed. There are more than 1.5 million clinical visits to the campus each year.

The FRA is re-evaluating the decade-old master plan that envisioned recruiting major bioscience companies that would build their own facilities. Now it's focused on aligning itself with research institutions such as the University of Colorado.

"The need for the Pfizers of the world to build facilities has diminished as they've put more focus on research institutions,"...

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