Campus Connection

Media Credit: Doug Linn Groundbreaking BioPark II. [Click to enlarge]

On Monday, March 31, 2008, almost 400 people gathered for the opening of the University of Maryland BioPark II and the groundbreaking for BioPark III.

The event was marked by speeches from those who have been involved with the initiative throughout its course of development and was followed by a tour of the new BioPark building.

“We had the same six people behind this from the very beginning,” said Dr. David J. Ramsay, President of UMB, referring to himself as well as Governor Martin O’Malley, Senator Ben Cardin, Mayor Sheila Dixon, Representative Elijah Cummings, Jerome Smalley, Chairman of UMB Research Park Corporation.

As noted by Rep. Cummings in his address, the group was not “blinded by what they saw” in 2004—that is, the flatlands covered with weeds and small rocks that were across Martin Luther King Blvd. Instead, they proceeded to undertake a project that will potentially make Baltimore one of the country’s major biotechnology hubs.

The BioPark was established in 2004 and will be built across ten acres of land in the 800 and 900 blocks of West Baltimore Street.  When finished, the project will include ten buildings covering 1.2 million square feet, providing lab and office for post-incubation firms, bioscience companies, and university research centers. 

Building Two is a 238,000 square foot facility that was established with $80 million in capital investment. Currently, it is 60% occupied with tenants that include Fliknik, Paragon Bioservices, UMB Institute for Genome Sciences, and Westat. Together with Buildings One and Three, it is expected to generate 1,000 new jobs for the city of Baltimore.

“If you are moving toward a culture of excellence that means that you must be innovative, you must come up with new solutions to problems. And the fact that we in the BioPark are coming up with new solutions in the biomedical field, say a lot for us,” said Cummings, in reference to the BioPark’s success in increasing employment for the city, in light of recent trends in the U.S. of outsourcing jobs out of the country.

On top of serving as an economic stimulus for the city, the BioPark will also be a significant asset to the University of Maryland, Baltimore, itself.

“I think that the institution will attract more faculty and retain more faculty who are interested in following their discoveries through to commercial development. I think that it’s going to generate an income stream to help support the university,” said Ramsay.  

Additionally, the BioPark will collaborate with neighborhood high schools and Baltimore City Community College in order to coordinate bioscience education programs for the students.

“The BioPark will be an inspiration to so many young people and expose them to opportunities,” Cummings said, underscoring the importance of providing students with experiences they might not have had otherwise.

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