Dow AgroSciences is pursuing growth on its headquarters campus in Indianapolis and at Purdue Research Park in West Lafayette.
In Indy, Dow in August signed a 15-year lease for a build-to-suit, 80,000-sq.-ft. (7,432-sq.-m.) building to be developed and owned by Browning Investments, Inc. The new R&D space will mean 100 new research jobs to be added to Dow AgroSciences’ existing Indianapolis payroll of 1,200.
“This expansion will enable us to accelerate investment in new scientific expertise, capabilities, and markets for our growing Seeds, Traits and Oils business,” said Daniel R. Kittle, Ph.D., vice president of Research and Development at Dow AgroSciences. “The quality of jobs and the level of intellectual capital that these jobs represent are a great testament to the life sciences infrastructure that is thriving here in the metro Indianapolis marketplace,” said Bill Ehret, CEO and principal at Summit Realty Group, which represented Dow in the lease agreement.
West Lafayette can boast a pretty fair life sciences infrastructure too, which was improved on the final day of September when Dow AgroSciences announced it would occupy 15,000 sq. ft. (1,394 sq. m.) at Purdue Research Park’s new Herman and Heddy Kurz Purdue Technology Center. In addition, the company will be the exclusive tenant of a forthcoming 6,000-sq.-ft. (557-sq.-m.) greenhouse complex. The Indiana Economic Development Corporation (IEDC) will support the Purdue Research Foundation in the construction of the US$2.2-million greenhouse research center with a grant to assist in development costs.
Up to 30 scientists will be working in the Purdue Research Park as part of this collaboration over the next three years, with up to an additional 18 contract research workers to be hired from the surrounding community. Researchers from the company will have access to the Purdue College of Agriculture’s 23 research facilities.
One week after partnering with its home-state IEDC, Purdue Research Foundation received an award from the “other” IEDC, as the International Economic Development Council announced that the organization had received a 2009 IEDC Excellence in Economic Development Award in the category of Regionalism and Cross-border Collaboration.
