The Maumee River Crossing in Toledo, Ohio, will eliminate a transportation bottleneck when complete in 2006. The $290 million project includes highway and intersection improvements.

Bridge Will Boost Toledo Area

The Maumee River Crossing in Toledo is the largest bridge construction project under way in the Great Lakes region. The $290-million project, which includes highway and intersection improvements, will replace a lift bridge, which has been a transportation impediment, according to Ohio transportation officials.
        "I-280 in Toledo is classified as an Interstate, but it was built before Interstate design standards," says Ohio DOT's Joe Rutherford. "It's not just a bridge project; it's a transportation project that solves a lot of issues. It will upgrade the I-75 and I-280 interchange, build a new signature span over the Maumee River and will reconfigure other interchanges."
        Highway widening began last year with June 2006 targeted as the completion date for the entire project. The pre-cast segmental concrete bridg will have its segments made at a casting yard constructed at a brownfield site of a former steel mill. The construction company will build two large buildings to house machines to cast the bridge segments. This process will include the hiring of 350 skilled trade workers to produce 3,146 concrete segments. Once complete, the work site will be an attractive location for industry with its proximity to the Toledo port and Interstate access, Rutherford says.

Life Sciences Moving Ahead Throughout Region

Virtually every state along the Great Lakes is aggressively pursuing life science industry development. The Buffalo Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics, funded to the tune of nearly $260 million from government, corporations and foundations, figures to create thousands of high-technology jobs in the Buffalo-Niagara region of Western New York. The center is a collaborative effort involving New York State, the U.S. government, corporate partners and research institutions, including the University of Buffalo, Roswell Park Cancer Institute and the Hauptman-Woodward Medical Research Institute.
        The center will merge the latest technology -- including supercomputing and visualization -- with expertise in genomics, proteomics and bioimaging to push advances in science and health care, as well as new drug discovery and development. An emerging discipline, bioinformatics uses the power of supercomputers to interpret data in the biological sciences at the molecular level. Some researchers believe the science will quickly become a multi-billion dollar industry.
        Wisconsin is proceeding with its decade-long, $317-million Biostar program, which aims to construct new facilities at the University of Wisconsin. In Michigan, the state has awarded $45 million for 18 research projects.

Wanted: Employer For Instant Work Force

Sometimes a work force just has to take economic development matters into its collective hands. That appears to be the case in Clearfield, Pa., a small town 90 miles northeast of Pittsburgh where some 360 employees at the FCI Electronics plant are seeking a new employer. With the plant marked for October shuttering, employees have been using the Web and ads in trade journals to tout themselves as a ready-made, experienced workforce. As of late June, the effort had not found any takers.
        The old-line industries of steel and automotive will likely always be cornerstones of the lake states' economies. But the region's industrial demographics continue to diversify even as they build on that heritage. States will continue to offer incentives and research grants aimed at life sciences, alternative energy sources and other high-tech endeavors.
        The Rust Belt may be rusting closed, but the "high-tech" belt is slipping seamlessly into its place, cinching up for the future.