Colorado State University has negotiated a land swap with the city of Fort Collins that will enable the school to build a research center near Interstate 25.
Under terms of the agreement, CSU will get a 143-acre parcel at the southwest corner of Prospect Road and I-25. In exchange, the city will get 267 acres at the northern end of CSU’s Foothill Campus, enabling the city’s Natural Areas Program to expand the Reservoir Ridge Natural Area.
Each parcel is worth about $4 million. The deal is expected to close Nov. 20.
“The community benefits because the land the city is acquiring is prime land being added to natural areas of the inventory,” said David May, president and chief executive of the Fort Collins Chamber of Commerce. “It adds to the recreational aspect of the community.”
The city’s property is attractive to the university because of its I-25 location, said Kathleen Henry, executive director of the CSU Research Foundation. The university wants its startup companies to stay close to campus, but the companies want visibility and access to the interstate for shipping and receiving.
“We feel this particular trade will help us speed the technology that’s in the lab out into the marketplace as quickly and effectively as possible,” she said.
CSU is one of the country’s top research institutions, with nearly $300 million in annual research expenditures.
In fiscal 2007, ended June 30, CSU’s technology-transfer income was $2.2 million, up from $1 million in fiscal 2006. CSU licensed 18 technologies and disclosed 80 inventions in fiscal 2007, compared with licensing 12 technologies and disclosing 42 inventions in 2006.
“This research park will also provide land and space for our own startup companies to incubate and grow to maturity right here in Fort Collins, providing products and services to serve society’s needs and job opportunities for the residents of northern Colorado,” Henry said.
CSU’s new research center will focus on renewable-energy companies. The university is negotiating with Fort Collins-based AVA Solar Inc. to be its anchor tenant.
“Because of the clean-energy research taking place in Fort Collins, it plays to a strength of ours,” the chamber’s May said.
Founded by university energy researchers, AVA plans to develop a solar-manufacturing plant that could employ up to 500 workers. It proposes to mass-produce high-efficiency solar-electricity panels at a cost approaching that of conventional fossil fuels.
AVA officials declined to discuss the deal.
Margaret Jackson: 303-954-1473 or mjackson@denverpost.com
