Changes are afoot at the agency that is overseeing development of the bioscience park north of the Anschutz Medical Campus in Aurora.
The Fitzsimons Redevelopment Authority (FRA) board will increase from 10 to 12 members, with the structure weighted toward the private sector, according to an amendment to the agreement that established the authority.
The number of Aurora representatives will be reduced to three from its current five members after the city’s election this fall. The board will add a representative from The Children’s Hospital, as well as three members from the bioscience industry.
“We haven’t determined the strategy for filling those (bioscience) positions,” said Denise Brown, acting executive director of the FRA. “As the board completes its strategic-planning process in June and July, part of the discussion will be what kind of skill sets we need.”
Also on the board is Bruce Benson, president of the University of Colorado; Bruce Schroffel, president of University Hospital; and two real estate industry veterans, John Shaw of McWhinney and Dwight Rider of Freund Investments.
The search for the FRA’s new executive director will be done in concert with the restructuring of the board, Brown said. The new executive director is likely to be knowledgable about bioscience and understand how the university interacts with companies in that sector.
“In the past, the emphasis has been on someone who has real estate experience,” Brown said.
Former Colorado economic-development chief Don Elliman is joining the FRA board as a representative for The Children’s Hospital, where he serves on the board.
“The land north of Montview on the Fitzsimons property represents one of the great economic-development opportunities in Colorado, maybe the greatest in the state,” Elliman said. “Not much has happened with it in the five or six years that it’s been around. The goal is to make that into a biopark, which was what the goal was in the beginning but hasn’t been very successful so far.”
There currently is a 60,000-square-foot incubator on the 184-acre site, and the FRA plans to spend up to $12 million building 30,000 square feet of new office and laboratory space.
“There is enough demand from (intellectual property) being created and other activity being created in the university complex south of Montview to justify another new building already and maybe more,” Elliman said. “We’re the only nonlandlocked major medical center in the U.S. and brand new to boot. We’re trying to figure out how to take advantage of that with job creation, and the land that’s available for commercial use is a priority. We need to sell it.”
