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Tech Town adds new building

Structures promote having people mingle with each other.

People attending the Tech Town Technology Expo could walk by a 3D printed plane Friday at Tech Town in downtown. The expo highlighted some of the most innovative companies in the Miami Valley. The plane was produced by SelectTech GeoSpatial.

Staff Photo by Jim Noelker People attending the Tech Town Technology Expo could walk by a 3D printed plane Friday at Tech Town in downtown. The expo highlighted some of the most innovative companies in the Miami Valley. The plane was produced by SelectTech GeoSpatial.

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By Thomas Gnau, Staff Writer Updated 8:09 PM Saturday, October 29, 2011

DAYTON — The newest Tech Town building is expressly designed to force occupants to spend some quality time together.

The third building in the city’s Tech Town technology-focused business park is nearly 55,000 square feet. Tech Town owner/developer CityWide Development Corp. opened the building to an invitation-only group for the first time Friday.

But while the structure’s expanses are wide, inside you’ll find shared kitchens and outside decks, where people are likely to bump into each other. That’s no accident, Tech Town officials said.

“We force that synergy,” said Barbara Hayde, president of The Entrepreneur’s Center, Tech Town’s first building.

The latest building, called “Tech Town III,” was built with the expectation that tenants would come forward, said Steve Nutt, director of strategic development for CityWide, the city of Dayton’s finance and development arm.

The second Tech Town building opened in the spring of 2009. The campus’ first two buildings are full, with 34 total tenants. Nutt estimated that filling the newest building could raise that total to 50 tenants, depending on each tenant’s space requirements.

All three of the 30-acre park’s buildings are within easy reach. Located north of Monument Avenue — where the General Motors and Harrison Radiator plants stood years ago — there are no acre-wide swaths of green space. That’s a good thing, Nutt said.

“The important thing is that we have a collaboration of technologies in this area that is within walking distance of each other,” he said.

Kerry Taylor, director of the Ohio Aerospace Hub of Innovation and Opportunity, said he sees the hub stretching geographically from Tech Town to the University of Dayton campus — with a link to “that big juggernaut over there called Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.”

The campus appeals mostly to smaller companies, many of them start-ups, nurturing a new technology or service. Established tenants include the Dayton RFID Convergence Center, Stan Solutions, Pelican Technologies and others.

“It’s entirely possible that one of these companies has a technology that a larger company is looking for,” Nutt said.

Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2390 or tgnau@DaytonDailyNews.com.

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