2022 Spring Issue - 95

A Decade of Districts
Their roots go back further, but innovation districts
really began to attract attention as a joint development
and growth strategy for research institutions,
businesses, and their regions during the recovery
from the 2008-2009 recession.
There was a handful of well-established examples
at the time that city planners, universities, and developers
looked to in order to replicate their success.
These are well described in The Rise of Innovation
Districts, the 2014 Brookings Institute report that
points to the models offered by Kendall Square
(located around the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
[MIT] and Massachusetts General Hospital in
Cambridge), the Cortex District in St. Louis (anchored
by Washington University), Seattle's South Lake
Union area (UW Medicine, Amazon, and others),
and urbanized science parks like Raleigh-Durham's
Research Triangle Park (anchored by North Carolina
State University, Duke University, and the University
of North Carolina at Chapel Hill).
Since then, however, there has been a veritable
explosion of innovation districts. As much of the
world transitions from an industrial to a service
economy, the geography of innovation districts is
displacing old industrial corridors-both in terms of
their importance and sometimes literally as old warehouses
and industrial infrastructure are repurposed
to serve as technology accelerators and coworking
spaces. Recent estimates suggest that well over 100
innovation districts are emerging globally, including
many in small to midsized cities like Pittsburgh,
Cincinnati, Dayton, Cleveland, Memphis, Kansas City,
Providence, and Chattanooga, Tennessee.
In Cincinnati, GBBN Architects is working on multiple
projects, including the construction of two new
buildings for Terrex Development and Construction,
anchored by the University of Cincinnati's Digital
Futures building and the creative reuse of a former
church-turned-dental-office, as part of the Cincinnati
Innovation District (anchored by the University of
Cincinnati, UC Health, and Cincinnati Children's Hospital
Medical Center). The latter space, known as " the
Beacon, " will provide a headquarters and incubator
space for Lightship Capital, a minority-led venture
capital fund, and the firm's partners.
GBBN also recently wrapped up a project in Pittsburgh
that adapted an old steel mill's 10-bay roundhouse
for use as a coworking space for a technology
accelerator, OneValley. It is part of a larger effort to
transform the sprawling grounds of the shuttered
J&L Steel Mill into an innovation hub and a model
for sustainable development. With each of these
projects, GBBN is intentionally looking beyond the
walls of the building to ensure that the company is
contributing to the larger neighborhood and innovation
ecosystem.
Innovation districts attract investment and have
a unique kind of energy about them since they offer
a real opportunity to improve life in cities big and
small-not just for knowledge workers, but for everyone.
However, the thinking about innovation districts
has not caught up with the reality of their growing
popularity as a growth strategy.
The Next Decade
Perhaps one concern is that too much emphasis is
put on replicating the achievements of a handful of
successful models, like Boston's Kendall Square and
Seattle's South Lake Union. Innovation districts " are
not one-size-fits-all. " The first step in launching an
innovation district is to figure out who you are as a
city and a region. What are your existing strengths?
Your emerging industries? What differentiates you
from other cities and other innovation districts? This
step involves taking stock of " who you are " as a city
or region while beginning to develop partnerships
that will help your innovation district succeed.
A key question is, " What resources do you have
available? " The fact is that many of those innovation
districts that are treated as paradigms offer models
that most cities and universities cannot realistically
replicate.
It is important to think big but to be realistic. For
example, Washington University has an endowment
of $8.5 billion, while MIT's is $18.4 billion. Drawing
on these resources, these universities and their
partners were able to launch innovation districts that
were broad ranging in terms of the kinds of issues
and initiatives they prioritize.
Most universities-and most cities-cannot command
the same kinds of resources either in terms of
endowments or in terms of the assets offered by wellestablished,
field-leading research capacity. So, they
must be more strategic in terms of how they define
their mission and use their resources.
Think Locally . . . and Nationally
Innovation districts have the curious quality of being
both ultra-local and always national in orientation.
They are always national in orientation, because ultimately
they will compete with other cities and innovation
districts to draw resources and investment from
national and multinational firms. As such, it doesn't
SPRING 2022
URBAN LAND
95
2022 Spring Issue

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of 2022 Spring Issue
