Ignition Park is a
technology park
A science park (also called a "university research park", "technology park”, "technopark", “technopole", or a "science and technology park" (STP)) is defined as being a property-based development that accommodates and fosters the growt ...
under development in
South Bend
South Bend is a city in and the county seat of St. Joseph County, Indiana, on the St. Joseph River near its southernmost bend, from which it derives its name. As of the 2020 census, the city had a total of 103,453 residents and is the fourt ...
,
Indiana
Indiana () is a U.S. state in the Midwestern United States. It is the 38th-largest by area and the 17th-most populous of the 50 States. Its capital and largest city is Indianapolis. Indiana was admitted to the United States as the 19th s ...
, United States on roughly of land south of the city's downtown that were formerly the site of the
Studebaker
Studebaker was an American wagon and automobile manufacturer based in South Bend, Indiana, with a building at 1600 Broadway, Times Square, Midtown Manhattan, New York City. Founded in 1852 and incorporated in 1868 as the Studebaker Brothers M ...
manufacturing complex.
Though originally the park was only around , after much talk of doing so by city officials,
it was expanded to 140 acres.
Together with Innovation Park (located near the campus of the
University of Notre Dame
The University of Notre Dame du Lac, known simply as Notre Dame ( ) or ND, is a private Catholic research university in Notre Dame, Indiana, outside the city of South Bend. French priest Edward Sorin founded the school in 1842. The main campu ...
), Ignition Park is a part of South Bend's two-site state-certified technology park.
History of site
Studebaker
Studebaker was an American wagon and automobile manufacturer based in South Bend, Indiana, with a building at 1600 Broadway, Times Square, Midtown Manhattan, New York City. Founded in 1852 and incorporated in 1868 as the Studebaker Brothers M ...
, whose plant once occupied the site, had been the city's biggest employer before its 1963 closure.
Inception of Ignition Park
Ignition Park was announced in 2008.
It represented the municipal government's response to a decision in 2008 by the
Semiconductor Research Corporation's Nanoelectronics Research Initiative (NRI) to locate the fourth of its national research centers, known as th
Midwest Institute for Nanoelectronics Discovery (MIND) at the
University of Notre Dame
The University of Notre Dame du Lac, known simply as Notre Dame ( ) or ND, is a private Catholic research university in Notre Dame, Indiana, outside the city of South Bend. French priest Edward Sorin founded the school in 1842. The main campu ...
. Plans were for the park to concentrate on high-potential technologies and ventures, as well as the commercialization of nanotechnology concepts inspired by MIND.
Ignition Park is one of the two locations that jointly make up Indiana's first two-site state-certified technology park. The other is Innovation Park at Notre Dame, located on on the city's northeast side adjacent to the Notre Dame campus.
Innovation Park, developed through a partnership between South Bend and the University of Notre Dame,
opened its doors in 2009, and is targeted towards academic research and fostering
startup companies
A startup or start-up is a company or project undertaken by an entrepreneur to seek, develop, and validate a scalable business model. While entrepreneurship refers to all new businesses, including self-employment and businesses that never intend t ...
. It has been the hope of planners that the companies that that startup at Innovation Park might, once they get their footing, choose to move to Ignition Park when establishing their permanent location. This would keep those startups formed at Innovation Park in the South Bend area.
["South Bend's legacy of innovation sparks Ignition Park," Small Times, Jan. 6, 2009. Retrieved on 2009-06-12.](_blank)
/ref> Innovation Park has been described by leadership as acting as a "commercialization bridge" where companies can be located in their period of transition between basic research and building more permanent operations at Ignition Park. South Bend's dual-site technology park (consisting of Ignition Park and Innovation Park) has aimed to compete with technology parks in Chicago
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
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and other areas of Illinois
Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolita ...
.
The technology park's location benefitted from the presence of a fiber-optic
An optical fiber, or optical fibre in Commonwealth English, is a flexible, transparent fiber made by drawing glass (silica) or plastic to a diameter slightly thicker than that of a human hair. Optical fibers are used most often as a means t ...
trunkline located along the nearby rail corridor. Because of that, Comcast
Comcast Corporation (formerly known as American Cable Systems and Comcast Holdings),Before the AT&T merger in 2001, the parent company was Comcast Holdings Corporation. Comcast Holdings Corporation now refers to a subsidiary of Comcast Corpora ...
is able to provide tenants of Ignition Park access to its backbone network, which, as of 2014, provided costumers 100-gigabit
The bit is the most basic unit of information in computing and digital communications. The name is a portmanteau of binary digit. The bit represents a logical state with one of two possible values. These values are most commonly represented a ...
-per-second service.
Development of Ignition Park
By 2011, the city of South Bend had already spent $32 million on planning, property acquisition, environmental work, and demolition for the development of the Ignition Park site, with tens of millions of further dollars of spending anticipated.
In 2011, Dana Realty, which had been operating out of Innovation Park, broke ground on a data center
A data center (American English) or data centre (British English)See spelling differences. is a building, a dedicated space within a building, or a group of buildings used to house computer systems and associated components, such as telecommunic ...
in Ignition Park, which it opened in 2012, giving the park its first tenant. For a few years, it would be the park's lone tenant.
In 2014, Great Lakes Capital bought of land in the park which they would be permitted to construct up to four buildings on, with the option of acquiring an addition that they could then build a further four buildings on. In 2016, the company finished $12 million of construction on two buildings named "Calayst One" and "Catalyst Two". The buildings contain of space, and are designed with tech firms as their target tenants. Among the first tenants of the Catalyst Two building was the $36 million Notre Dame Trubomachinery Laboratory.
In June 2018, the South Bend Redevelopment Commissioned approved $2.7 million to develop the new Technology Resource Center in the Catalyst Two building. This "collaboration hub" opened in November 2019.
A partnership between Carrier Global
Carrier Global Corporation is an American multinational heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC), refrigeration, and fire and security equipment corporation based in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida. Carrier was founded in 1915 as an independ ...
and the University of Notre Dame saw the February 2022 opening of the Willis Carrier Centrifugal Compressor Technology Laboratory, which is meant to provide Notre Dame University students with hands-on experience in the development of HVAC
Heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) is the use of various technologies to control the temperature, humidity, and purity of the air in an enclosed space. Its goal is to provide thermal comfort and acceptable indoor air quality. HV ...
compressor
A compressor is a mechanical device that increases the pressure of a gas by reducing its volume. An air compressor is a specific type of gas compressor.
Compressors are similar to pumps: both increase the pressure on a fluid and both can transp ...
s. Carrier intends to utilize the technology that the lab will develop in order to assist the company in meeting its goals for making its products more environmentally-friendly. Carrier and the university agreed to a three-year collaboration, which also saw the creation of the Carrier Center of Excellence at the park's existing Notre Dame Turbomachinery Laboratory.
In December 2019, Press Ganey Associates
Press Ganey Associates is a South Bend, Indiana-based health care company known for developing and distributing patient satisfaction surveys. As of January 2017, its Medical Practice Survey was the most widely used outpatient satisfaction survey ...
started construction on a new national headquarters
Headquarters (commonly referred to as HQ) denotes the location where most, if not all, of the important functions of an organization are coordinated. In the United States, the corporate headquarters represents the entity at the center or the to ...
building in the park. Press Ganey was the fifth-largest employer in the South Bend region by that time. The building was completed in 2021. In January 2022, NAS Investments bought the building, and will serve as its property manager
A property manager or estate manager is a person or firm charged with operating a real estate property for a fee when the owner is unable to attend to such details personally or is not interested in doing so. The property may be individual title o ...
.
References
External links
City of South Bend
Midwest Institute for Nanoelectronics Discovery (MIND)
Nanoelectronics Research Initiative (NRI)
University of Notre Dame
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Science parks in the United States
High-technology business districts in the United States
Nanoelectronics