The big idea for IDEA Commons didn’t come all at once.
Organizers of the 88-acre, center-city initiative focused on fostering innovation, design, entrepreneurship and the arts say the plan has developed during the last decade.
They point to the ideas of former Missouri State University presidents Mike Nietzel and John Keiser, layered with the hands-on efforts by school economic development officials Allen Kunkel and Jim Baker.
For Baker, there is a linchpin.
“It all started with JVIC,” he said of the vision to support economic development downtown, largely attributable to Nietzel, now a policy adviser for Gov. Jay Nixon, and Kunkel, MSU’s associate vice president for economic development and director of the Jordan Valley Innovation Center.
Baker, the school’s vice president for research and economic development and international programs who works with Kunkel to cultivate the IDEA seed, said the collaborative initiative is rooted in answering the needs of both the university and the city.
“You have to have a healthy community to have a healthy university,” said Rich Overmoyer, executive director of the Pittsburgh, Pa.-based University Economic Development Association of which MSU is a member.
Overmoyer said universities far and wide have been seeing the value of promoting economic development in their communities since before the association was formed in 1976. Beyond its 160 university members, the association represents 1,800 individuals or groups involved in promoting university-related economic development.
He said economic development efforts among colleges are critical to meeting their own long-term needs.
“If you want to attract students these days, students are much more savvy about where a campus is located and the kinds of things that they’ll be able to do while they’re there,” he said. “Our members recognize that to be competitive, they must be doing all they can to help job growth, and to help innovation through entrepreneurship.”
Baker said MSU could have built a research park from scratch, like many other universities, but it preferred the notion of developing something downtown as a way to inject energy into the community. He said the school is aware of other models, but IDEA was a custom fit.
In 2007, U.S. Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., then a U.S. representative, was able to secure funding to renovate the former MFA mill. MSU began talks with the city about buying and developing the property into a $30 million research facility with a focus on developing products for industry. Coupled with a need for university arts and design classes and offices, as well as a desire to develop a business incubator that could support JVIC, the IDEA Commons was born.
“I call it an organic innovation park,” Baker said of IDEA, which primarily comprises Brick City, home of arts and design classes and the future University of Missouri-Kansas City pharmacy doctorate program; the Robert W. Plaster Center for Free Enterprise and Business Development, the location for MSU’s business incubator The eFactory; and JVIC. “We are not trying to control it and make it a big, pristine research park, we want it to develop naturally,” Baker said, noting private developers could build for themselves within MSU’s 88 acres. Private companies operating in the IDEA commons footprint include Marlin Network, Obelisk Home and Lockheed Martin Nanosystems.
Brian Kincaid, business incubator coordinator for The eFactory, said MSU’s partners and affiliates ready to occupy the Plaster Center next month are Springfield Innovation Inc., Small Business & Technology Development Center, the Management Development Institute, Springfield Angel Network, Procurement and Technical Assistance Center, Missouri Enterprise and Score.
In addition, the Plaster Center will hold classes for about 120 MSU civil engineering and electrical engineering students involved in the university’s cooperative program with Missouri University of Science and Technology. “Having those people in the building is good for our clients on the business incubator side, because if you’re in the technology area and you need some electrical engineering work, that could be a good way to engage students with a project,” Kunkel said.
Kincaid said The eFactory is playing catch-up with other areas of the state that already offer a business incubator for startups and small companies.
“We are the largest metropolitan area in the state that does not have a business incubator,” Kincaid said. “The key to being successful is in transcending that lessor/lessee relationship into more of an interactive partnership.”
SBTDC Director Rayanna Anderson said MSU’s IDEA concept is not unique – schools across the country such as the University of Texas-Austin’s IC2 Institute have similar business development initiatives that include incubator programs – but the local effort is similarly trying to meet academic goals.
“It’s happening because university missions are changing in that they are including the economic development of the community within their focus,” Anderson said. “We still feel like we are educators, whether that is through a one-on-one counseling service or through training. We are still providing knowledge.”
Baker said MSU is fostering development downtown for several reasons. He said the school is landlocked, and officials have been hesitant to tear down established neighborhoods. Also, as a state university, Baker said state officials expect MSU to contribute to business development efforts to the benefit of its students and residents in the state whenever possible. And by cultivating innovation and development downtown, MSU is investing in the community it calls home.
“If you don’t have a solid downtown, then your whole community is judged by that,” Baker said. “Not having a vibrant downtown can be a deterrent to new development.”
He added, “From a practical standpoint, that was our neighbor and we wanted it cleaned up.”
