12-13-10 Common Council Meeting Minutes

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REGULAR MEETING DECEMBER 13, 2010 ordinance and map were passed, the zoning district changed to GI General Industrial District. The traffic and transportation consideration are Sample Street has four lanes. Prairie Avenue and Lafayette Blvd, each have two lanes. Cotter Avenue, which borders the southwest corner of the site, is a two lane street. Multiple access points to the site will be provided based on the development pattern of the PUD. The City Engineer will determine size, number and location. The Economic Development Department is in favor of the request to rezone the area encompassing Ignition Park to a Planned United Development. They note that, “this rezoning change to PUD is an important part of the planning for Ignition Park and it will set the standard envisioned for the Park, while still being flexible to allow various uses.” Ms. Nayder reiterated that this area was part of the Studebaker manufacturing complex. Many of the buildings have been demolished over the past several years to make way for major redevelopment initiatives. Surrounding uses are small to medium sized industrial businesses and public use facilities. The most desirable use is large industrial and office users within a planned development. She noted that in the staff’s opinion, surrounding property value should not be negatively affected. It is responsible development and growth to promote the adaptive reuse of land within the context of the Comprehensive Plan. Ms. Nayder advised that the Area Plan Commission held a public hearing on this bill on Tuesday, November 16, 2010 and sends it to the common Council with a favorable recommendation. Ms. Nayder noted that no spoke in favor or against this bill. Ms. Nayder stated that the South Bend Comprehensive Plan, City Plan, identifies the establishment of a research park as one of the action steps under Strategy #1. In conjunction with Notre Dame’s Innovation Park, Ignition Park provides a well-designed development facility in the attraction of new businesses to the city, and provides the means to retain and attract young, skilled professionals to the community. Geri Hathaway, Director, Ignition Park, 1400 E. Angela Blvd., South Bend, South Bend, Indiana, made the presentation for this bill. Ms. Hathaway advised that in 1999 a study was done of the Studebaker Corridor. The conclusion of that study was that the Studebaker Corridor would make a fine industrial park. Based on that the City of South Bend started to demolish buildings there and reclaim the land. Fortunately they started to do it at the east end of that corridor. Today, there remain two buildings that need to come down and the land under those buildings needs to be reclaimed. That contract was recently awarded by the City of South Bend. Around 2007, the semi-conductor industry had said for a long time that they would not support a fourth site for research and development around the replacement of SEMAS which they think will become extinct around 2015 or 2020. They supported research in Albany, Austin, and LA. They decided that they would in fact support a fourth site and they spoke to the nation about that and the City of South Bend and Notre Dame entered into what was really a landmark collaborative effort. The University said that they have one of the very best researchers working on the potential replacement for SEMAS and it is different than the research going on in Austin, Albany or LA. It is potentially platform changing research in the scheme of research that is monumental. They said that they will build and engineering building which became Stinson-Remmick Hall which has a clean room and that they would do a technology park on 12 acres across from the campus and that they would put an incubator/accelerator building there to help with the commercialization of the research from the campus and potentially other research efforts as well. The City of South Bend said we have 84 acres which they will contribute to make a more substantial park i.e. Ignition Park and we have Metro Net which in terms of local dark fiber is really substantial and will contribute 50 million dollars to this effort. The result of all of that became the ward of the City of South Bend and the University of Notre Dame and was the result of the creation called MIND (The Midwest Institute of Nanoelectronics Development) on the campus of Notre Dame, which today is eleven (11) substantial research projects. All based on the advancing research that might replace SEMAS. The other distinct change was the creation of the only two site single certified technology park in the country. Twelve acres owned by Notre Dame Innovation Park and 84 acres owned by the City of South Bend Ignition Park. Ms. Hathaway stated that nano is simply scale. It is very; very small one hundred thousands nanos are at the end of a hair on a person’s head. So until recently researchers have been unable to see nano scale particles. They were working with them but couldn’t them. Today they cannot 3