When you walk into the lobby area of the latest building on the University of Kentucky's Coldstream Research Campus in Lexington, you may feel like you have walked into an innovative hotel space with sunlight streaming through tall, elongated windows.
And that, as Coldstream executive director George Ward will tell you, is the point — as both he and the building’s developer, Woodbury Corp., have a long history of working in the hotel industry.
“I call it a collaborative lobby ... It's a place for people to mingle and get to know each other,” Ward told me while giving a tour of the building on Friday. “When you have those natural collisions in a high-tech innovation environment, that really gives you new ideas."
In early October, Ward gathered with others — including Lexington Mayor Linda Gorton, University of Kentucky President Eli Capilouto and Bob Quick, the president and CEO of Commerce Lexington — for the official ribbon cutting ceremony of the new $15 million, 44,000-square-foot facility at 824 Bull Lea Run.
Its name being an acronym of sorts for collaboration, research and entrepreneurship, “The CoRE” offers two floors of space to lease, whether that be traditional office space or a wet or dry lab.
When the initial plans for The CoRE were first drawn up, the intent was for the building to serve as the needed extra space for companies that had outgrown their quarters and “graduated” from the Advanced Science & Technology Commercialization Center (ASTeCC), the early-stage, high-tech business incubator that formed on the UK campus in 1994. To date, ASTeCC to date has had 62 companies go on to scale up since its founding, according to the center’s website.
Ward and company also hope to use The CoRE — and in particular its lab space where products are developed and commercialized — as another recruiting tool for Coldstream to draw in entrepreneurs and other companies from other parts of the country to Lexington.
The building, constructed primarily through a public-private partnership with Woodbury, was designed by Clark Enerson and built by Whiting Turner. You can see photos of The CoRE in the gallery above.
As of Friday, Ward said that approximately 30,000 square feet is available. That is in the form of a sublease from Kentucky Technology Inc. (KTI) — a for-profit subsidiary of the UK Research Foundation of which Ward serve as president — or a direct lease with building owner. KTI has its offices in the building, which officially opened in July.
Like the lobby area, much of that space is intended to be shared between tenants and, in Ward’s words, "designed for people to bump into each other."
“As you grow, you can add space, as long as space is available,” Ward said. “We’ll build out as the needs arise.”
Ward also mentioned that building tenants can also shrink their amount of space, if need be, which is a rarity.
In addition to providing fertile ground for entrepreneurs, The CoRE also houses the regional offices of several companies who want to be close to interstates 64 and 75 for traveling purposes, including that of Whiting Turner. The research campus is located near the I- 64/75 intersection at the Newtown Pike exit.
The CoRE is currently home to nine organizations of various sizes and industries.
One of the main tenants on the first floor’s lab space is UK’s Equine Analytical Chemistry Lab. Directed by UK professor Scott Stanley, the lab conducts drug testing of horses for clients from the equine industry.
Walking down the hallway, you can see tall glass windows the size of the wall, allowing passers by to look in without disturbing those working in the lab.
It’s a fitting location for the lab, considering the 735 acres that Coldstream sits on were, at one point, the grounds of a horse farm that produced the first winner of Kentucky Derby, Aristides.
Currently, more than 2,200 employees from 50 organizations either work or live on the research campus, which still has plenty of room for expansion.
In fact, Ward said there are already plans in the works to build a similar facility across the street from The CoRE when the need arises.
