An entrepreneurial spirit drives the growing, ever-changing business community in the City of Alachua.
By Jewell Tomazin
Alachua is a hub for innovation in biotechnology and life sciences. Here, entrepreneurs’ ideas develop into technological and scientific advancements that make the world a healthier and better place.
UF Innovate | Accelerate’s world-class incubator, Sid Martin Biotech, is located in Alachua. Sid Martin supports these budding entrepreneurs by providing shareable high-tech equipment and other resources as they turn those ideas into successful ventures that generate tens of millions of dollars of revenue each year. Sid Martin operates at 100% capacity with a lengthy waiting list, which illustrates the field’s potential for continued growth in coming years.
UF Innovate | Accelerate at Sid Martin Biotech
Sid Martin anchors Progress Park, one of the largest biotech clusters in Florida. Sid Martin and its ability to cultivate companies’ growth is the cornerstone to success in Progress Park. A unique alignment with community schools, including specialized biotech and life science programs at the middle and high school level, as well as a degree program at Santa Fe College’s Perry Center location in Alachua, also helps fuel the cluster.
- $10.9 billion invested capital
- $76.3 million total annual revenue
- 98 products launched and commercialized
- 84% of clients remain a viable company five years after graduation
- $78,051 average wage rate, which is 34% higher than the Florida average
- More than 252 residential companies assisted
- Recipients of nine international awards and designated one of the 20 InBIA Soft Landings programs
- Three-time Incubator of the Year winner, named by the International Business Innovation Association, and no other incubator in the world has garnered this distinction more than once
- Inside the facility:
- $1.7 million of valuable shared scientific equipment
- 32,546 square feet
- 22 wet labs
- 13 active biotech companies
- 8 executive offices
Progress Park is home to 38 companies that employ roughly 1,200 people.
Thermo Fisher Scientific: Thermo Fisher is a world leader in serving science, with annual revenue exceeding $25 billion. Their global team of more than 75,000 colleagues delivers an unrivaled combination of innovative technologies, purchasing convenience and pharmaceutical services through their industry-leading brands. Their customers help accelerate life sciences research, solve complex analytical challenges, improve patient diagnostics and therapies or increase productivity in their laboratories.
RTI Surgical: This global, industry-leading manufacturer creates surgical implants with expertise in tissue and biologics. Some examples of specialties these implants are produced for include dental, plastic and reconstructive surgery, sports medicine, spine, trauma and urology/urogynecology.
Axogen: Axogen provides solutions for patients who suffer damage to peripheral nerves. The company works with surgeons and researchers primarily in the fields of hand surgery, reconstructive plastic surgery and oral and maxillofacial surgery.
Lacerta Therapeutics: This biotech company provides options for AAV-based gene therapies, targeting medical conditions including pompe disease, a genetic disorder; ataxias, a rare mitochondrial disorder; and glioblastoma, a common and aggressive brain cancer.
Adjacent to Progress Park is Foundation Park, a 43,833-square-foot life sciences research facility where the Applied Genetic Technologies Corporation, UF Biotility and AavantiBio reside. This facility opened in 2016 and is just Phase 1 of Foundation Park, with plenty of accommodations for future growth.
As Progress Park expands, with the additions of Foundation Park and soon another development — The Convergence Research Park — the area has begun to go by a new name, the Progress District. This new name encompasses all the individual research parks, multipurpose developments and facilities within the same area. Additional expansion of the Progress District is in process and will bring elements of ecotourism that will complement everything that the area has to offer.
A short drive down U.S. Highway 441, located just minutes from Progress Park, is San Felasco Tech City, an innovative live, work, play community that opened in 2019. SFTC has brought modern business space, housing options and sustainable technology to the growing community of researchers, scientists and entrepreneurs.
Co-founders Mitch Glaeser and Rich Blaser created SFTC to help make Greater Gainesville’s business landscape more innovative, functional and affordable, with the ultimate goal of retaining and attracting more local businesses and workforce talent. This is key to keeping technology jobs local, not only providing space for companies to move into, but also plenty of room to grow.
Abundant space is available within SFTC, ranging from 2,500 square feet up to 210,000 square feet. Commercial units include options for light manufacturing space, wet and dry lab space, plus office space ranging from Class A to urban warehouse.
Becoming an Even Bigger Center for Business
With so many high-tech and global companies residing in Alachua, many professionals travel in and out of the area on a regular basis. Alachua has two business-class hotels ready to serve these traveling professionals, and there are plans for three to four more to be constructed in the near future.
City leadership has done an excellent job staying ahead of infrastructure needs, enabling this commercial growth so it can continue to accelerate. Recently expanded water, wastewater and electrical infrastructure has increased abundant capacity to ensure growth can continue uninhibited for the next several years.
After being awarded a $6.77 million Florida Job Growth Grant from the State, the City designed and constructed the San Felasco Parkway in 2020, which connects County Road 241 and Progress Park. The Parkway, phase one of a master-planned roadway that will ultimately parallel U.S. Highway 441 for several miles, opened the door for 280 acres of shovel-ready land primed for residential, technology and commercial development.
Inside The Convergence
The next big step in Alachua’s development is on the horizon: The Convergence. This mixed-use, community-oriented development broke ground in January 2022. It will include residential and commercial space, a graduate incubatorscale-up facility to complement Sid Martin Biotech, retail and other amenities that all expand upon the foundation of the biotech and life science ecosystem.
The Convergence development will be an innovative live, work, play concept that is contiguous to Progress Park. The Convergence is in the early stages of development, which includes construction of the development’s anchor, Momentum Labs, a scale-up facility graduate incubator that will create space for companies graduating from Sid Martin Biotech to move on to the next stage of incubation. The alignment of these two incubators highly increases the odds for those companies to ultimately put down roots in Alachua. Concept Companies is the build-to-suit commercial real estate developer behind the Convergence project.
Convergence at a Glance
- 420 to 550 acres
- More than 54,000 square feet of space at Momentum Labs — a scale-up facility graduate incubator anchoring the development
- 10,000-square-foot Conference and Meeting Center
- 1,000 residential units
- 3,000,000 square feet of mixed-use commercial space, including retail
Sid Martin Biotech is the initial stage of incubation for biotech entrepreneurs to bring their ideas to fruition and form startup companies. These startups spend several years growing and commercializing before they are ready to take the leap and move into their own commercial space. However, sometimes, startups are ready to graduate from the incubator, but are not quite ready or equipped with the necessary capital for their own building. This is where Momentum Labs comes in.
Momentum Labs will serve as a graduate incubatorscale-up facility for startups, most of which will come from Sid Martin. This close partnership will ensure a seamless transition for startups to scale up into a flexible space, where their business can continue growing. Like Sid Martin, Momentum Labs will provide access to shared equipment so young businesses do not have to make these big purchases up front, which enables them to reach their potential.
“Our solution, Momentum Labs, will take down some of the barriers so many young companies have difficulty overcoming,” said Brian Crawford, CEO of Concept Companies. “This will also increase the likelihood of these businesses remaining local and adding jobs to our area, especially as they get to that next stage of commercialization.”
As a “next step” facility, Momentum Labs will provide resources specialized for up-and-coming startups. Kyla Frye, director Director of Science & Technology Ecosystems for Concept Companies, explains the nature of this support more in depth.
“We’re not going to be as hands-on in the coaching and consulting process as the incubator is, but we’re still there, alongside them, helping them get connected to the right mentors and to the right capital sources, making sure their strategy is still in alignment,” Frye said. “We want to make sure we’re still providing those extra tools and resources they need coming out of the incubator until they’re out on their own.”
The concept behind Momentum Labs is new and forward-thinking, as very few “next step” incubators exist around the world.
A major goal behind Momentum Labs is to improve startups’ ability to stay within Greater Gainesville, rather than needing to relocate elsewhere. This type of support plays a key role in achieving this goal, but not the only role. Other aspects of life at The Convergence, including the quality-of-life factors and affordable housing opportunities, will surely be important contributors to workforce recruitment and retention.
Access to Talent Pipeline
Alachua’s educational institutions and biotech community have an excellent relationship, resulting in a steady stream of local talent.
Santa Fe High School has a magnet program called the Institute of Biotechnology. Many Progress District companies serve on the advisory board for this esteemed magnet, working directly with educators to shape curriculum and provide support.
This school year, younger students will join in the head start toward a bioscience career path. Mebane Middle School debuts its biomedical magnet in 2022-23.
Mebane, W.W. Irby Elementary School and Alachua Elementary School will adopt a full STEAM curriculum, which stands for science, technology, engineering, arts and math, this coming school year.
In addition, higher education institutions have a physical presence in Progress Park and work closely with businesses there. Of course, Sid Martin is part of the University of Florida, and there is also Santa Fe College’s Perry Center for Emerging Technologies, an industrial complex focusing on emerging technology degrees. Both institutions have students graduate each year and begin careers at local businesses within the biotech cluster.
Whether growing up locally or being recruited here from around the world, there are ample opportunities for upward mobility within the City of Alachua. Median income is also higher here than other municipalities in, and around, Greater Gainesville.
Whether it is young folks aspiring to build a lucrative career without relocating or professionals seeking personal growth, the development of Alachua’s biotech industry or the city’s growth as a whole, has all the ingredients for a future trending upward — with no signs of slowing down.