Startup District

[Spokes]

Startup district
May 21, 2014 | Bob Vrbanac | Waterloo Chronicle | Link

It’s still in the idea stage, but the City of Waterloo and University of Waterloo are in discussions to turn the former BlackBerry campus on Columbia Street into the gateway for a new startup district.

The disposition of the former real estate holdings of BlackBerry have been a hot topic since the Waterloo-based company announced plans in January to divest itself of the properties. The University of Waterloo was the first to jump on the opportunity spending $41 million to purchase five office buildings and a combined 300,000 square feet of space from the BlackBerry campus at the corner of Columbia and Phillip Streets.

Two of those building were leased back to BlackBerry for up to five years, and UW spokesman Nick Manning said some of the other office space is being converted to administrative use by the university for occupancy in the coming months.

But Manning said the university is also early in the process of investigating it’s potential as a startup district that would be both a recruitment tool for the school while supporting the innovation and commercialization of ideas that are coming from Waterloo’s campus.

“The IBM Smarter Cities took a look at Northdale and the ideas come very much from our participation in that,” said Manning about the startup district idea.

Northdale is the neighbourhood just north of the university campus that has been undergoing a transformation from a student ghetto to a mixed use and modern development that hopes to serve the Waterloo of tomorrow. Part of that is to create business and other opportunities to drive that development, and UW is in the thick of that discussion said Manning.

“It’s not just about the corner we own, it’s about thinking about that part of Northdale and exploring opportunities for economic development there,” he said.

The idea that has drawn the most interest is enhancing the services the university provides for entrepreneurship. It’s part of UW’s strategic plan to support programs, specialties and expertise the university creates to foster new businesses.

“How can we use those new buildings and the space that we’ve got in the Columbia and Phillip Street area to enhance the provisions we’ve got for entrepreneurship,” said Manning.

Some of that potential is already coming to fruition. Tim Ellis, former CEO of the Waterloo Accelerator Centre, along with his partner Michael Wekerle have purchased the BlackBerry building across the street from the potential startup district as a landing pad for startups. It will also serve as a launching pad for a new $200-million venture capital fund administered by Difference Capital focusing on local startups.

“It’s going to be an incubation hub,” said Justin McFadden, the city’s director of economic development. “That will help the companies grow they’re investing in. They’re going to be a landing pad that will take in companies that they invest in and they will reside there while providing all sorts of mentoring and other services.

“That’s right across the street from the buildings that the University of Waterloo has acquired and is feeding into the discussion about how to evolve that space from the university’s perspective.”

He said there’s been a lot of confidence shown in the area with the tentative sale of the rest of BlackBerry’s properties to Spear Street Capital for $305 million. Spear Street Capital is a major player in the real estate market in Silicon Valley in California and other tech hubs in the U.S. “That’s a nice endorsement that they’re making with this investment,” said McFadden.

A more formal discussion about the future of the Columbia Street is coming to Waterloo council on July 14.

“An entrepreneurship hub is one of the ideas that is coming to the forefront of that discussion,” said McFadden. “There’s a lot happening that area today and it feeds into turning that into a entrepreneurial, high-tech hub.”