Dave Hardy makes a comparison to Research Triangle Park in North Carolina.  Eric Eyre says: “The University of Pittsburgh’s Applied Research Center, called U-PARC, appears to share the most similarities with the tech park in South Charleston.”  Other suggested comparisons: the Oklahoma State University-affiliated national sensor-testing center, the Michigan State University-led “bioeconomy” research and development center, and the University of Michigan’s biomedical research campus. Please, everyone, stop drinking the Tech Park water and answer some common sense questions.

• Is the combination of West Virginia University and Marshall University anywhere near the presence in research that the Duke University/University of North Carolina/North Carolina State University triumvirate are?  The University of Pittsburgh?  Michigan State University or the University of Michigan?  Let’s review one set of rankings: Among public universities, University of Michigan – 5, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill – 6, University of Pittsburgh – 11, Michigan State University – 22, North Carolina State University – 27.  Then, of course, you have Duke University and Carnegie-Mellon University near the top of the private institutions list.  Now check out WVU’s and MU’s rankings.  (This assignment requires persistence, folks.  Don’t quit so soon.)
• So we’re left with research mid-tier Oklahoma State University and the smallish ConocoPhillips-gifted national sensor testing center in Ponca City.  But at least Stillwater and Ponca City are within commuting distance of one another.  How about the South Charleston Technology Park?  There’s a smallish Marshall University Graduate College that doesn’t focus on STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) education next door, Marshall University an hour west, and West Virginia University two-and-three-quarters hours northeast.  Does the West Virginia Higher Education Policy Commission employ a single STEM researcher?  No.
• Next, I challenge remaining wishers and a hopers and a prayers who suggest that South Charleston can have a strong research park to take that two-and-three-quarter hour trip to Morgantown and visit their “research park” off Route 705 (aka “Where the Broomsedge Grows”).  Then go to Kinetic Park in Huntington for another tour.  If WVU, which has West Virginia’s strongest research presence, cannot make a go of a research park in its own back door, neither can South Charleston with none of Morgantown’s advantages besides a few more empty buildings.
• Finally, please note that there’s another dog that isn’t barking.  And that’s West Virginia University.  If any organization is critical to the Tech Park’s success, it’s WVU.  Where are they?  Where is MU?  Short of a MAJOR commitment by WVU, the longshot possibility becomes a virtual impossibility.

Having grown up in the Charleston area, I too would like to engage in a little wishin’ and a hopin’ and a prayin’, but my inferior Lincoln County education only taught me thinkin’, and it doesn’t take much thinkin’ to realize that a Research Triangle Park vision for the Tech Park is a pipe dream. It’s no accident that technology parks thrive only near major research universities.  We need to have realistic expectations for the South Charleston Technology Park’s possibility.

As I predicted, instead of unveiling their well-thought-out plan for the South Charleston Tech Center, leaders are scrambling to develop a plan.  One minute the Lottery Commission is moving there; the next minute it is not.  One minute a “mere” $1.8 million will be needed to operate the site; the next minute it’s closer to $7.8 million, and that doesn’t include renovations.  One minute Building 2000 needs to be leveled; the next minute it does not.

On the latter front, the Governor absurdly announced that the West Virginia Higher Education Policy Commission and Council for Community and Technical College Education would move to the site, while at the same time announcing that the only building that logically could house them would be leveled.

And now we have a TWO-PAGE environmental report that identifies contaminants and says “further evaluation is recommended,” but concludes that there are no “unacceptable human health risks” despite WVU’s conclusion a mere three years ago that the risks were serious.

The saddest thing here: No one apparently learned ANYTHING from the Governor’s 2006 announcement that WVU Institute of Technology was going to relocate its engineering program to this very site.  When I learned of that plan shortly before the Governor’s State-of-the-State Address announcement in 2006, I asked the leaders some of the most basic questions imaginable about how they were going to operate the site and meet basic student needs.  I was stunned to discover they had no answers.  I urged the leaders not to rush an announcement without a meaningful plan in place, but no one listened … and the rest is history. The Governor, WVU and WVUIT leaders made it very easy for the “Take Back Tech” folks to shut down that effort.

A mere four years later everyone is in a mad dash to make a multi-million decision by Friday.   As occurred in 2006, basic due diligence has not been performed.  And that’s a shame because the Governor finds himself in a precarious situation.  Take a wild gamble that property that Dow could not make profitable can be made profitable by the State of West Virginia and the environmental hazards really aren’t that bad, or risk the loss of important jobs unless MATRIC and other tenants can find suitable space somewhere else.

Charleston Gazette reporter Eric Eyre quotes Paul Arbogast, chairman of tech park tenant Mid-Atlantic Technology Research and Innovation Center (MATRIC), saying, “it’s going to be an easy decision.”  I couldn’t agree more with Mr. Arbogast’s statement, if not his conclusion, if the decision truly has to be made by Friday.  I urge everyone involved to BEG, GROVEL, or do whatever is necessary to get Dow to give them two months to perform the due diligence that should have been performed months and years ago.  I’d personally even support having the State pay Dow for the two additional months of financial losses (about $1.3 million?) so it has time to get its due diligence house in order.  Otherwise, the State may lose a lot more than $1.3 million.

It’s no accident that Dow is not only offering to “give away” this property but also throw in $10 million to boot.  And it’s no accident that no one learned anything from the events of 2006.  How sad!

• Dow Chemical Co. pays $10 million annually ($7.8 million net) for upkeep, but the State’s going to manage to reduce that amount to $1.8-$1.9 million?  Who says the government isn’t more efficient than the private sector?!?  Still a deficit mind you, but a pretty amazing proposed accomplishment by the agile and efficient public sector.
• The State is going to tear down an old building.  Who’s paying for that?
• Dow is throwing in $10 million to get rid of the property?!?  Because they’re such strong supporters of the State of West Virginia and the Kanawha Valley?  Someone might want to check with the Valley’s many former Dow employees.
• The State will use federal stimulus money to convert one building into a “green” building and save $1 million in heating costs?  How much will that cost?  How long will it take to accomplish?
• “I still think it could serve as a catalyst for West Virginia University and Marshall University.”  Just like the West Virginia University Research Park and Huntington’s Kinetic Park?
• “He said it is projected that by the end of 2012 the park will be home to 300 jobs with an average salary of $100,000 a year.”  I’d love to see the basis for those projections.
• “The governor said he’s asked stakeholders to come back Monday with recommendations on what should be torn down, renovated or otherwise changed.  He promised that all of the figures will be made public … WHEN THE STATE HAS A FINAL PLAN.”  (Emphasis mine, of course.)

I think we have our answer.  The Governor did not need to use the word “FINAL.”  I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.  I hope everyone can come up with a plan before next Tuesday.

Dow obviously has determined that it cannot operate the South Charleston Tech Center profitably, whether as a research park or as far more mundane rental property. Potential buyers that Dow has courted over the years surely have reached much the same conclusion, or the property would have sold long ago.

So what makes the “Friends of the Tech Park” think they are going to be able to turn things around? Some really basic questions:

• How much revenue does the site currently generate?
• How much does the site currently cost to operate?
• What are the ongoing maintenance costs for the facilities?  The deferred maintenance costs?
• How much additional revenue is going to be generated next year?  Two years from now?  Five years from now?
• Who is going to provide that revenue?  The private sector?  Government agencies?
• What is going to change to make the property a mecca for private sector companies?  Is the “mecca”-nization of the property going to cost anything?  If so, from whence is that money coming?
• How is the property going to be marketed?  Is a “government” park going to attract non-government tenants?
• How is West Virginia’s higher education research establishment, which on its best day is not spoken of in the same breath as North Carolina’s Research Triangle Park research establishment, unless, that is, Charleston Newspapers are providing the coverage, going to support this effort?
• Isn’t the movement of government offices anywhere largely a zero-sum game unless someone expects to hire a lot more government employees?  What’s going to happen to all the rental property currently housing government employees?  Why is this mass move of government agencies a net positive?
• What makes anyone think the Higher Education Policy Commission, which owns a single piece of property that has not been well-maintained, or state government, which owns a lot of poorly maintained properties, is going to be able to turn things around?
• How is the environmental calculus that led West Virginia University to decline a “gift” of much of this property different now?

There might be a beautifully bound plan that answers every last one of these questions in exquisite detail and contains every chart and graph I’d ever want.  But if so, why is no one quoted in the newspapers mentioning it?  And why is no reporter asking for it?

In The Hound of the Baskervilles, Sherlock Holmes solves the case based on the fact that a dog did not bark.  In this case, no one seems to be noticing the eerie silence.

On Sunday, Charleston Gazette reporter Eric Eyre wrote about the Dow Technology Center.  The article was titled “Supporters try to save South Charleston Tech Park,” which says about all that needs to be said about the current status of the Tech Center.

Unlike Kinetic Park and the WVU Research Park, which have never succeeded in getting off the ground, the Dow Tech Center has a storied past.  Located on a relatively flat area between I-64 and Corridor G in South Charleston, the Union Carbide Tech Center opened in 1949; employed as many as 3,500 chemists, technicians, researchers and engineers in its heyday; and produced more than 30,000 patents worth $18 billion, according to the article.  Intriguingly, this was done in an area without a research university or a significant educational pipeline of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) graduates.  (Nearby West Virginia Tech produced engineering graduates, but not in the quantities or advanced degrees needed to support a major research facility.)

Over the last several decades, the South Charleston Tech Center has fallen on hard times.  With the exception of the Mid-Atlantic Technology Research and Innovation Center (MATRIC), with about 150 employees, not much remains of the Tech Center.  The article quotes a MATRIC employee as saying: “There’s a lot of intellectual capital left in the valley.  This is an ideal place for technology development.  It’s like Research Triangle Park in North Carolina.”  I don’t think this assessment is correct.  While Union Carbide invested millions, if not billions, of dollars in the Tech Center and brought smart people from all over the nation and world to the Kanawha Valley, it is very unlikely that another private sector entity would do the same.  Why not?

• Intellectual Capital.  Unlike Research Triangle Park, which is surrounded by Duke University, the University of North Carolina and North Carolina State University, the Tech Center is surrounded by West Virginia State University and the University of Charleston, neither of which has the kinds of strong STEM programs needed to support the Tech Center, and West Virginia University Institute of Technology, which has some of the programs, but is struggling at best, dying at worst.  Furthermore, WVU-Tech’s last foray in the direction of the Dow Tech Center was an unmitigated disaster; just ask the “Take Back Tech” folks.
• Environmental Issues.  Having been aware of at least two efforts to assess environmental conditions at the Center, I know there are widely divergent opinions.  Clearly, there are serious environmental issues associated with a sediment pond on the property.  Beyond that, some people think the site is quite habitable.  Regardless, any time an environmental cloud hangs over a piece of property, it presents serious challenges for any marketer of that property.
• The Owner.  Dow Chemical, which owns the property, faces a financial dilemma.  It has a series of old buildings on property that is of little use to it now, and there’s no single buyer on the horizon willing to take all the property off its hands.  So rather than continue to maintain buildings that are partially occupied, Dow is beginning to level them to reduce maintenance costs.  Additionally, Dow is not the easiest company with which to deal on property issues, I have been told.

Keeping with our dermatological theme, can West Virginia University and/or Marshall University provide the necessary chemical peel?  No.  Neither institution has the critical research mass needed on its home campus.  If significant institutional resources were redirected to South Charleston, it probably would weaken both institutions’ current research-building efforts.  Additionally, there is little likelihood of a new infusion of external resources at either institution to support such an endeavor.

Can West Virginia’s state government provide the necessary chemical peel?  Not without taking an incredible risk.  If the property ended up in the hands of the State, the State also would inherit a set of old facilities that need to be maintained and some serious environmental questions.  Additionally, the State would have to find a significant number of new tenants for the site.  All one has to do is tour facilities on the Capitol Complex to appreciate what a poor landlord the State historically has been.

What’s the best-case scenario?  Create a consortium of educational and private sector organizations in addition to MATRIC to serve as anchor tenants at the Tech Center.  On the education front, create a higher education center, much like the one in Beckley, which has the potential to thrive and grow, and locate the Kanawha Valley’s new Advanced Technology Center on the site.  On the private sector front, market, market, market the Center to anyone and everyone who might have the slightest interest.  It’s a long shot, but I think it’s probably the best shot we have.