Unwanted by its owner, the University of Nebraska Foundation, and practically disowned by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, the Nebraska Technology Park is for sale.
It still is home to a number of bustling businesses that started there, GeneSeek, for example, small companies, technology nonprofits such as the AIM Institute and the Nebraska Center for Excellence in Electronics. Larger tenants moved in as well over the years, notably Dell Services and the Verizon Wireless call center, to sites used to help attract them. Cabela's and its credit card operation, World's Foremost Bank, bought and occupies its own portion of the park across the street.
Opened in 1997, the 121-acre tech park in northwest Lincoln has gone from an infant business incubator, a place for UNL researchers to start businesses, to a commercial real estate asset managed by NAI/FMA Realty.
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The land is worth millions of dollars, if the county assessor's estimates are any indication. It lists the land at almost $40 million.Ìý
Keith Miles, vice president and general counsel, said the foundation has not had the property appraised recently.
"That is part of our evaluation process in considering options for sale or development," he said in an email.Ìý
About 48 acres of space along Interstate 80 between Northwest First and Northwest 12th streets still is open.
The Technology Park's history goes back to the late 1980s, when the city considered annexing the bankrupt Highlands Sanitary Improvement District, which included the land the tech park occupies now. The foundation spent $300,000 on 97 acres of undeveloped land called The Grasslands, which had been intended to be an industrial park. Then it bought more land a few years later.Ìý
The Technology Park emerged as a partnership among private business, the city of Lincoln, the foundation and UNL.
It would appear to be one of those private/public "win-wins" that are so commonly sanctified. The foundation still considers it a success story but won't discuss its operating finances.
Almost a year ago, Interim NU Foundation CEO John Gottschalk wrote a letter to tenants that said: "While acknowledging the park's tremendous value to the community, the foundation has decided to begin the process of divesting itself of the park to focus solely on its primary mission to raise and manage private funds for the advancement of the University of Nebraska."
Gottschalk reassured the tenants the plan to divest would not disrupt their operations or their leases and that the park's governing covenants would remain in place.Ìý
Dell and Verizon lease their buildings from two owners, Cole of Lincoln LLC and MDG Lincoln, respectively. The Technology Development Center, a multi-tenant building, is owned by the foundation. One Technology Place is a multi-tenant building owned by Ameritas. And the Nebraska Center for Electronics Excellence building is owned by Southeast Community College. All the developed land is leased to building owners for 60 years.Ìý
Unstated in the letter from Gottschalk was the university's devotion of attention to its new golden child, Nebraska Innovation Campus, the research and development project on the site of what was State Fair Park. It is directly adjacent to the UNL campus, not several miles away, as is the tech park.
University administrators telegraphed this apparent change of plans almost six years ago.
Technology Park President Stephen Frayser, who left and took a job at another technology park in Texas last year, told the Journal Star in 2008 he was confident the park would meet its 30-year build-out plan well ahead of schedule.
But Technology Park leaders, which included private-sector representatives on an executive committee, were wondering then whether and how the park would fit into the university's ambitious plans for Innovation Campus.
University emails obtained by the Journal Star at the time showed a relationship between the Technology Park and NU that became increasingly ambiguous as the university's focus shifted to the promise of Innovation Campus, now under construction.
"I'm not sure what I think about the park's future," NU President J.B. Milliken wrote Aug. 31, 2007, to Pete Kotsiopulos, then-vice president for university affairs. "But it seems like they decided what they want to be when they let in low-level, non-tech jobs from Verizon. I don't blame them, but seems like renting space is the goal now. I am far more interested in the contiguous space around each of the campuses. … We're very grateful for what they've done. And open to whatever ideas they have."
Another email, dated Nov. 14, 2007, hinted at hurt feelings. Writing to three administrators, Milliken opened a summary of a meeting with Technology Park leaders with this: "They began by saying that for years they felt neglected by the university, and they wanted to know if there was a role we wanted them to play."
The park was conceived as an outlet for businesses spun off from university research, the same mission touted for Innovation Campus.
By the mid 2000s, the park no longer was presuming to house only research start-ups, but it was attracting larger tenants, as a practical matter, Frayser said at the time.Ìý
"There's an underlying reality: You've got to pay the bills," he said.
UNL Chancellor Harvey Perlman said then he envisioned Technology Park relating directly to Innovation Campus -- companies spun off from UNL research could start at Innovation Campus. Then, if they seem promising, they could "graduate" to new homes at Technology Park, Perlman said.
"There is every reason to think that we can have a successful Technology Park and a successful Innovation Campus," Milliken concluded in 2008.
One member of the executive committee, who asked not to be identified, said recently that the group suggested turning the whole tech park over to UNL, but the university declined.
As recently as two years ago, when the park was observing its 15th anniversary, the Bureau of Business Research at UNL did a study that described its value in dollars and cents to the community.
Technology Park made an estimated $589.6 million annual impact on the Nebraska economy, according to the study, which focused on the combined economic impact of tenant companies in the park, companies in the business incubator program and companies that graduated from the incubator program and remain in Nebraska.
The park had 17 organizations with more than 2,500 employees then. Today, it has 18 companies and 2,500 people working.
The study didn't reflect the economic effects of World's Foremost Bank's 40,000-square-foot expansion. That was expected to make Technology Park's estimated annual impact $611 million.
NU Foundation spokeswoman Dorothy Endacott said the park still is a success on its own terms.
"Tech Park is also a success to us in that we stayed focused -- then and now -- on our primary mission to serve and support the university," she said in an email. "We became involved in Tech Park at the request of the university, and we now are focusing our attention on Innovation Campus, a top university priority.
"The bottom line is, our primary mission is to advance the university, and even though Tech Park is an economic success, neither economic development nor real estate development is our primary mission," she said.
The foundation would not provide details on its financial investment in the park.
Gottschalk's letter said the foundation is in no big hurry. Miles reinforced that, and said the plan to divest has nothing to do with the foundation's recent change in leadership.
"We have intentionally taken our time in considering how best to move forward to maintain and enhance the quality of the park’s development," Miles said in an email. "We have considered this for some time now, dating back to soon after UNL began to plan for Innovation Campus, well before the foundation's leadership changes in 2012."
Ryan Spaulding, executive director of the Nebraska Center for Excellence in Electronics, a tenant, loves the place and is interested in its future, especially if it changes hands.
"It's a great tech park and if they're going to develop Innovation Campus, you're going to need a tech park," heÌýsaid. "Absolutely. You have your university coming up with great ideas, we're the ones validating those ideas, and you have Innovation Campus."
