“This can really anchor and catalyze the east side of town,” Warasila says. “As Durham shifts to the east a bit, this becomes the node, or the center of that.”
Ted Conner, vice president of economic development and community sustainability at the Durham Chamber of Commerce, says Strata’s pick validates that potential.
“It’s really attracting a broad range of companies,” he says of the campus. “It’s certainly proving that this part of Durham is ready and open for business.”
And a campus like this as an option is important, as the county is seeing an overall uptick in interest from relocating and expanding companies.
While non-disclosure agreements prevent him from releasing specifics, he says 2018 has seen “some high quality visits and we continue to see the high quality visits.”
And downtown “is clearly the hottest area in Durham for real estate,” he adds.
Andre Pettigrew, director of Durham's Office of Economic and Workforce Development, says industry interest in clusters such as the Golden Belt could lead to more job-creating startups, too. Already, enterprises and area universities have fueled technology and life science entrepreneurship at places such as the American Tobacco Campus and Durham Innovation District, he says. Strata could help do that for cleantech in Durham.
“We’re creating an entrepreneurial environment that is, in fact, manufacturing new ideas and new companies," he says.
Warasila sees many parallels between Golden Belt and American Tobacco Campus – where, at the beginning, the vision was hard to articulate.
“It wasn’t a sure thing… and look at it now,” he says. “If you’re lucky, you have the chance to work on something or be part of something that’s bigger… If everyone pitches in, it can be bigger than what we’re envisioning – it can be a catalyzing, transformative project for that whole side of town.”
Link to original article:
https://www.bizjournals.com/triangle/news/2018/08/09/architect-strata-solar-golden-belt-a-catalyst-for.html