Around The Block

As U of Md., Baltimore opens doors to BioPark Building Two, work

Daily Record, The (Baltimore), Apr 1, 2008 by Robbie Whelan

The second research facility at the University of Maryland, Baltimore’s BioPark opened its doors Monday to a diverse group of tenants, ranging from large biotech firms to community-oriented job training programs.

Mayor Sheila Dixon, Gov. Martin O’Malley, U.S. Sen. Ben Cardin, Rep. Elijah Cummings, and UMB President David J. Ramsay were at the ceremony, which included a symbolic groundbreaking for Building Three, now under construction on a Baltimore Street lot facing the parking garage.

The first BioPark building opened in 2005 on the 800 block of West Baltimore Street, along with a 638-space parking garage. Less than a year after its ribbon-cutting, Building One was fully leased to several large biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies, including SNBL Clinical Pharmacology Center Inc., Alba Therapeutics Corp., FASgen Inc., and the University of Maryland Center for Vascular and Inflammatory Diseases. It now has about 200 employees.

BioPark Building Two, at six stories and 238,000 square feet, is twice as spacious as the first facility, and hosts a diverse array of tenants that ranges from Gliknik, Inc., a cancer treatment developer, and health research firm Westat Inc., to Baltimore City Community College’s Bioscience Institute, and a job training center run by Goodwill Industries.

The structure was built much more quickly than university officials expected.

“At the beginning, we did a feasibility study that said that it would be three or four years for every building, and here we are with three buildings up in that time,” said James L. Hughes, vice president of research and development at UMB.

Funds for the second BioPark building were raised almost entirely from private sources by Wexford Science and Technology, the project’s developer
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