High Tech Economic Development Goes Prairie Style!

Nextedge Provides New Advanced Opportunities for Applied Research Technology

Springfield, OH.  “It was designed in an early style of Frank Lloyd Wright – his Prairie style,” said Simonton, “but that’s where the similarities end. Nextedge was built with one purpose in mind - to attract 21st Century companies and to garner new, highly compensated, professional, research and technology jobs in our community.”

Aligned with Greater Springfield and region’s strategic economic development, Chris Simonton, led then Laughlin Scanlan’s (reorganized as Tectonic, LLC) design and construction management team through the development of the Nextedge Applied Research and Technology Park.

The hand-picked team assembled by Simonton was like a who-who in local real estate development and landscape architecture. The team included architects Miller Watson, MSI Design (planning, urban design, landscape architecture), Korda/Nemeth Engineering – all from Columbus, Ohio. Tom Franzen, Springfield’s economic development administrator, led City government officials and Chamber leaders that included members of the Community Improvement Corporation (CIC), as well as directors and advisors of the Turner Foundation, Springfield, Ohio.

This is a highly competitive new development in Springfield, one that has the potential to leverage the region’s vast industrial, scientific and educational resources in a unique environment conducive to the development of innovative new technologies and to the secure management of data. What the development of Nextedge, we can offer today’s performance-intensive companies with an edge -- a new level or “next-edge” of doing business, realized from a highly secure environment, a reliable infrastructure, redundant state-of-the-art connectivity, a strategic location, access to a technology-ready workforce – a very strong overall economic value.

Chris Simonton has ultimately, establish himself as a highly skilled, next-level real estate development leader. With Nextedge we are targeting companies, that would likely never consider this area of Ohio, companies related to leading new economy business – specifically; IT, Data Center, Data Mining, Data Management, Homeland Security, Biotechnology, Supercomputing, and Modeling and Simulation. These types of technology companies tend to cluster, like Research Triangle, sharing resources where it makes economic and business sense.

Nextedge Applied Research and Technology Park was opened in October of 2006 to much fanfare that included local government and civic leaders, and dignitaries from around the state. Senator Austria and Congressman Hobson recognized the Nextedge Applied Research Technology Park as one of the most successful and important economic developments projects for the advancement of high technology business in the State of Ohio. Examples sited were the commitments from its new tenants; AVETeC... Advanced Virtual Engine Test Cell, Inc., (AVETeC) a not-for-profit public benefit research organization and Mills-Morgan Development, Ltd. – local business owners and philanthropists Bob Mills and Sam Morgan.

The region surrounding Nextedge is prime with available, technically ready workforce. With the number of colleges and universities in the area, as well as technology-oriented companies, professionals exist for all types of technical functions from engineering to research to network and data management. Area colleges and universities are eager to team with companies to further develop their curriculum to align with tenant requirements. In some cases, new technical centers are being built to enable curriculum to be created to align with their changing skills requirements, there is a keen interest in working with companies to develop tailored educational and continuing-education programs.

The mission of Nextedge is to provide an environment that attracts and retains technology workers from the region and enables collaboration among the organizations that co-locate in the park. Nextedge is designed to deliver business advantages tenants seek, whether workforce, economic, infrastructure or location. It is strategically located in the heart of Ohio’s technology corridor, and is designed to meet the specialized requirements of the “new economy” technology and applied research companies.

Nextedge will compliment and complete the “last mile” of Ohio’s leading technology corridor

spanning from Cincinnati to Columbus – effectively “linking” Southwest and Central Ohio’s technical assets to create a highly marketable region within the Midwest. “Ohio’s Third Frontier Network provides the Nextedge Technology Park with redundant and extremely high-speed access to the Internet.” stated Simonton, “Springfield’s investment in Nextedge will enable our community to attract leading technology companies now and into the future.”

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