At a new business park off W.Va. 2, not far from the Mason County line, contractors are hard at work. They have the foundation laid and the steel ready, and when they're finished, Huntington may have a perfect lure to bring in new manufacturing companies.
Just off Hal Greer Boulevard in Huntington, forensic scientists are busy testing DNA while officials at Marshall plan to expand their facility and programs. Meanwhile, researchers continue projects such as cell differentiation and development for cancer and cardiovascular research, among other fields.
Some are physical advancements while others are intellectual, but they're equally key to economic development for the Huntington area in 2008, said Jerry McDonald, president of the Huntington Area Development Council.
HADCO hopes a new 100,000-square-foot shell building at the Huntington Area Development Council Business Park, located off W.Va. 2, will attract manufacturers to the area. Construction and financing for the nearly $1.8 million facility is provided by BB&T bank.
"These are magical in a sense," McDonald said of shell buildings. "It's amazing the activity that builds up. In the coming year, I think this site is really going to take off like gangbusters."
The shell building under construction is the largest built so far by HADCO and the first to be built at the new industrial park. The other four shell buildings in Cabell and Wayne counties have been leased or sold to manufacturing companies. They are now home to plants for Harbor Steel, based in Michigan; Allevard Springs of Italy; Okuno International of Japan; and Caprewest Inc. of Spain.
European companies have been especially targeted in recent months.
For every five business prospects that come to town and visit Huntington, four of them are from Europe, McDonald said. Europe has been the focus of activity lately because of the weak value of the American dollar against the euro. The U.S. dollar lost 11 percent in value against the euro last year, the Associated Press reports, as the European common currency soared near $1.50.
Because exports from the 15-nation euro zone are expensive to American buyers right now, and because it's a bargain to invest in U.S. capital projects, West Virginia should be all the more attractive, development officials say. They can make up to 50 percent of their investment in the United States, McDonald said.
On the research front
Meanwhile, construction hopefully will get under way on the research front too within the next year, McDonald said. He expects Huntington to break ground on an addition to Marshall University's Forensic Science Center that would include a new biotechnology incubator.
The facility will provide lab space to expand Marshall University's forensic science program and room for researchers to set up commercial enterprises here in Huntington.
"We're taking on two birds with one stone here," McDonald said. "With this incubator, we're going to capture a lot of the commercialization that comes out of the university. And it will allow us to expand the world class forensic science program at Marshall."
It's going to be a 16,000-square-foot, three-story addition, next to the two-story addition the center already has, said Terry Fenger, director of Marshall's Forensic Science Center.
Marshall is just in the stages of putting together a funding package for the facility, so it has not received official approval it needs from different governing bodies. But plans are well under way.
The first and third floors would be dedicated to the Forensic Science Center, and the second floor will have three incubator labs with their associated offices, he said.
"The idea is to act as an intermediate step between research labs at Marshall and the development of full-scale labs out at KineticPark," Fenger said.
It's an appropriate environment because the center is accredited by the International Standards Organization, which means a lot in the area of economic development, he said.
"When you're developing a product for public use, that's a very important part of the process -- to have an environment conducive for that," he said. "Much of what we do is very applied in nature, and the environment of having applied technologies is conducive to developing research ideas."
Outside of teaching graduate students, there's also a lot of work going on in the current labs at the center.
"One of the things we're involved in as an offshoot of DNA testing is paternity testing and relationship testing," Fenger said. "We do this for immigration purposes. Our lab is also accredited under the American Association of Blood Banks."
That puts this center in Huntington on a list that's available through the State Department, so that when immigrants need blood testing done, they're called upon. One of the factors considered is whether they already have family in the country, and the Forensic Science Center can test to see if someone they've listed as family is a brother, a distant relative or no relation at all.
"We get testing from all over the world. Samples are sent here," Fenger said. It's a project that started four years ago as grant-driven, and is nearing a point where it can become a commercial enterprise.
Another project developed involves computer forensics.
It works with Second Creek Technologies, a business in Barboursville that does computer forensic investigations and preserves electronic data.
The two organizations partner to host training sessions on using computer forensics to investigate crimes such as identity theft and child pornography.
Meanwhile, the graduate forensic science program, which takes 15 to 20 students each year, usually has a waiting list of about 100 and could use some room to grow.
Such efforts as these will occupy the first and third floors of the proposed expansion, and the second floor is for unrelated researchers, perhaps from Marshall or perhaps recruited from elsewhere.
While HADCO spends a lot of time trying to attract new businesses and jobs to Huntington, it's trying to change gears toward providing incentives to grow the intellectual capital here -- to provide the dollars that would draw researchers here who could start with research and end up with viable commercial enterprises.
"That is what will change the face of this community in the long-run" McDonald said. "That's a different focus. This other segment, long-term, will pay major dividends into our community. We have to get into this game.
"In the final analysis, the major asset of this community is Marshall University, and the university and the community are joined at the hip in how they grow."
7-day Archive
