'Innovation center' outlined

It's an idle eyesore now, but an old mattress factory in Charleston's East Central neighborhood could be humming in the next year or two with cutting-edge medical research firms and other startup technology businesses.

City and state officials Wednesday unveiled plans to transform the long-vacant factory into an "innovation center," with offices and laboratories at 645 Meeting St., just north of the Ravenel Bridge.

The idea is to provide inexpensive "incubator" space for fledgling technology entrepreneurs, such as Medical University of South Carolina scientists whose research can be spun off into businesses that in turn will create good-paying jobs.

Charleston Mayor Joe Riley praised the project, saying the life-sciences industry "needs special space."

"It needs clinically approved space. It needs high-tech space. It needs expensive space," he said.

An estimated $5 million overhaul of the city-owned building is expected to take about a year, said Bill Mahoney, chief executive officer of the S.C. Research Authority, which will finance the improvements and manage the 28,000-square-foot property.

"I know of eight or nine entities that could fill the building today if we had it finished," said Mahoney, whose agency is self-funded and receives no tax appropriations.

Proponents of technology incubators say they are key to cultivating a "knowledge-based economy."

"It's another piece of the puzzle," said Stephen M. Lanier, a pharmacology professor and associate provost for research at MUSC.

MUSC President Ray Greenberg said the role of an incubator is to nurture cash-starved startups during the most critical stage of their development. The hope is that the firms can grow and create jobs when they are ready to stand up and move out, he said.

"But you have to have this infrastructure," he said.

Also, the collaboration and industry contacts that incubators can generate could help draw the attention of venture capitalists and other financiers toward Charleston.

For years local economic development officials have said an incubator will help expand the region's small knowledge-based economy.

Private developers have largely balked at the concept, partly because of the high costs.

Labs require special gas lines, chemical-resistant floors and other pricey extras.

And the financial risks are high because incubator tenants tend to have a high failure rate.

Mahoney said the Research Authority is fully aware of that going in, and it is taking a long view of its investment in the Meeting Street building.

"We're going to eat it a bit on the front end," he said.

Mahoney also acknowledged that the so-called technology transfer industry is a high-risk venture, and that some of the firms that lease space in the incubator will fail.

"In any group of 10 companies, if you can get two or three to be successful then you're doing very well. ... But there will be fallout," he said.

The hope is that the Charleston innovation center will enable the region to retain those businesses that do make the leap from the lab to the marketplace, rather than let them slip away to the nation's bigger high-tech hot-beds, such as North Carolina's Research Triangle Park.

Reach John McDermott at 937-5572 or jmcdermott@postandcourier.com.