Engineering Complex And The Challenges Of Change Report

My insiders say that the the University of Windsor Board will be voting on a location for the Engineering Complex early next week.

Count on it going downtown! As the Star reported several months ago:

"The university has been under intense pressure from the city and the downtown business community to establish a downtown campus."

But with Board Chair, Dave Cooke, a big fan of downtown, where else would it go:

• "Dave Cooke when he and finance czar Floyd Laughren overuled top civil servants and insisted that the interim casino would be built downtown, not out at the racetrack where the bureaucracy was demanding it go. "

How about this:

• "Former provincial cabinet minister Dave Cooke, a ferocious advocate of a downtown arena on the so-called Western Super Anchor site...
  
  Cooke believes the proposed downtown urban village is a pipe dream, given the decline in the housing market, but remains a believer in an arena/multiuse facility that would produce spin-off benefits."

Add in a bit of "politicing" behind the scenes, mix in the needs of a President who wants a "legacy" other then being President for years of the bottom-ranked University in Ontario and top it off with the fact that many of the Board members are also University staff who have to get along with University Management. You see what I mean. It is a no-brainer.

In passing, I wonder if any Board members who have dealings with the City directly will recuse themselves from the vote since the City is involved. Would there be a conflict?

However, before the vote is taken, Board members may want to take a look at this Report. I will wager that very few of them have any idea what this Report is all about. It only came out I believe in January, about 5 months after the Economic Summit Conference ended. That is a short time period for a Commission that took so long to discover it had no brochures to hand out to investors!

They should look at it given the role of one of their faculty members.

• "The Windsor Essex Development Commission, with major financial support from the Ontario Ministry of Economic Development and Trade, hosted a first ever summit of community stakeholders interested and involved in the economic development of the Windsor Essex region on August 24, 2007."

I must admit that I do not remember seeing very much about the outcome of this meeting and I just happened to find by chance a copy of this report. Presumably, it must make a lot of sense and the people who were invited to speak must be experts in their fields.

I am bringing it to your attention only because of one section of the report, a section dealing with Dr. Mark Meldrum, professor of entrepreneurship with the Odette School of Business at the University of Windsor. He talked about the partnership between the auto company Saab, the local university and local government. Clearly, that was designed as a model for Windsor and it is something I believe that makes a lot of sense. The professor is working on plans for an incubator which will provide start-ups with both administrative support and leased quarters.

Take a look at what was written in the report about what he said:

• "Dr. Mark Meldrum, from the Odette School of Business at the University of Windsor, presented “The Saab Story” (see Appendix 2) which described a community in Sweden facing a dismal economic future that had its fortunes reversed by a business incubator in Linkoping, Sweden that was created as a joint venture by the Swedish company Saab, the local university and local government. The “triple helix” effect of academia, business and government working together was the key to the success of this model. More than 100 spin-off companies have been created from university-based research and Linkoping has created a 70 hectare technology park which currently houses more than 400 technology intensive companies. Dr. Meldrum challenged the Windsor Essex region to develop new models of cooperation. He also used the analogy of making a movie to explain how everyone involved with an initiative must be on the same page, essentially “making the same movie.”

Do you know what the most important point is? Come on, in the Mayor's terms "Spit it out!" It is the fact that a 70 hectare technology park was created.

Remember the BLOG I did on the technology zone in Raleigh/Durham, North Carolina. It was stated:

• "The Research Triangle Park, now 7,000 acres, was formed in 1959 on scrub farmland located midway between three major universities -- Duke, North Carolina and North Carolina State."

The Southern US is not slow either in regard to automotive research:

• "BMW, the state of South Carolina and Clemson University formed a partnership to establish a premiere automotive/motorsport research center in Greenville. The Clemson University International Center for Automotive Research is located on a 250-acre campus along I-85"

BMW partnered with a big research centre. Toyota gave our University a car!

Why is this South Carolina centre a significant concern:

• "There are more automotive manufacturing companies within 500-mile radius of Greenville, South Carolina than around Detroit."

How about Milwaukee and their joining together of business and University:

• "The Milwaukee County Research Park Corporation (MCRPC) is a non-profit organization created to manage the development of a university-related research park on 175 acres of Milwaukee County owned land in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin. The Research Park will nurture technology-based companies, strengthen Milwaukee County's business base, create new employment opportunities, and facilitate technology commercialization. This objective will be accomplished by bringing together the substantial academic, intellectual, business and entrepreneurial resources of the metropolitan Milwaukee area in a physical environment conducive to such activities."

Pfizer Global Research & Development in the health sector has four major locations across the United States and England. Facilities in which they are located range up to 390 acres in size.

What do all of those projects have in common... space. Acres and acres and acres of land to allow expansion. None of them are located in a downtown that would limit the amount of space that is available. What are we going to do, build skyscrapers for research facilities? I hardly think so.

But in Windsor, we talk about a downtown Complex that will be hemmed in if it ever tried to expand. Does that make sense? It doesn't to me. Then why are we talking about it? It should be obvious. It's the politics of expediency. It's all designed to make us forget that there is no downtown arena and there is no urban village.

Neither the University nor the Provincial Government should give in to pressure from City Hall. To do so would be a disservice to students, industry, the University, Government and the citizens of the City of Windsor.

However, next week, there will be some joy probably at City Hall when the vote is announced. It will be trumpeted as a major accomplishment for the Mayor. He will be pleased. And so will the property owners located near where the Complex will be constructed as their property values shoot up dramatically! Such good fortune.