Procurement News Notice |
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| PNN | 7724 |
| Work Detail | An AT&T official announced Tuesday that the Purdue Technology Center of Northwest has been certified as being AT&T fiber-ready, a designation that local and state development officials said gives them another tool in their tool belt to market the 400-acre tech park in Merrillville. AT&T Indiana President Bill Soards said the Merrillville tech park is the third in the Purdue Research Park network to receive the designation, which signifies that the park has fiber-based, high-speed internet. "AT&T has identified tech parks and research parks and made them fiber-ready and wired to attract the jobs and companies we want in our communities," Soards said. He said the Merrillville tech park is the first AT&T fiber-ready site in Lake County and all of Northwest Indiana. Soards said AT&T has invested nearly $2 billion in Indiana over the last three years to bring fiber and other infrastructure that delivers high-speed internet access. The Purdue Research Foundation will use this designation to help bring in more companies to the Merrillville site, located on Broadway and 101st Avenue, said Dan Hasler, the foundation's president and CEO. "The good news is we have more space, more room to grow, not just in the Purdue incubator space, but in the park at large... This will help us bring more companies in," Hasler said. The technology center currently is home to 25 on-site companies and an additional 30 co-space businesses. The Merrillville tech center announced that it will provide free high-speed connectivity for the first three years or the term of a lease to an internet provider of a client's choice Karen Lauerman, president and CEO of the Lake County IN Economic Alliance, said the AT&T certification takes the technology center to a higher level as far as corporations are concerned. "We're poised to market this park at that higher level," she said of herself and Don Koliboski, vice president of the alliance. "Economic development is increasingly more competitive. More often than not companies are asking about the presence of fiber," Lauerman said. "This provides another tool in our tool box to bring jobs and investment to Lake County." David Lasser, president of Commercial In-Sites realty in Merrillville, said while the tech center building itself was already fiber-connected, this certification shows that all 400-acres in the park are now fiber-ready as well. He said about half of the park is undeveloped and this designation, along with town of Merrillville extending 98th Avenue in the park, will make it more marketable. Greg Napier, director of Purdue Research Parks, said as soon as it was announced that the research park in New Albany was certified as AT&T fiber-ready, they began receiving phone calls from companies interested in locating in the park. "One company was out of state and looking to come to Indiana. The owner was a Purdue alumnus," Napier said. Matt Saltanovitz, director, Northwest Region for Indiana Economic Development Corp., said it takes a village to create and sustain a thriving economy in the state. "We built a state that works and want to be one that creates and nurtures talent. We want to give entrepreneurs the tools like fiber and broadband access to do that," Saltanovitz said. |
| Country | United States , Northern America |
| Industry | Information Technology |
| Entry Date | 15 Oct 2016 |
| Source | http://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/post-tribune/news/ct-ptb-purdue-tech-fiber-st-0907-20160906-story.html |
