How the WKU Innovation Campus Integrates Economic and Cultural Development
The WKU Innovation Campus made the news at the start of the year. After unexpected tornadoes in December devastated the western part of the state, many didn’t know where to turn. From the more than 15,000 buildings that were destroyed and the cost of damages exceeding more than $3.5 billion, Kentuckians were forced to grapple with unimaginable levels of loss.
And while the entire region came together to support survivors all over the area, Buddy Steen and the Innovation Campus stepped in to give a lifeline to small business owners. In their massive headquarters in Bowling Green that once functioned as a mall, WKU intervened to offer sections of its 30,000-square-foot Collaborative SmartSpace to “help any displaced business, any impacted business,” Steen said..
In addition, the Innovation Campus became a central location for volunteers to organize on-the-ground relief efforts in Bowling Green, and the dropoff point for a statewide effort to collect toys for Christmas for families impacted by the tornadoes. And the Central Region Ecosystem for Arts, Technology, and Entrepreneurship–the innovation support entity for the region that is headquartered at the WKU Innovation Campus–raised almost $60,000 (and received a range of donations of physical supplies) that were shared across the region.
This drive from the WKU Innovation Campus to help members of their community in their time of need is at once extraordinary and expected. Through its role as an accelerator for small businesses, a collaboration space for people across industries and disciplines, and an incubator for tech startups and research programs, the Innovation Campus at WKU has turned its headquarters from an old mall into the epicenter for economic growth in the state.
How the WKU Innovation Campus Launched
What’s central to all of the Innovation Campus’ different initiatives is simple for Buddy: job creation. “Opportunities and jobs,” he stated, is at center for him as President for the WKU Research Foundation (WKURF). Through this university-based organization, industry leaders in technology, business, entrepreneurship, economic development, and science offer much-needed resources to help student and faculty projects. These supports include access to digital marketing resources, the Intellectual Properties Committee, the WKU Business Accelerator, and the Bowling Green Chamber of Commerce, to name a few.
“What we’re trying to do with the tech-based economic development is start a company, recruit a company, and at the same time develop the talent for that company. This is where the universities come in.”
1965 saw one of the largest malls in the country move into Bowling Green. At 285,000 square feet, the mall was a hive of commercial opportunity until the Greenwood Mall was established across town. The old Bowling Green Mall would meet the same fate that countless other malls across the country faced: a gradual transformation into neglect and ultimately dilapidation.
In the year 2000, the Kentucky legislature decided to give the space a second chance at the time of the passing of the Innovation Act. With $2 million, the state and the university partnered to buy the mall and begin to revitalize it.
“This whole area was uninvestable,” Buddy recalled, as part of a talk about the Innovation Campus at AccelerateKY’s Connect. Inform. Inspire. Conference at WKU in Bowling Green last October, “because folks didn’t know if there would be a junkyard or dump built there, literally.”
Around the same time, Buddy had gained experience as an entrepreneur but was relatively new to economic development as a field. After launching his own technology company in Bowling Green, he was unsuccessful in his attempt to keep the business from moving to Nashville. The traditional wisdom at the time was that Nashville would offer greater opportunity to companies focused on technology. Even though he knew that Bowling Green was capable of supporting a more startup-friendly economic ecosystem, he found himself stumped about how to contribute to a stronger infrastructure that would support tech-inspired innovation.
Similar to what Colby Hall of SOAR is attempting today in Eastern Kentucky, Steen decided to focus on integrating high-speed internet access into the area. With newly installed fiber optic cables that could sustain broadband speeds, the old mall was able to go through another transformation, this time into an accelerator for technology startups. Buddy remembers that, because of this then unprecedented level of connectivity that the broadband access offered, “we would be able to sign nine out of the 10 companies that we wanted to come to that center,” he said.
It was critical for him early on to establish clearly defined roles and responsibilities in the new innovation campus. “We’re going to offer plug and play,” he recalled. “We’re going to act like economic developers, not landlords. And we’re not going to try and fill the space – we always want vacancy for the next project.”
Photo courtesy of Mall Hall of Fame
“Over the past 18 years, we’ve created thousands of jobs.”
In its first 20 years, that facility came to be known as the WKU Center for Research and Development. Over the past two decades, the ethos Buddy describes has persisted through the campus’s creation and continued development. The revenue of the companies that have worked out of the WKU Innovation Campus has exceeded $2 billion. According to Buddy, people working at these companies have reported payroll payouts that have surpassed $200 million.
“Now those are dollars that are coming into the community.” The transformation for Buddy is stark. What was once practically a condemned hunk of concrete on the verge of becoming a junkyard has since blossomed into a research and development center that motivates measurable, actionable economic growth.
Celebrating Culture, Inviting Economic Growth
When Buddy retired last year from a technology company, he channeled his motivation as an economic developer and decided to return to economic development and ultimately accept the opportunity to run the WKU Innovation Campus–the evolution of the Center for Research and Development that he helped start almost two decades ago. In this new role, Buddy began work to benefit the local community immediately.
Now, with several different branches of the Innovation Campus, Buddy has aimed to integrate and keep in conversation all of the different focuses conveniently residing under one roof. “And there’s one more piece of the puzzle for the Innovation Campus 2.0,” he stated. “It’s about developing the culture in the community to support all of the things we’re trying to do.” In other words, Buddy and the WKU Innovation Campus recognizes that economic growth isn’t enough to stimulate a local community alone.
Instead, cultural initiatives that drive inspiration at the community level are necessary to complement economic development. And for Buddy, the Innovation Campus at WKU is ready to integrate economic and cultural efforts to cultivate a startup-friendly, socially rich environment. When a call center vacated its 30,000 sq. ft. space last year, the campus decided to put more stock into a new collaboration zone called the Collaborative SmartSpace.
“In the collaboration space, it’s the antithesis of an accelerator,” Buddy stated, because everyone who shares the space is encouraged to brainstorm, ideate, and support each other in endeavors that span technology, science, the humanities, and business. This new focus is meant to attract what Buddy calls “creative class professionals,” who will want to join that space to do their work. And when Kentuckians of all professional backgrounds are given a platform – and a space – to use their talents collaboratively, the Commonwealth as a whole will benefit.
Find out more about some of the programs taking place at the WKU Innovation Campus today via the CREATE website.
This blog post is part of an ongoing series exploring the economic resilience and future of Kentucky’s workforce. To subscribe to updates, sign up for our newsletter.
