In late spring or early summer of 2023, downtown Chapel Hill’s first innovation hub will become a place for entrepreneurs and industry partners from the university, local community and region to convene and create. In this Q&A series, Innovate Carolina’s Sheryl Waddell answers questions about the hub, who it’s for and what you can expect.
Innovation hubs are taking off across the country. They’re places for innovators and entrepreneurs to explore ideas, launch startups, build industry partnerships, turn research into products and grow their businesses. But when UNC-Chapel Hill’s new innovation hub opens in 2023, it will be distinct: the only hub located in a downtown innovation district that is immediately adjacent to a top-five public university. Innovate Carolina, the university’s central team for innovation, entrepreneurship and economic development, is currently accepting inquiries from people and organizations interested in securing space or participating in the hub through flexible co-working spaces, private offices, meeting spaces, the Launch Chapel Hill accelerator, and other events, programs and services.
In a three-part Q&A series, Sheryl Waddell, Innovate Carolina’s director of economic development and innovation hubs, shares the latest updates on the hub. In this second Q&A, learn how the hub will drive economic development opportunities for UNC-Chapel Hill, the town and the region.
From business-owner perspective, I understand UNC and Chapel Hill’s past reputation. Looking ahead, it’s important to make sure that downtown Chapel Hill remains an area that’s steeped in tradition but that also offers a lot of future business opportunities and is open to partnering with industry. The Town of Chapel Hill and the town council are working very hard to dispel the town’s reputation for being a difficult place to build a company. Because the reality is that there are a ton of compelling reasons why startups and established companies are taking a new look at Chapel Hill. What they’re finding here is exciting.
The new development of real estate and infrastructure that’s planned and underway – the innovation hub, modern office spaces, bioscience labs, accelerators, a parking center, a hotel and new apartments – now gives entrepreneurs a lot of flexibility to start a company, run the company and stay in the same area. And from a workforce development perspective, the University cultivates so many high-skilled researchers and graduates, while Chapel Hill and Research Triangle community attract top talent from around the country. All of this means that businesses have a deep talent pool to draw from when they hire and expand their employee base. In the hub, we’re also looking at inventive ways that we can connect companies and create bridges for new industry-academic collaborations. For instance, if a company is looking for a connection to the computer science department to hire students or to sync with a UNC professor who is doing amazing research in a particular area, we can make valuable connections.
I believe Chapel Hill can evolve into a true work-live-play community, and there are things to address for this to become a reality. For example, in order to have industry partners come to Chapel Hill, we have to address housing. And this is being looked at by both the University and the town. We also have to address the ability to have good restaurants as well as retail opportunities. Strategic plans are being developed around those issues, so we can become a true work-live-play environment that will allow businesses – and people living their everyday lives – to thrive in Chapel Hill.
It’s not new for universities and towns to collaborate. And we also have longstanding relationships with the Chapel Hill Downtown Partnership and other local organizations. What is new is that we now have a joint economic development taskforce, which pulls us together and helps us work in concert around very strategic initiatives. The task force is where Mayor Pam Hemminger, the town’s director of economic development Dwight Bassett and town manager Maurice Jones are working closely with the University’s head of real estate (Gordon Merklein), the Chancellor’s economic development council chair (Doug Rothwell) and me. Together, we’re working to create an extremely positive environment in Chapel Hill that will be foundational to the innovation district and hub. We collaborate both at a visionary and strategic level, and we also get down to the tactics. It’s an opportunity for us to talk to the mayor about signage, or the mayor can talk to us about lights on campus. We can talk about how we’re going to attract businesses and work together on an outreach plan. We all roll our sleeves up and work in a cohesive way. Our focus is a joint strategic plan and the tactical aspects that we have to execute for that plan come to fruition.
A big initial focus has been looking at the innovation district from a beautification perspective. For example, we worked together to install new planters along Franklin Street. We’re also working to create an intersection of art and innovation within the district – not only from a business perspective, but also through art installations, which can have a significant influence on both innovation and the economy. For example, the community will soon see art on the utility boxes.
We’ve been working with a number of real estate developers, and we’ve been fortunate that they’ve created key properties and assets within the heart of downtown. Now we have to work together to spread the word. As part of this task force, we are working on the outreach strategy for the innovation district. And we’re already seeing that strategy materialize into new partnerships. For example, we’re working with athletics to bring some new and exciting opportunities to downtown Chapel Hill. We’re also working on a partnership with the Siemens Healthineers, which is a group focused on health care breakthroughs. As we continue to grow existing partnerships from across the university, we aim to orchestrate them in a more unified way, which makes for strong and deep relationships on both sides.
It’s really important that we think through the appropriate balance and understand that change is sometimes uncomfortable for a lot of people. Growth sometimes prompts questions and concerns. Ensuring that Chapel Hill remains unique is really critical to innovation. Embracing our culture and the many things already makes Chapel Hill a special place has been extremely important – as has having the involvement of a variety of stakeholders. Keeping an open mind is always crucial.
The innovation hub and district create opportunities for space. But as companies grow, they will start to identify different needs: employment needs, legal needs and strategic partners. As the innovation hub and district expand, we can support different stages of companies. Their needs are going to change, and their talent is going to evolve. Of course, talent stemming from the university can fill significant and changing employment gaps. Beyond employees, however, companies will have a base of both strategic partners and customers within the district. Because, as we’re bringing in companies – both small startups and large corporations that have an innovation team – they see the benefit of being near a top-five public research university and one another. Being part of an innovation cluster that includes the university and other innovation-oriented businesses makes Chapel Hill a place where startups can establish roots and grow.
Our Innovate Carolina team will offer programs that help startups consider different approaches to the problems that they want to solve. For example, a startup team may initially approach a problem strictly scientific perspective. But being near a university that has an amazing humanities department might create different avenues for exploring that problem. Challenging ourselves – and helping our startups – to think and work laterally is really what we see as true collaboration and the ability to innovate. Regardless of their maturity, startups and businesses can work with our Innovate Carolina team to put proven methods for innovation into practice around real problems. Plus, we can be a connection point for them into the everyday ingenuity of the wider university.
If we can help identify a challenge or problem, and work with both industry and the university to bring together the researchers, students and faculty who can help tackle those problems … that will be an amazing place to be. That’s really my goal: to have a space with programming that can help the world recognize a problem, and then bring together different people to solve it in a way that we may not have thought of before.
The Chapel Hill innovation hub is slated to open spring 2023. For more information about the hub and innovation district, visit innovationhub.unc.edu. Next in the series: Who is the hub for, and how can they get involved?
Missed the first Q&A? Find it here, where Waddell talks about the national innovation hub movement, what you’ll find in Chapel Hill’s hub that you won’t find elsewhere, and why Chapel Hill’s innovation district is a big deal to entrepreneurs, researchers, and companies large and small.
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