If you’re like me, you’ve been curious about the new Convergence tower rising from the ground the past couple of years along I-235 just east of downtown.
The eight-floor Convergence tower is a $200 million privately funded development in the heart of OKC’s Innovation District. The project includes the adjacent, MAPS funded Innovation Hall with a future hotel also planned for the site.
A pair of prominent OKC real estate investors/developers in Richard Tanenbaum, CEO of Tanenbaum Holdings, and Mark Beffort, CEO of Robinson Park Investments, have led the Convergence project.
Convergence sits on a pretty small plot of land — 5.5 acres — that surrounds the tiny Stiles Park and its Beacon of Hope, which shines a green light into the night sky like a giant flashlight. The project will have underground parking.
The Convergence website descibes the project as an “ecosystem reshaping Oklahoma City’s economy through innovation, collaboration, diversity and advanced technology.”
The project is certainly reshaping OKC’s Innovation District.
Anyway, I wrangled a ticket to attend the Greater OKC Chamber’s recent networking event and walking tour of the still-under-construction Convergence development.
My professional background includes many years of covering Oklahoma’s emerging biotech industry, first as a reporter for The Oklahoman newspaper and later as a writer and then freelancer for i2E, Inc., the not-for-profit that mentors and invests in many of the state’s entrepreneurial startups.
So, that led me to gather with about 75 folks at the Oklahoma Our Blood Institute, which sits at the intersection of NE Eighth Street and Lincoln Blvd. It’s maybe a 50-yard walk from OBI to the new development.
Here’s what I learned that afternoon during the networking event and walking tour:
First, the Oklahoma Bioscience Association has been rebranded as Life Science Oklahoma, which made its debut at the annual BIO show in San Diego this past June. My friend, Dr. Craig Shimasaki, co-founder and CEO of OKC’s Moleculera Biosciences, is co-chair of Life Sciences Oklahoma, along with Andrew Westmuckett, director of technology ventures at the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation.
Education will play a major role at the Innovation Hall, which features a Bio Pharmaceutical Workforce Training Center called BioTC. We received a good explanation of how the space will accommodate aspiring biotech workers from Koey Keylon, BioTC’s, executive director. It will offer one-week, hands-on short courses in biotechnology manufacturing in which students will learn the biotech process and how to use sophisticated technology involved. It also offers an advanced two-week certification curriculum.
Innovation Hall also includes a large Event Hall, a cafe and lounge open to the public, four conference rooms and two small “phone booth” size work/meeting spaces.
Innovation Hall is part of MAPS 4 Innovation District funding, which contributed $11 million to the development, with another $10 million or so from non-MAPS sources, according to the City of OKC.
After we toured the Innovation Hall, we entered the first floor of the Convergence tower. Much of the first floor will be occupied by Wheeler Bio, an up-and-coming contract development and manufacturing organization in the life sciences space. Wheeler Bio also will have administrative offices on upper floors of the building.
CrossFirst Bank has been announced as a tenant, while the University of Oklahoma, Tinker Air Force Base and an unnamed aerospace partner will occupy the eighth floor.
All this was empty space as we toured it, but you could see the possibilities and envision the future.
By the way, I highly recommend you crossing over I-235 onto Eighth Street to drive slowly past the Convergence project for a closer view, then meander through the Innovation District that includes OSU’s Hamm Institute for American Energy adjacent to Convergence on the north side, University Research Park to the south and OU Health Sciences Center to the north and east.
In a year or maybe less, Convergence tower and Innovation Hall should be filled with bioscience research and manufacturing professionals. as well as students aspiring for a biotech career, while offering great meeting and hangout space in the Innovation Hall.
I can’t wait to see it all in action.
Jim Stafford's BlogOKC 