TEXAS CLEAN ENERGY PARK
Clean energy research, business park headed for Southeast Austin
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By Shonda Novak
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Austin has its Forty Acres. Soon, it may be nationally known for its 140 green acres.
That's the amount of land in Southeast Austin that's slated to become home to the Texas Clean Energy Park, which its founders see as a hub for research, training and businesses focused on the growing renewable energy industry.
The campus would be the first of its kind in Texas, where leaders see it as an important tool for attracting companies, jobs and research money, and establishing the state as a leader in clean energy.
Trammell Crow Co. has a contract to buy the land, on the south side of Burleson Road near East Stassney Lane, said Lance Sallis, managing partner in the development firm's Austin office. The land is owned by the Permanent School Fund, and the price will be made public after the transaction is completed, said Jim Suydam, press secretary for the state General Land Office.
Trammell Crow will donate 40 acres to the Texas Foundation for Innovative Communities, a new nonprofit formed to develop the clean energy park. The foundation has received a $600,000 grant from the Texas Workforce Commission to help launch the first phase, a research campus.
The second phase will be a business park for companies in fields such as solar power, renewable energy materials and energy-saving technologies. The buildings in the park will have to meet national green building standards.
"This clean energy park is going to be significant statewide, and for that matter, nationally," Sallis said. The work force training money shows the state's "commitment to clean energy as a driver for job growth." When completed, Sallis said, the park will have about 12 buildings, totaling more than 1 million square feet space, and cost more than $100 million.
Sallis said his company will start work on the first two commercial buildings late this year. He said there has been keen interest from prospective tenants, but couldn't elaborate as no deals have been signed.
B.J. Stanbery, CEO of Austin-based solar energy company HelioVolt Inc., has been a driving force behind the project, said John Rosshirt, director of the clean energy park and president of the foundation. Stanbery said he thought Austin needed to create a community for renewable energy companies, research and education facilities.
HelioVolt's first factory is being built at an adjacent business park; the company plans to put research and development operations, and potentially more, in the new clean energy park.
Stanbery said HelioVolt "expects to be joined by a collaborative community of academic and industrial partners in developing the future of smart, sustainable solar-powered architecture."
His father, Bill Stanberry, a longtime Austin real estate executive, has been working behind the scenes on the project and is chairman of the new foundation. (The elder Stanberry's last name has a different spelling than that of his son.)
Stanberry said he got involved about three years ago as a member of the Clean Energy Council of the Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce. By the end of that year, he said the concept of a clean energy park "was the No. 1 project the council submitted to the chamber."
In 2006, Stanberry said, he organized the foundation to create the park; an advisory board is being established to review applicants. The foundation also will conduct seminars to train workers for the companies the park is expected to attract.
One potential tenant is the University of Texas Clean Energy Incubator, which houses several startup companies. But the incubator's current quarters at the University of Texas Pickle research campus lacks laboratory facilities, Stanberry said.
Stanberry said two research and development facilities for the foundation, each with 150,000 square feet, should be finished in mid-2010. The buildings will also house startup companies.
Gov. Rick Perry has been trying to raise the state's profile in clean energy, and Austin leaders have been promoting the city as a clean energy capital. But Texas is behind areas such as Silicon Valley, which has more green-energy companies and more financial resources to back them.
New York has had a clean energy business park for several years, and other states and cities are planning them, seeing renewable energy as a promising future source of companies and jobs.
Roger Duncan, a deputy general manager of Austin Energy, said the planned energy park "is a great example of the collaboration between the business community, the city and the state to develop the clean energy technologies that Austin and the rest of the world must have."
snovak@statesman.com; 445-3856
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