Several projects at MC-Germantown move forward

Business incubator slated to open by early fall; money for long-planned bioscience center still needed

The second planned building, the 127,000-square foot Bioscience Education Center, located off of Observation Drive, is in the design and engineering phase. It missed on a bid to receive $2.9 million in the recent state legislative session, but won $1.7 million from Congress in the current congressional session. College officials first conceived the center in 2000, and unveiled it as part of a 10-year building expansion plan in 2004.

Hercules Pinkney, vice president and provost of the Germantown campus, said he expects the projects, along with a 40-acre science and technology park, will be part of a ‘‘three-legged stool” promoting education, research and business development.

The business incubator is intended to be a place where new companies can situate themselves until they are strong enough to stand up on their own, Pinkney said.

The incubator will occupy the top floor of the 67,000 square-foot building and host 20 to 30 businesses specializing in life sciences and other forms of advanced technology. The facilities will include wet laboratories, two modular clean rooms and 45 offices, according to college and county economic development officials.

The first floor of the building will be used by the college for classroom space.

The Bioscience Education Center will offer several major benefits to students and businesses, Pinkney said.

First, it will allow Montgomery College to form a partnership with the University of Maryland at College Park that will offer a baccalaureate degree in biotechnology, he said.

Second, it will open up a partnership between Montgomery College and Montgomery County Public Schools that promises educational opportunities that include teacher education, summer camps and high school academies.

The goal is to promote contacts between students, educators and businesses that will train students for jobs in biotechnology and provide businesses with a workforce, Pinkney said.

The center will generate 4,000 new jobs and almost $2 million per year in state and county tax revenue after completion, according to a funding request for fiscal 2009 submitted to Congress by college officials.

No date has been set for the beginning of construction, but Pinkney is confident of the project’s future after Congress approved $1.7 million in the current congressional session. The money, obtained by U.S. Rep. Christopher Van Hollen Jr. (D-District 8) of Kensington, will be used for parks, roads, waterlines and other infrastructure in the 40-acre parcel adjacent to the center. The county and college have lined up $2.7 million of the estimated $3.5 million to $4 million needed to complete the infrastructure, Pinkney said.

Pradeep Ganguly, the county’s director of economic development, said he has found strong interest in the Germantown projects as prospective locations among companies in India interested in establishing a presence in the United States. Ganguly said county officials and representatives from 19 local businesses who visited India in November found several companies interested in locating close to Montgomery College’s Germantown campus as a result of the plans for the new buildings.

State Sen. Robert J. Garagiola (D-Dist. 15) of Germantown, who sponsored two unsuccessful efforts to obtain up to $2.9 million for the Bioscience Education Center in the recent legislative session, said he is confident the project will be ‘‘at the top of the list” of projects to be funded in the next session. He estimated groundbreaking will begin in two or three years.