ASHEVILLE — The top floor of the Wells Fargo Building remains largely unfinished, with steel frames and structural bones exposed throughout the fourth floor space.
A pile of metal lies in the center of the room where climate scientists will one day meet. A lone office chair sits in the area that will one day become the lobby. A construction worker sweeps up dust next to a room where architectural drawings have envisioned a coworking space.
It may still be a construction site, but it will soon open as a hub of innovation and expertise.
After years of planning, millions in investment and, now, with new leadership at its helm, The Collider is set to open in January. The site will be a place where business and science can come together to create high-tech ventures in the climate sciences industry that can make sense of how climate change will impact businesses, organizations, cities and the world at large.
“When it comes to technology and innovation, you want to be out in front of it and not riding the tail end of it,” Bill Dean, the newly appointed CEO of The Collider, told members of the Buncombe County Tourism Development Authority during a tour of the space Thursday. “For Asheville, the timing is right and the opportunity is great. No one has what we have.”
Just two blocks away from where The Collider will be is the National Centers for Environmental Information. Previously known as the National Climatic Data Center, the Centers for Environmental Information hosts and provides public access to some of the most significant environmental data archives on Earth.
Along with housing more than 20 petabytes of environmental data, the center also employs some 400 scientists, technologists and analysts, including 16 Nobel Laureates.
The Collider wants that unique community asset to be more than an interesting fact. It wants it to create economic growth.
Bruce Katz, an urban-policy expert at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., thinks it’s not only possible for Asheville to capitalize on the climate science sector but The Collider could be key to making it happen.
“You have something that is truly global. Climate change is a global phenomenon that the marketplace is both concerned about its implications and then also trying to innovate to solve problems and make money at the same time,” he said. “I think you’ve got something the world wants.”
But first it must be built.
Inside The Collider
The Collider has been a project years in the making.
In 2012, the fourth floor of Wells Fargo Building was purchased for $2.8 million by Miami real estate investor Claire Callen. The entire fourth floor, all 26,000 square feet of it, has been named the Callen Center and 6,000 square feet of that space will become The Collider.
“We’re the front door to the whole floor,” said Marilyn McDonald, The Collider’s newly appointed executive director. “We’re making a statement that we are about science and technology from the second you step off the elevator.”
To encourage collaboration, The Collider has been designed with an eye toward open-concept design. The center will include an event space that can accommodate 190 people, 30 coworking desks, six small offices, three conference areas, a 10 gigabit Internet bandwidth connection and a video green room, along with a catering room and a break room.
The project is undergoing a $1.3 million renovation, and has $889,449 budgeted for construction costs. Because construction did not begin until July, it pushed back earlier projections that The Collider would open by fall.
Dean said that isn’t such a bad thing.
“Any type of technology project that you put together is going to be very time-consuming to get it right. It’s not going to be an overnight success story,” Dean said.
But others are still counting on Dean and McDonald to make The Colldier a success.
Leading the charge
In August, Dean was tapped to be CEO of The Collider, in large part, due to the unique skill set he brings to the project.
Dean has been a research park consultant, served as president of the Association of University Research Parks in Washington, D.C., been a research park director in Huntsville, Alabama, and directed the expansion of the Piedmont Triad Research Park in Winston-Salem.
“This is the first time I wasn’t recruited for a job,” Dean said, laughing.
After moving to the mountains, Dean started to get restless about what project he could get involved with next. After attending an Asheville HUB meeting, he said he knew that he wanted to be a part of The Collider.
“It’s all about brain power and bringing that collectively together so that thoughts and ideas can become solutions,” he said. “I see The Collider as an opportunity for us and Asheville to become a part of the next technology revolution, so to speak. It went from defense, to aerospace, to electronics, to biotech — which was the reason why I came to North Carolina from Huntsville. Now I’m seeing all this new technology development, and the concern globally is climate change and what we are going to do about it. Therein lies an opportunity for Asheville and The Collider to do well.”
McDonald is no stranger to innovation.
During her time at the Enka campus of Asheville-Buncombe Technical Community College, McDonald worked closely with entrepreneurs, startups and innovators and the college’s business incubation center.
“I’m really passionate about helping Asheville and our downtown community create opportunities in science and technology,” McDonald said. “I’ve spent so much time working in business incubation, and that gives me a unique toolbox to pull from to help facilitate that kind of opportunity here in The Collider.”
Already, The Collider has been receiving phone calls and emails from companies and entrepreneurs that want to lease office space inside the 6,000-square-foot center.
One group that has already said yes to The Collider is UNC Asheville’s National Environmental Modeling and Analysis Center. An office and conference room has been built specifically for NEMAC, which uses applied research to build tools that help local and regional planners, decision-makers and the public understand how climate can impact them.
Acclimatise North America, a company based in the United Kingdom, will be moving its North American offices to Asheville specifically because of The Collider.
Clark Duncan, director of business development for the Economic Development Coalition for Asheville-Buncombe County, said this is a sign of things to come.
“Having this physical presence is a catalyst for growing this very unique industry in Asheville,” Duncan said.
The potential
Though no economic impact studies have been conducted, Duncan said he is confident that the time is right for The Collider and the high-growth companies it hopes to attract.
“Going back to the ’80s, this community has tried to understand how to leverage that federal investment with NCEI for private industry growth. In 2015, we’re just now at a place where that economic opportunity is really ripe,” he said. “The big data industry is expected to exponentially grow, and this climate data is our big data.”
Amanda Rycerz, a climate risk analyst for Acclimatise North America, said companies like the one she works for see real value in Asheville’s climate assets and the climate cluster that already exists here.
The data and the other climate organizations that already exist here, she explained, go hand-in-hand with the types of consulting work that Acclimatise does.
“We recently did risk assessment of a port in Colombia, and we found that one crucial road that connected where the ships entered the port and unloaded goods and then connected to mainland could be flooded within the next couple years,” she said. “If they can raise that road over time, this will help them avoid losses of $250,000 a day in road closures alone.”
Dean said it’s this kind of thinking that The Collider wants to inspire.
“All of the pieces fit now. The timing is right,” he said.
Katz, at the Brookings Institution, said only one test now remains for The Collider.
“They’re not just big real estate holders or nice buildings you pass on the way to work. They are platforms for growth,” Katz said. “This won’t just happen. There needs to be some purpose present to unlock its potential.”
The Collider by the numbers
10G: High-speed fiber bandwidth, with capacity to expand to 40G
190: Capacity of technology theater
26,000: Total square footage of the Callen Center, where The Collider will be located
$504,186: Projected cost of technology
$889,449: Estimated construction budget of The Collider
$1.3 million: Estimated renovation cost of The Collider
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