By Murray Evans
The Associated Press

LEXINGTON - It's 735 acres of prime real estate at the junction of two Interstate highways, with wide roads and sewers all ready for some company - any company - that wants to build.

But so far the University of Kentucky's Coldstream Research Campus has fallen well short of expectations. Only 11 buildings, occupied by 20 companies, are on the campus. Soon there will be a 12th, though, and university officials are touting that building as the possible salvation of Coldstream.

For the first time, UK is constructing an academic building on the Coldstream campus - a 20,000-square-foot facility for UK's highly regarded College of Pharmacy. The presence of the Center for Pharmaceutical Science and Technology at Coldstream should attract private pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies interested in having university researchers at their doorstep, UK President Lee Todd said.

"Companies will go where they can find good, solid intellectual resources," said Kris Kimel, the president of the Kentucky Science and Technology Corporation. "You've got to have a reason other than to just be there" on a research campus.

"This new center greatly enhances the intellectual and research capacity out there." Kimel said.

The university bought the land in north Lexington where the Coldstream campus sits in 1957, with plans to use it as an agricultural extension station.

During the mid-to-late 1980s, the idea of putting a shopping mall on the land was broached, but eventually dropped. In 1989, the university decided to convert the land into a research park. Two years later, Todd - then in private business - headed a project to construct the campus' first building, which initially housed Hughes Aircraft and now is home to Lexel Imaging.

But even after 14 years and more than $10 million in investments by the university, state, city and other groups, the campus remains mostly empty. Todd cited the sluggish economy of recent years and competition from about 150 other research campuses as reasons for Coldstream's lack of success.

What was needed was a business plan, said Frank Manella, the managing director for the Center for Pharmaceutical Science and Technology. Manella wrote a proposal that resulted in the state offering $4 million toward the construction of the new academic building. The university is paying the other $8 million in construction costs.

"We have a well-thought-out business plan and a detailed marketing plan," Manella said. "We have a good, solid staff in place now and we have the university's support. We are going to work within the academic model, but you have to apply appropriate business principles."

A similar plan worked at North Carolina State University - a success story cited by Todd. That university's Centennial Campus includes academic buildings that house researchers from the university's textile and engineering colleges.

The first building on the Centennial Campus opened in 1989, and the textile college moved to the campus two years later. The campus had only a half-dozen or so companies until the engineering college's graduate research center relocated there in 1997. Now more than 60 companies are on the campus, said Leah Burton, a partnership developer for the campus.

"It's really important to have those university magnets," Burton said.

Burton said UK's decision to construct an academic building on the Coldstream campus should pay dividends, although it might take a few years, she said.

"Without (the academic presence), you're just a research park, and companies can get office space anywhere," she said. "If you're not providing that unique connection to the university, then why should they locate on your university research park?"

The success of the Centennial Campus allows North Carolina State to recruit better students and faculty and frees up space on the university's main campus that can be used for other academic endeavors, Burton said.

Todd is hopeful that his university will realize similar benefits in the not-too-distant future. But plenty of Coldstream-related issues first must be addressed. The campus has not had a full-time director since summer 2002; Todd said he hopes to fill that position by mid-January.

One potential boon for the campus could be a federal research lab, the quest for which Gov. Ernie Fletcher made a campaign issue. Fletcher said attracting such a lab is on his agenda, but stopped short of promising it would be located at Coldstream.

No matter whether Coldstream eventually has such a lab, Fletcher likes the idea of using UK's academic strengths to lure potentially lucrative jobs to Kentucky.

"We have one of the top pharmacy (schools)," Fletcher said. "We have an outstanding med school and an outstanding engineering component in Kentucky. I think this brings all of those different pieces together, to put our best foot forward, to allow us to shine in this area. It's the first step of what I want to see happen out here."