The start of a new nanoelectronics commercialization campus could draw closer, after the Redevelopment Commission today OK'd the first step towards moving the last remaining business from a former Studebaker Corridor building slated for demolition.

The Redevelopment Commission authorized filing a petition for a special exception to the city's zoning ordinance. The exception would allow a potential property owner in the Oliver Industrial Park to pave a significant portion of its 6.5-acre lot for exterior storage.

The City of South Bend is negotiating with Underground Pipe & Valve, 1100 Prairie Ave., to relocate the business to a lot in the 900 block of Oliver Plow Court. The proposed site is located at the northwest corner of the industrial park near the railroad tracks and north of Rose Brick. The move will pave the way to the demolition of the firm's current facility in the former Studebaker Corridor – the last remaining building in the corridor scheduled for demolition.

"The effort to clear the Studebaker Corridor, years in the making, is nearing completion. With the decision by the world's leading computer chip makers to invest in key nanoelectronics research in our area, these actions take on even greater significance for our city as we prepare the site for the commercialization of that research," said Mayor Stephen J. Luecke. "In the same way that the railroads, the Oliver Chilled Plow and the Studebaker automobile changed this city, the Midwest Academy for Nanoelectronics and Architectures will move us into a new age and a new international prominence."

Underground Pipe & Valve, a wholesale supplier and distributor of plumbing and sewer equipment, is now negotiating with the city with the intent to build a new 36,000-square-foot facility in 2008 in the Oliver Industrial Park. Following the facility's completion and the firm's relocation, the city would demolish Underground Pipe & Valve's current facility in 2009 after completing the demolition of South Bend Lathe along Sample Street this spring and summer.

"We're working through the issues and hoping to come back in a month with an agreement with Underground Pipe & Valve," said Ann Kolata, senior redevelopment specialist with the city's Department of Community and Economic Development.

Final approval for the exception will need to come from the Board of Zoning Appeals at its May 15 meeting followed by action by the South Bend Common Council.

When the Studebaker Corridor is cleared, the site will be prepared as a new campus for industries that will commercialize the findings of nanoelectronics research at the Midwest Academy for Nanoelectronics and Architectures at the University of Notre Dame. In March, Notre Dame was selected by a consortium of the world's leading computer chip makers to host the fourth, and probably the final, U.S. nanoelectronics research center.

The City of South Bend, beyond commitments made with Notre Dame and the state to secure the Nanoelectronics Research Initiative, will invest tens of millions of dollars to support nanoelectronics commercialization in the former Studebaker corridor. IBM, Intel and officials from firms in the consortium said the city's commitment was key in locating a fourth center in the South Bend area.

The 82-acre Studebaker site, southeast of Chapin and Sample streets, is being developed following intense community planning efforts since 2000 to remove former industrial buildings and remediate the state's largest brownfield site. Along with Innovation Park @ Notre Dame, a 12-acre site south of campus at Edison Road and Twyckenham Drive, the former Studebaker Corridor is part of the City of South Bend's application for the first two-site State Certified Technology Park in Indiana.

Contact: 

• Mikki Dobski, Director of Communications & Special Projects, 235-5855 or 876-1564
• Ann Kolata, Senior Redevelopment Specialist, 235-9371