A group of five Milwaukee leaders — including an Akron native — visited the city Wednesday for less than 24 hours to learn how community and business leaders collaborated in developing the Austen BioInnovation Institute in Akron.
The visit was related to a trip last fall to Milwaukee by 40 area community leaders to learn about innovations employed by another industrial Midwest city.
The subject of the medical institute came up during a panel discussion of economic engines in both cities.
That led to Milwaukee leaders from its university and medical school learning about Akron’s collaboration to create the ABIA, launched in 2008 when the city’s three hospital systems, the University of Akron and the region’s medical school came together in an attempt to combine research and economic development on medical topics.
Julia Taylor, president of the Greater Milwaukee Committee, who helped organized the Akron-Milwaukee trip, said there is strong interest among a larger group of Milwaukee leaders to make a longer trip to Akron, but this smaller group had a specific agenda.
“They want to see the synergies in how your university leadership and business community have helped develop the ABIA. We see it as Akron kind of recasting itself from an older industrial town to a town looking at strong research,” she said.
The Milwaukee group included Taylor; Mike Lovell, chancellor of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee; John Raymond, CEO of the Medical College of Wisconsin; Paul Krajniak, executive director of Discovery World (an interactive museum built around Milwaukee’s water industry); and Barry Mandel, a developer and president of The Mandel Group.
The group spent Wednesday afternoon with hospital and university officials discussing the Austen BioInnovation Institute.
The group toured the ABIA home, which is under construction, at 47 N. Main St., in a building formerly owned by Summit County. The Summit County Port Authority bought the building from the county and is leasing part of it to the ABIA. Eventually, the institute plans to expand into the entire building, which is now partially occupied by the county’s Job and Family Services agency.
Lovell, the Milwaukee university chancellor, said the funding of the institute’s building was very creative. In Milwaukee, the port authority does not have the same type of funding structure, he said.
Raymond, CEO of the medical college, is an Akron native who graduated from Archbishop Hoban High School and took some summer courses at UA. Raymond said he enjoyed a trip with business colleagues to show off his hometown.
“I can be proud of all the great things in Akron. It’s neat to come home and see how the city has grown,” said Raymond, who comes back to Akron about twice a year to see his mother who lives in Stow, along with siblings and nieces.
Raymond said it is impressive that the Austen BioInnovation Institute is bringing competitive health systems together.
Taylor of the Greater Milwaukee Committee said the small group wanted to come quickly to Akron because the University of Wisconsin- Milwaukee and the medical college are partnering on a new engineering school, which will have an institute.
“This could really help save a year’s worth of time for the institutions in learning how you developed your relationships, your prototypes and your agreements,” Taylor said of the ABIA.
Mandel, a developer from Milwaukee who is also a chair of the multi-family council for the national Urban Land Institute, hosted the Akron contingency at his high-rise condo during the fall trip.
Mandel separately toured the University Park Alliance area with UPA Executive Director Eric Anthony Johnson.
Mandel said he was impressed with the UPA and its ongoing plan for downtown revitalization.
“You’re in a unique situation where you have the university and the three hospitals that can act as an economic engine to provide jobs to create demand for adjacent housing,” said Mandel.
“The success of one of the institutions leads to the success of all of the parts.”
Betty Lin-Fisher can be reached at 330-996-3724 or blinfisher@thebeaconjournal.com. Follow her on Twitter at www.twitter.com/blinfisher and see all her stories at www.ohio.com/betty.
