COG Comprehensive Annual Financial Report

consideration since 2007 when it bought the 14-acre site on East Market Street. The local business community sees this as a much needed boost to the neighborhood, providing services and additional housing options to university students, staff, and local residents. Situated a block away from the future Downtown Greenway, the development would also help to more seamlessly integrate the neighborhood to the rest of Downtown Greensboro. Project costs and timelines have not yet been announced. Also on the east side of Greensboro, a $14 million, 300,000 square foot speculative industrial building was recently completed at the McConnell Center industrial park. The City of Greensboro extended a $600,000 loan as part of the City’s shovel-ready site program designed to encourage industrial and commercial development. Since it’s opening in 2016, the building has been occupied by two tenants – Wayfair and R.J. Schreiner Co – for a total of 77 employees on the site. In 2018, Coca-Cola Bottling Company became a third tenant, occupying a 135,000 square-foot space with plans to add an additional 20 employees to the location. Increased demand has caused more speculative building in the City. To aid more thriving development, the eastern entrance to the City is being enhanced with the attractive Gateway Gardens project, another public/private venture. The $8 million project will be developed in phases, with Phases I and II to include a visitors’ center, parking facilities, children’s garden, pedestrian bridges, a central water feature, heritage plaza and garden space. These phases are being funded with $2.5 million in City bond funds, $2 million in private contributions and a $500,000 grant. The Visitor’s Center, a 5,100 square foot building located on eleven acres, opened in spring 2014, completing Phase I. Future phases of this project will include the Japanese Garden, White Oak Forest, and Special Events Garden. In December 2011, the Gateway University Research Park opened the Joint School of Nanoscience and Nanoengineering (JSNN) also in east Greensboro. The 105,000 square foot, $65 million building houses the most significant academic collaboration to date between UNC-Greensboro and NC A&T State University. The program and the building itself were designed to foster interaction among the students and across specialties such as biology, engineering, and technology. The JSNN offers graduate degrees in nanoscience and nanoengineering which is expected to generate as much as $500 million in economic activity. The school has also formed the Nanomanufacturing Innovation Consortium, a partnership between JSNN and area businesses, which has grown to twenty-five members. In June 2014, NC A&T researchers announced that they signed a licensing agreement with a Toronto firm, Xemerge, also located near JSNN, to develop a commercial application for a hypoallergenic peanut developed by the university in research funded with a federal grant.

This past year, the research park has been constructing a new 72,000 square-foot building on the campus to accommodate space for manufacturing, research and development. The City of Greensboro has agreed to fund $1.2 million for the project. VF Corporation, a leader in the apparel industry, also partnered with Gateway University Research Park in Greensboro to open a new 8,000 square foot Global Jeanswear Innovation Center that will be home to scientists, engineers, chemists, and designers. The center created an estimated 30 jobs in 2016. Several of the area colleges and universities are also experiencing significant capital construction. In 2016, A&T State University and University of North Carolina – Greensboro (UNC-G) were together approved by North Carolina voters for $195 Million in Connect NC Bond funding. Following the

opening of its $90 million newly constructed 150,000 square foot student center, A&T is investing $90 million for construction of a new four-story Engineering Research and Innovation Complex (ERIC). UNC-G is in the construction phase of a new $105 million, five-story Nursing and Instructional building and has also approved the second phase development of a new $51 million student residence hall as the final piece of its Spartan Village student housing development. Phase two construction will provide the mixed-use component with retail IX