High-tech incubator that the Lawrence and Douglas County purchased for $3M in 2010 now ‘bleeding cash’

Local governments made a nearly $3 million investment into a high-tech incubator space in northwest Lawrence that city leaders now say is losing more than $400,000 per year.

In 2010, Lawrence and Douglas County spent $2.9 million to purchase and renovate the former Oread Labs building, 4950 Bob Billings Parkway. The University of Kansas Bioscience and Technology Business Center operates the building’s lab and office space as an expansion facility to its main building on west campus, but BTBC leaders say the facility is struggling financially and needs more money from the city and county.
The city and county made the unusual deal to purchase the building in 2010 with the idea that it would retain CritiTech, a Lawrence-based pharmaceutical company that local leaders feared would leave the community without the lab space, the Journal-World reported at the time. CritiTech remains in Lawrence but left the BTBC expansion facility about five years ago.