Boston's 'Innovation District'

Extracted 31MAR2012 from http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-03-21/bostons-so-called-innovation-...

Over the last two years, blocks of old, brick factories and warehouses have been converted into hip working spaces by hundreds of entrepreneurs in the district—which covers roughly 1,000 acres on the South Boston Waterfront... An Innovation Center, a 12,000-square-foot indoor “public space,” will open this year...

News of the district has spread in part by word of mouth, but one of the main entities guaranteeing a steady stream of entrepreneurs into the Innovation District is MassChallenge. Every year the nonprofit startup accelerator and competition awards money, training, access to consultants, and free space in its office for a few months to 125 startups. Competition winners get to stay an extra seven months for free, and finalists and other companies can rent space on the floor for $100 to $150 per person per month...

Low-cost office space is like oxygen to startups, and Boston’s new innovation hub offers a cheaper alternative to Cambridge’s Kendall Square. Gemvara co-founder Matt Lauzon estimates rent in Kendall Square can be about twice as much...

Many entrepreneurs there embrace the idea of a new innovation hub. “But people inside the city don’t really embrace or identify with the brand,” Sender says. This is especially true for the artists that were already in the Fort Point area, an emerging arts community.

[... so let the Arts commingle with Science and Technology for the betterment of us all and a truly different approach to innovation.]