News Coverage

ENH Signs on with Tech Park

April 26, 2006

By Mike Isaacs

Evanston Northwest Healthcare is the latest and largest tenant to sign on with Skokie's new downtown Illinois Science + Technology Park, officials announced this week.

About 500 employees from ENH's data center department in Evanston are expected to relocate to Skokie toward the end of the year, ENH spokesman Art Massa said. The employees currently work in different buildings.

"We're very pleased with the site and excited to be able to have different employees working together in one location," Massa said.

Village officials were hoping that a major new tenant such as ENH would commit to the new technology park in its first year. That will benefit the village, which has a tax increment finance zone where the technology park is located, officials said.

Mayor George Van Dusen also said that bringing in a company such as ENH will serve as "positive marketing" and is likely to spark more interest in the park.

"This means we will have an anchor for the park that is affiliated with the medical profession as well as the computer profession," Van Dusen said.

ENH becomes the third announced tenant for the site. NanoInk, a leading nano technology company, recently announced it has signed a lease with the technology park. Nanotechnology is defined as the science and technology of building electronic circuits and devices from single atoms and molecules.

The Nano Business Alliance, a national industry association, moved its Midwest headquarters to the park last year.

New owner

Forest City Enterprises Inc. last year bought the site from the Pfizer pharmaceutical company to build a downtown life sciences research park conducting cutting edge research. There are only a few such technology parks in the country and none in Illinois, officials have said.

At the time Pfizer closed its doors nearly three years ago, it employed about 1,200 people. The new technology park is almost at about half the number of employees with the new commitment of ENH, Van Dusen said.

Officials are estimating that the park could eventually employ as many as 3,000 people.

ENH will occupy one of two buildings on the campus that have not been torn down. Other buildings have been demolished and will be replaced by state-of-the-art facilities, officials said.

ENH's data center stores and supports all electronic medical records including MRIs and X-rays. Massa said the 130,000 square feet of space it will occupy in Skokie will double its current space capacity.

ENH officials said they had formed a task force assigned to finding additional space for its data center. The company was simply outgrowing its current space, they said.

"With our move to the Illinois Science + Technology Park, we will be able to centralize all of our information systems personnel in one location as well as provide the infrastructure necessary to support this specialized and critical center," said ENH chief information officer Tom Smith.

Skokie synergy

The Illinois Science + Technology Park will ultimately offer 2 million feet of research and office space spread across nine buildings.

"It has been amazing to see the campus transform over the past year," said Gayle Farris, president of Forest City + Technology Group. Farris said many of the companies at the site will be able to work together, share information and form "synergistic relationships."

The village has been forging ahead in plans for its downtown with the technology park in mind. A new Skokie Swift stop is planned for the downtown in 2007. Village officials have also been looking at major upgrades to the downtown area including attracting new businesses.

"We'll continue to work toward reinvigorating the downtown," Van Dusen said. "I'm just truly happy ENH is coming. It's a first rate company. This is certainly good news for Skokie."