Street taps Rodin for new board

In the middle of a remarkable week for Philadelphia's biotechnology community, Mayor John Street announced yesterday the creation of the New Economy Development Alliance, designed to attract high-tech businesses. University President Judith Rodin was tapped to be the first chair of the Alliance's board, whose charter members also include Brian Roberts, CEO of cable giant Comcast Corp. and Jean-Pierre Garnier, CEO of leading pharmaceutical manufacturer GlaxoSmithKline. This comes on the heels of Provost Robert Barchi's Monday announcement that the University is committing $75 million over five years to fund a new Genomics Institute. And Tuesday, Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge proposed spending $90 million on three biotech "greenhouses" across the state, including one in Philadelphia. "Starting today [the Alliance] will work to capitalize upon our region's competitive advantage in the life sciences and to facilitate the development of a research/commercial center of our own," Street said. Explaining his vision of a "new economic order" for Philadelphia, Street said that the city's main competition is not its surrounding counties, but rather places like Cambridge, Mass., Silicon Valley, Calif. and the Research Triangle Park in North Carolina. "Part of the reason that we haven't been as successful over the years as we should have been is because of a certain parochialism -- we're prepared to take the first step," Street said after his economic address at a Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce luncheon. "There's plenty of opportunity for everybody." The Alliance will be part of the Philadelphia Industrial Development Corporation, the city's economic development arm. Rodin said that the creation of the Alliance was critical, because only government has the capacity to make the necessary policy changes needed to attract businesses. "We want, and the mayor wants, all of the other organizations that have been so active in promoting this -- such as Greater Philadelphia First and the Pennsylvania Economy League -- to be partners, but they can't create public policy," Rodin said. Similar to the Digital Greenhouse in Pittsburgh, the biotech greenhouses will be a consortium of government, universities and existing businesses that will work to "expand Pennsylvania's status as a world center for life-science business and research," according to a statement from Gov. Ridge. This will be done by providing such things as seed capital, skills training and specialized research equipment, which will be used to attract biotech business to Philadelphia. "We have to convince businesses that it's good business to be here, and I think that university research provides the leverage that makes that happen," Rodin said. When these biotech businesses come, they will need to locate somewhere. Rodin said that she hopes that the physical portion of the greenhouse will be in West Philadelphia, but that "it'll definitely be in Philadelphia." "With the research universities here -- Penn, Drexel, Temple, CHOP, Jefferson, Fox Chase -- it's got to be proximate to what's going on for this kind of thing to happen," Rodin said. Paul Steinke, executive director of the University City District, said that the greenhouses would likely be located far away from student housing, "on the Post Office lands or along the Schuylkill corridor somewhere." Street also appointed a "Council of Business Advisors" to explore future tax cuts. This committee of academics and business leaders will be appointed before March 1, according to the Mayor. Despite the address' feel-good tone, doubts lingered as to whether Street's plan is too little, too late. "The New Economy isn't as new as it was eight years ago," Councilman-at-Large James Kenney said. "I'm wondering whether we're not so far behind the curve that we should be examining new niches of the economy that are on the cutting edge, rather than being reactionary." However, Penn City Planning Professor Stephen Mullin, who was commerce department director under former Mayor Ed Rendell, said that there's still "plenty of upside" to the high-tech market. "The real important thing will be to see if there are some policy changes that can be recommended and implemented," Mullin said of the Alliance. "Otherwise, you just have a group of people talking."