Growing B.C. research companies have a new place to put down roots with the
construction of the Donald Rix Building, the latest in a series of technology
enterprise facilities located on campus.
The building is named after UBC clinical assistant professor of Pathology
and B.C. entrepreneur Donald Rix, who contributed to the cost of the building.
“I’ve been saying for years that the future for B.C. lies in the high-tech
community,” says Rix. “When this opportunity came up, I thought it was time
I put my money where my mouth is.”
The $8.6 million building is currently under construction on UBC property
at the corner of Health Sciences Road and Agronomy Mall. The almost 5,000-square-metre
four-storey facility will house a variety of tenants and is being developed
by Discovery Parks Inc. (DPI).
Tenants will pay market rents for space that can be designed according to
their needs. DPI expects that half the building will house biotechnology companies
and the other half will be leased to companies involved in information technology
research when it opens next spring.
State-of-the-art infrastructure and support services for voice, data, fibre
optic and coaxial cable connections are provided as well as campus services
such as hazardous waste disposal.
“This new building is needed to accommodate the growth of new companies created
on the basis of UBC research,” says Angus Livingstone, managing director of
the University-Industry Liaison Office.
WebCT Canada, a UBC spin-off company that produces Web-based educational software
and has nearly 180 employees, is one of the building’s new tenants.
“We could have moved to an office downtown at roughly the same cost but we
wanted to stay on campus,” says WebCT President Murray Goldberg. “Our employees
who are faculty and alumni can keep their relationships with UBC colleagues,
we can easily recruit graduates and employ senior students and I can continue
to teach here.”
There are 22 companies from pro-active to early-stage enterprises now located
on campus in two technical enterprise facilities.
Most of the companies are UBC spin-offs. The remainder have research relationships
with UBC. Profits from lease agreements are fed back into UBC research.
UBC ranks third in Canada and among the top 10 in North America for the number
of companies created.
Major funding for the Rix Building was supplied by the Discovery Foundation
which was founded in 1979 to develop facilities for high-tech industry in B.C.
