An economic engine for the South Side will soon come to life on the University of Chicago’s Hyde Park campus. The school’s Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation forged a partnership with Portal Innovations, a venture capital firm that helps scientists establish new businesses, and plans to kickstart faculty-led companies at Hyde Park Labs, a 14-story building under construction at the corner of 52nd Street and Harper Avenue.
The move comes one week after Gov. J.B. Pritzker and Mayor Brandon Johnson announced California-based tech company PsiQuantum will invest billions building a massive quantum computer complex at the vacant South Works site on Lake Michigan several miles south of Hyde Park.
Samir Mayekar, the Polsky Center’s managing director, said Hyde Park Labs, set to open in 2025, will provide lab and office space for life sciences, data science and renewable energy researchers, and host venture capital firms ready to support new technology. Along with PsiQuantum’s complex, the hub will ensure researchers can grow companies and create jobs on Chicago’s South Side, instead of moving to more-established tech hubs in Boston or California.
“To have all this in walking distance is not something many institutions can do,” he said. “We’re seeing the transformational power of science.”
The university will occupy one and a half floors in the 300,000-square-foot building, developed by Trammell Crow Co. and Beacon Capital Partners, Mayekar added. The Polsky Center will sift through work done by university scientists and identify potential commercial products or therapies. Portal Innovations, which runs a similar business incubator in Chicago’s Fulton Market, will help design the labs, secure funding and help researchers develop business plans.
Mayekar is also the former CEO of Chicago-based NanoGraf, a high-tech battery material company, and said when it was founded in 2011, finding proper lab space was difficult.
“Investors wanted us to move to one of the coasts, and we didn’t want to do that,” he said. “With Hyde Park Labs, for the first time Hyde Park will have first-class facilities where you can build your science-based company.”
The university originally planned to bring aboard CIC, a Massachusetts-based operator of shared workspaces and labs, to run the business incubator. But Mayekar, a former deputy mayor in the Lightfoot administration who joined the Polsky Center last November, said Portal Innovations is a better fit.
“They are opening in markets such as Houston and Atlanta that, like Chicago, are rising, places that don’t necessarily have the mature ecosystem that you see in Boston or Cambridge,” he said. “Their track record is a little more aligned with what we’re seeing in this market.”
Portal Innovations has built about 200,000 square feet of startup lab space around the nation, including business incubators at Trammel Crow’s Fulton Labs, a two-building campus at 1375 W. Fulton St. and 400 N. Aberdeen St., said Portal Innovations CEO John Flavin. New businesses at Hyde Park Labs will be able to tap into his firm’s national network of venture capital firms and pharmaceutical companies looking to partner with startups.
“That’s what we bring to the table,” Flavin said.
The Chicago region will soon have the pieces in place needed to become a true powerhouse in science-based job creation, he added. The South Works quantum complex will join existing facilities like Fermilab, Argonne National Laboratory, and the Fulton Market life sciences hub, including the $250 million Chan Zuckerberg Chicago Biohub, a coalition of researchers from Northwestern University, the U. of C. and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, at 400 N. Aberdeen St.
“This sets the stage for what I believe will be a high-growth industry in Chicago for many years to come,” Flavin said.
The life sciences industry did meet headwinds in 2022 and 2023, including a falloff in venture capital funding. Some developers drew back, including Mark Goodman & Associates, which ditched plans for a 16-story life sciences tower at 400 N. Elizabeth St. in Fulton Market in favor of apartments.
Flavin attributed much of the slowdown to elevated interest rates. Once inflation cools and interest rates are cut, he expects investors, especially pharmaceutical firms that have piled up billions, will seek promising new discoveries.
“As we move into 2025, you’re going to see a lot of activity,” he said. “The best innovations should find a way to get funded.”
