Community Renewal Good Stories - Camden

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Camden Tech Incubator Adds New Venture Fund, Plans Expansion

Camden, New Jersey, RC

"A lot of people thought there were no entrepreneurs in South Jersey," Frank Keith, director of the Rutgers-Camden Technology Campus, Inc., told the Philadelphia Business Journal in 2002. "We proved them wrong."

And Keith continues to prove his point. On March 31, 2004, the U.S. Commerce Department's Economic Development Administration (EDA) boosted incubator efforts by providing $850,000 to cover legal and administrative costs of setting up the New Jersey Early Stage Venture Capital Fund. The EDA investment will start the venture fund and provide a mentoring program to help technology-related, early-stage businesses gain access to equity and debt financing. Keith envisions the venture capital fund becoming as large as $75 million.

"To help attract qualified entrepreneurial companies to Camden and its surroundings, the fund will strongly encourage companies in which it invests to locate in the city's Renewal Community or Empowerment Zone. The Tech Campus will seek experienced venture-fund managers from the region to run the fund," Keith said.

The Tech Campus is a partnership of the Rutgers University School of Business at Camden, the Delaware River Port Authority, and the New Jersey Commission on Science and Technology. Located in Camden's Renewal Community since its opening in October 2002, the Tech Campus will move to new quarters in the Camden EZ waterfront in 2005.

"The long-range goal is to create a six-building technology park in Camden, close to the aquarium," said Keith. "As we speak, the first building is under construction. It will be 100,000 square feet-20,000 square feet per floor, with five floors available for occupancy in 2005." One floor of the building will provide modular "wet labs" to "house a nest of biotech life sciences companies in Camden," said Keith. The Rutgers-Camden Technology Campus will occupy two floors of the new building, doubling the incubator's capacity in its current site with 35 office suites in a renovated hospital building in the RC.

"The idea, as companies spin out of the incubator, is to have a tech park in Camden," said Keith. He anticipates the tech park project will create 1,000 to 1,200 high-paying jobs. All companies located in the Camden RC are eligible also to claim valuable Federal tax incentives that Congress authorized for RC businesses, such as Commercial Revitalization Deductions, Increased IRS Section 179 Deductions, and wage credits worth up to $1,500 per employee. The employee must reside in the RC and there is no limit on the number of employees for which the employer can take these credits. These credits are available to RC businesses through at least the end of 2009.

For more information on the programs of the Camden RC, contact Ms. Frances Abdul-Badee of the RC at (856) 365-9061.