Innovation Station sets sights on Rosemary District

University of Florida’s Innovation Station, which Sarasota County leaders have lauded as a transformative economic development initiative, has a leader in former Sun Hydraulics CEO Al Carlson. 

Now it’s closer to having a full-time home.

Representatives from the Innovation Station, a local extension campus of the Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering, are in negotiations with developer Mark Kauffman to move into Rosemary Square next year, according to an Aug. 30 email from Carlson to stakeholders. The UF program is currently using space downtown in One Sarasota Tower with funding from the Charles & Margery Barancik Foundation.

Sarasota County has agreed to provide $1 million to the initiative over the next five years, while the Barancik Foundation has pledged $980,000 and the Gulf Coast Community Foundation will contribute $63,000.

The Innovation Station aims to provide a two-way pipeline between labs, technology and students at UF’s main campus and businesses and K-12 and college students in Sarasota County. One example of such statewide coloration is the Gator Engineering @ State College of Florida program, which allows students to start coursework at SCF and transfer to UF after two semesters.

Further, that program includes internships with Sarasota companies “to increase the pipeline of local residents into the Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering Computer Science and Information Technology programs and then back into the community’s innovation ecosystem,” according to UF’s website.

Along with the potential 5-year lease in the Rosemary District, the Innovation Station has also hired its second full-time employee: Workforce Coordinator Patti Harris. A veteran of the U.S. Army and the Manatee County School District, Harris recently completed her doctoral thesis in educational leadership at UF, according to a biography in Carlson’s email.

The Innovation Station will join the Sarasota Opera, which bought 30 apartments in Rosemary Square, along with Sarasota Contemporary Dance, the Players Centre for Performing Arts, a thai restaurant and glass blowing company in the new development.