Cincinnati Innovation District expansion to bring more jobs, money to region
CINCINNATI (WKRC) - Thousands of jobs and hundreds of millions of dollars generated locally will likely be traced back to efforts announced Monday. Leaders in government, education and industry gathered in Cincinnati Monday morning to celebrate the expansion of the Cincinnati Innovation District.
Kimm Lauterbach is the president and CEO of economic development organization for REDI Cincinnati.
“We’ll look back at the creation of this innovation district as a game-changing moment in the city and the region,” she told a crowd of business, education and political leaders.
The who’s who in state and local leadership -- from the head of the state, Gov. Mike DeWine, to the head of the University of Cincinnati, Neville Pinto -- turned out to the 1819 building, the center of the Cincinnati Innovation District, Monday.
JP Nouseef is the CEO of Jobs Ohio.
“Innovation districts are really an intersection of industry, academia and government represented and reflected right up here today,” Nouseef said.
Nouseef helped announce the expansion of one of the state’s three innovation districts, which is geographically bordered by the triangle created by I-75, I-71 and uptown. The district, launched two years ago, provides space, talent from local colleges and universities and capital from investors to spur the creation and growth of innovative companies in the area.
Candice Matthews Brackeen is an example of how, and why the Innovation District is working. The UC grad is a general partner at Lightship Capital, one of the Wall Street Journal’s top 10 women-led venture capital groups in the country. She is also the executive director of the Lightship Foundation.
“Grow the talent that we have here in town, attract additional talent from outside the region and then bring capital and great talent to all of those things to help them grow in scale,” Matthews Brackeen explained.
The Lightship Foundation is relocating its headquarters to the Cincinnati Innovation District in two locations: The first is in Mt. Auburn, known as the Beacon. It will be complete by the end of 2022. It will not only house the foundation, but other innovative companies as well.
The second is the Boulter House, a Frank Lloyd Wright home in Clifton, that will act as Lightship’s Innovators in Residence house. It will provide minority students, artists, designers and entrepreneurs with a place to live and collaborate with one another.
Dr. Kwane Watson’s Kare Mobile is one of Lightship’s projects. He is moving his growing company to Cincinnati from Louisville.
“They were our first investors, and they’ve opened so many doors with us that we thought, ‘Why not come to Cincinnati?’” Dr. Watson said.
It was not the first company to incubate here, and, exhibited by the growing infrastructure now building within the district, it will definitely not be the last.
The head of Jobs Ohio says, with the help of the Cincinnati Innovation District, Ohio has gone from being ranked seventeenth, to sixth among competitive states in attracting capital.
