Construction on the $7.5 million expansion is scheduled to begin Tuesday and be open as early as September on Lehigh University's Mountaintop Campus. The four-floor, 19,685-square-foot facility could host about eight to 10 new companies.
The expansion, which also received a $1.7 million federal grant, will include business incubation, office and meeting space for early-stage technology companies.
"We are really interested in growing good companies that provide good family-sustaining jobs, and that is what this place does," Wolf said at a public appearance at TechVentures.
His announcement came before Ben Franklin officials and elected officials including state Sen. Lisa Boscola, state Rep. Steve Samuelson and Bethlehem Mayor Robert Donchez.
Wolf's news of the $1.5 million grant from the Redevelopment Assistance Capital Assistance Program was the second he announced Monday. Earlier in the day, Wolf visited Scranton to announce a $3 million grant to help redevelop vacant buildings in downtown Scranton into classroom and laboratory space for Lackawanna College.
In Bethlehem, the expansion of TechVentures, owned by Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Northeastern Pennsylvania, marks the second in five years.
The original TechVentures, which was converted from a 62,000-square-foot building at the former Bethlehem Steel Corp.'s Homer Research Labs complex, opened in September 2007. Officials dedicated a 47,000-square-foot expansion, including wet labs, meeting space and a parking deck, in October 2011. Since then, the organization has been near 100 percent capacity.
TechVentures, which made Wolf's Jobs That Pay tour in January, is at 97 percent capacity.
Ben Franklin Technology Partners, which was established in 1983, connects incubator companies with an experienced staff and gives them access to Lehigh's resources, including equipment, faculty and facilities. Its territory includes Lehigh, Northampton and 19 other Pennsylvania counties.
R. Chadwick Paul Jr., president and CEO of Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Northeastern Pennsylvania, said the expansion is crucial to growing Pennsylvania's economy.
"We invest public funds to support early-stage and technology-based firms and we also help manufacturers creatively apply technology to make their products better, cheaper, faster and more competitive," he said. "The result is the creation and retention of high paying, sustainable jobs in Pennsylvania and the development of technologies that impact and improve the human condition around the globe."
Since it began in 1983, Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Northeastern Pennsylvania has created 16,986 new jobs and retained 23,761 in its 21-county region of Pennsylvania.
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