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Gig City's Innovation District a Leading Example in Catalyzing Economic Growth

The district helps concentrate innovative businesses and workers in an area where they can readily interact with one another and spawn even more new ideas.

(TNS) -- The National League of Cities is highlighting Chattanooga's downtown Innovation District as an example of how American cities can bring entrepreneurs, investors and talent together in a concentrated urban area to promote new types of businesses and organizations.

In a national report released Monday, the League of Cities said Chattanooga's Innovation District is the first of its kind among mid-size cities and is an example of how cities can "catalyze economic growth through spatial clustering, bringing together people from within and across fields to germinate ideas and create the next big thing."

So far, Chattanooga's Innovation District has not yet produced "the next big thing," but it has gained national attention and buttressed Chattanooga's claim as "Gig City" where the first gigabit-per-second Internet speeds were offered throughout the community five years ago when EPB brought its fiber-optic network to town.

Chattanooga Mayor Andy Berke, who established the 140-acre Innovation District for the central city area in January 2015, said the district helps concentrate innovative businesses and workers in an area where they can readily interact with one another and spawn even more new ideas.

To capitalize on the attention garnered by the Gig City label and the startup efforts from the Lamp Post Group, The Company Laboratory and the Enterprise Center, among others, Berke designated 140 acres downtown to an Innovation District and marked the area on streets and banners to draw attention to the Innovation label.

The district is anchored in the Edney Building at 11th and Market Streets where the city-funded Enterprise Center along with the partially state-funded Company Laboratory and the privately funded Society of Work reside, along with other related tenants. Nearby, EPB, the Public Library, TVA's power headquarters, Miller Park and Plaza and the Lamp Post Group and its network of businesses all provide some type of service for startup businesses.

"Cities are the natural environments where innovation districts thrive," said Brooks Rainwater, senior executive and director of League of City's Center for City Solutions and Applied Research. "They offer public transportation systems, tech resources, cultural amenities and competitive job markets. This environment allows a host of players — including entrepreneurs, startups, established firms, anchor institutions, highly skilled workers, thought leaders and policy makers — to connect in an area where unexpected relationships can form and transformative solutions can happen."

Berke said Chattanooga's Innovation District is designed to recreate some of the existing ecosystem in places like Southern California where they assume that businesses and entrepreneurs are going to interact on a regular basis.

"There could be tremendous market effects if we build a relationship between our existing companies and those who are inventing new products," Berke said.

Chattanooga's Innovation District is also aided by the city's high-speed Internet service, capable of up to 10 gigabits-per-second, from the city-owned EPB. The faster broadband has helped attract technology companies eager to use the Web for business and consumer connections.

The National League of Cities report said "Chattanooga's decision to build its innovation district, known as "the Gig," contrasts with the wait-and-see approach taken by many other cities."

"For many Chattanoogans, the Gig is viewed as a 21st-century natural resource of sorts and a potential draw for innovative high-technology companies with an insatiable appetite for bandwidth," the League of Cities report noted.

The National League of Cities represents more than 19,000 cities in the United States.

©2016 the Chattanooga Times/Free Press (Chattanooga, Tenn.). Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.