Austin is about to get new housing — for science.

The Hormel Foundation and the Hormel Institute will build a $6.5 million apartment complex, dubbed Science Park Housing, this year to house incoming researchers as the Institute’s expansion wraps up.

Foundation, Institute and area officials announced the project Monday morning.

“This was extremely important for us,” said Gary Ray, chairman of the Foundation.

Science Park Housing, located at Eighth Street and 17th Avenue Northeast across the street from the Institute, will have 42 units, 30 of which will be one-bedroom apartments. The project will be managed through a new company, Innovative Housing Concepts, and the Joseph Company will start construction next month.

If all goes well, Science Park Housing will be ready for occupancy in January. The Institute expansion should conclude around the same time.

Carter Wagner, of Innovative Housing Concepts and president of the Joseph Company, said the project will use brick and cement board siding and will also have a state-of-the-art wireless network.

The building will specifically house Institute employees.

“Right now in this community, we have a real shortage of apartments,” said Dr. Zigang Dong, executive director of the Institute. “Many scientists, when they arrive, they cannot find a living space.”

 

A community need

Foundation officials have bought up land east of the Institute over the past five years, in part to secure housing for researchers as the Institute grows. The Foundation owns 68 houses in the neighborhood, according to Ray.

Yet the Foundation decided upon the Science Park Housing project after a July 2013 study commissioned by the Austin Housing and Redevelopment Authority showed Austin needs more than 400 houses and apartment units to keep up with increasing population by 2020.

“We think this will help satisfy some of those needs here in the community,” Ray said.

The project will help Institute researchers work better and solve a major logistics issue for Institute officials. According to Dong, the average tenure of an Institute post-doctoral researcher is three to five years, during which time it’s best to rent an apartment rather than own a house.

The city of Austin has focused more of its efforts to solve housing issues ever since the housing study was released. The Austin City Council enacted a landlord registration ordinance in December, and last week the city and HRA announced plans to add about 30 townhomes in the proposed Fox Point development just east of the Village Co-Op in northwest Austin.

City Administrator Craig Clark testified last week at a state Senate committee in support of a workforce housing bill authored by Sen. Dan Sparks, DFL-Austin.

Clark was present at the groundbreaking ceremony Monday and lauded the Foundation project.

“We’re looking for every partner we can find to help us on housing,” Clark said.

The project comes as the Institute enters the final stages of a $28.5 million, 74,000-square-foot expansion, which will add 20 labs and about 120 new employees once it’s complete at the end of 2015. The Institute is already busy recruiting researchers, according to Dong.

Foundation officials have spent $23.5 million on the expansion and technology upgrades, and another $9.5 million on recruiting, according to Ray. Though the $6.5 million project will wrap up early next year, Foundation officials expect to develop more housing in the area over the next three to four years.

“We’re trying to develop this into a campus atmosphere,” Ray said. “We’re going to do a lot with landscaping and do things that will make this area very attractive for people who want to live here.”