Overview
- The consortium finalized a lease for a 3,500-square-foot ground-floor space at 625 Second St. in South Park, a century-old building formerly occupied by GitHub.
- The University of Chicago’s Polsky Center will manage the site as a two-year pilot, with programming timelines to be announced.
- Planned uses include demo days, investor pitching, workshops, alumni networking and startup showcases, with event capacity of up to 200 people.
- Participating institutions are Carnegie Mellon, Northwestern, Ohio State, Purdue, the University of Chicago, the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, the University of Wisconsin–Madison and Washington University in St. Louis.
- The eight universities cite nearly $10 billion in annual research spending and more than 300,000 students, and San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie publicly endorsed the hub as supporting the city’s recovery.