As a student or professional working in and around Downtown Gainesville and the UF campus, you may have noticed that a certain swath of buildings along Southwest 2nd Avenue has been teeming with development and activity! That's because the University of Florida is hard at work to add a new technology and business center to Downtown Gainesville called Innovation Square!
What is Innovation Square?
Innovation Square is a technology and business campus located on Southwest 2nd Avenue, blocks away from the University of Florida and the heart of Downtown Gainesville. The concept behind Innovation Square is to create a haven for people with great ideas and the tools to make those ideas a reality to collide in a space that fosters creativity, originality, and entrepreneurship. In collaboration with the University of Florida, Innovation Square is currently being developed as a sustainable environment for people to live, work, and play.
Nestled at the heart of Gainesville's startup sphere, Innovation Square wants to bring people together to foster and market radically life-changing discoveries to the world.
The goal is for Innovation Square and Gainesville to become a great place to live and work, encouraging companies to build offices in the area and put Gainesville on the map as a center for technology and major breakthroughs in the tech sector.
What is the Innovation Hub?
Innovation Hub is one of the first buildings in Innovation Square, and is directly adjacent to the Infusion Technology Center. The Hub's primarily functions as an incubator for local startups like Shadow Health, Neuronet, and Feathr. The Hub's facilities allows these companies to tap into the burgeoning tech and business communities' resources in order to successfully develop and market their products.
Since opening, the Innovation Hub has housed design firms, venture capitalists, local startups, and even law firms.
What is Infinity Hall?
If you're interested in joining the
ranks of any of Gainesville's tech startups or are studying a
related field, living in Downtown Gainesville will put you
just steps away from Innovation Square and its resources!
Infinity Hall is an innovation space for Gainesville's growing number of researches and entrepreneurs at the undergraduate level to live and work. It will be the United States' first entrepreneurial-based residential community,
Is Innovation Square Growing?
Yes! The Innovation Square is expanding exponentially, incorporating new startups and entrepreneurs every day. The arrival of tech companies like Mindtree has been a boon to the growth of Gainesville's local technology scene, and has helped push development of the Innovation Square. More and more people are moving to Gainesville to get in on its up-and-coming technology scene.
In the next few years, many people will be moving into the areas around Downtown Gainesville and the University of Florida to be closed to Innovation Square and the Innovation Hub. Already, Gainesville communities are starting to see people involved with Innovation Square looking for apartments near downtown. Bianca Ryan, Leasing Manager at 2nd Avenue Centre, told me that the community "…has seen many Innovation Academy students sign leases." Innovation Academy students interact with the Innovation Square community, and businesses often recruit from among the Innovation Academy's entrepreneurial undergraduates.
You'll definitely be hearing more about what's in store for Innovation Square, Infinity Hall, and the Innovation Hub in the next few years. If you plan on joining any of Gainesville's tech startups in the near future, there are plenty of excellent apartments near and around Downtown Gainesville for you to choose from!