An up-and-coming player in the local tech industry plans to increase its presence here.
The Pima County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday approved a two-year lease with Accelerate Diagnostics for the countyβs 3,800-square-foot Abrams Annex building. Itβs near the Abrams Center, 3950 S. Country Club Road.
The new space will be used for manufacturing components of the companyβs test kits. Accelerate makes diagnostic tests used to rapidly identify and profile infectious pathogens.
βRecruiting and retaining bioscience and life science companies is a key priority of the countyβs economic development plan,β Pima County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry said in a news release.
The company moved from Denver to Tucson in 2013, leasing space in the Abrams Center.
The lease provided the space at below-market lease rates, among other incentives.
The Arizona Commerce Authority provided the company with $1.7 million in grants and loans and Pima County agreed to spend up to $700,000 on laboratory and workspace upgrades as part of the enticement package that brought the company to the region.
The company agreed to make about $4.5 million in capital investments, and guaranteed that it would employ at least 30 employees with average salaries of $70,000 over the course of the initial three-year lease.
Accelerate has since expanded its workspace three times, and now occupies the entire fourth floor, about 50,000 square feet, at the county facility.
Today the company has 66 workers, and plans to hire at least 10 more with the expansion into the new building.
βThe company is already making plans for a future campus build-out at which time the current space could be used as ideal incubator space for another up and coming technology company,β Accelerate Chief Financial Officer Steven Reichling wrote in a December letter to county officials about the planned expansion.
