Supplement: The University City Science Center

A Region Defined

Bridging the Gap

Ben Franklin Technology Partners

First State Innovation

Keystone Innovation Zones

NJIT's Enterprise Development Center

Rowan University's CIE

In 1963 the nonprofit University City Science Center took over four blocks, between 34th and 38th Streets along Market Street, in Philadelphia. Dean Lewis, the center's interim president and CEO, politely refers to the area as being "fairly blighted" at the time. The city had condemned the buildings along the stretch, and companies that the Science Center had courted early-on declined to move there. Over the course of almost 45 years, however, all that has changed. Lewis now describes the center as "the oldest and largest urban science park in the world and the 2006 recipient of the Outstanding Research/Science Park of the Year Award by the Association of University Research Parks."

The Science Center provides young companies with the infrastructure of offices and labs, as ...