EMPTY INCUBATOR

I had a doctor's appointment this morning. My primary care physician's office moved from the main hospital on the PENN campus to the seventh floor of a place called the Port of Technology. It's on the same street as The Enterprise Center, barely eight blocks away, but worlds apart. 40th Street in West Philadelphia is a "red line," with stark differences in road conditions, storefronts, and retail mix. On our side is bars, weed-infested empty lots, and cracked pavement. On the other side Market Street is called "Avenue of Technology," PENN builds multimillion-dollar facilities, and trendy restaurants and clothing stores reign.

Port of Technology was built in the late 1990's, at the peak of the dotcom mania. It was to be a state-of-the-art technology incubator, a jumping-off point for a new wave of dotcom's and fast-growing enterprises. Philly was to soar, like Austin, San Jose, and Charlotte, into the pantheon of "cool" places for hyper-smart, hyper-rich young entrepreneurs.

It didn't happen. The Port of Technology has been distressingly empty for several months now, and I guess they decided to get into the real estate business. I didn't think to look at the directory on the first floor on my way in, but it wouldn't surprise me if non-startups made up more than half the tenants in this glorious building. Being that I work for an incubator just down the street, and that our organization seeks to build a new commercial facility in the next 12-24 months, it pains me to see an empty incubator.