UChicago partners with CIC to create shared lab, office space in Hyde Park

Incubator will support entrepreneurs who focus on health, life sciences

The University of Chicago and CIC have announced that they will partner on a state-of-the-art lab incubator at Hyde Park Labs that will support entrepreneurs and start-up companies focused on life sciences.  

The creation of CIC Labs at Hyde Park Labs will include a facility spanning 20,000 square feet of wet lab and office space, operating within UChicago’s leased space in Hyde Park Labs. The CIC space will focus on startup companies of UChicago faculty members, helping to extend the impact of their research, discoveries, and intellectual property. CIC Labs will provide an environment in which startups, researchers and industry experts can collaborate, innovate and accelerate the development of groundbreaking ideas.

The new facility will be part of Hyde Park Labs, which is being built as a second phase of Harper Court – 53rd St.’s flagship mixed use development, with commercial, retail, office and hotel spaces.

“We are thrilled to collaborate with the University of Chicago to bring CIC's shared labs model to this vibrant city,” said Sarah Delmar, the vice president of Global Expansion & Corporate Development at CIC, which builds and operates a global network of innovation campuses where startups, scale-ups, corporations and public entities connect, work and grow. "This expansion will not only provide an exceptional platform for startups and researchers, but also enable us to play an active role in the thriving innovation ecosystem of Chicago and drive connections through our global network of innovation campuses."

Strategically located at the epicenter of Hyde Park on the corner of 52nd Street and Harper Avenue, Hyde Park Labs is a few blocks from UChicago’s main Hyde Park campus and the University of Chicago Medical Center.

“Our community of researchers and entrepreneurs at the University of Chicago, as well as our partners in the city and across the globe are excited to welcome CIC,” said Juan de Pablo, UChicago’s Executive Vice President for Science, Innovation, National Laboratories, and Global Initiatives. “We have a historic opportunity to strengthen Chicago’s innovation capacity, while laying a foundation for further growth in our dynamic Hyde Park neighborhood.”

Trammell Crow Company, a global commercial real estate developer, and Beacon Capital Partners, a leading real estate developer, owner and manager of life science and office properties, broke ground on Hyde Park Labs earlier this year. The building is expected to be completed in late 2024 and will create the advanced lab infrastructure needed to support a science and technology hub on the South Side. 

UChicago conducts pioneering research in innovative fields like biomedical sciences, engineering and quantum technology.

In recent years UChicago has joined a growing number of prominent research partnerships, including the CNRS-UChicago International Research Center for Fundamental Scientific Discovery, the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub Chicago, and global partnerships with IBM, Google and the University of Tokyo to advance quantum computing.