Two members of Cornell’s on-campus business incubators will soon expand their businesses in Ithaca, creating local jobs and building capacity for future startups to grow in the region. 

REEgen, a Cornell spinout that engineers bacteria to extract rare earth elements from industrial waste, and RETRN Bio, a startup that upcycles agricultural waste into bioplastics, will both scale up at a new development on Ithaca’s South Hill. 

The development, SouthWorks, was recently awarded $38 million from New York’s Regional Economic Development Council to transform the former Morse Chain Factory site into a mixed-use, adaptive reuse project. The development will include an innovation hub to retain startups in advanced manufacturing, biotechnology and agtech. 

REEgen and RETRN collaborated with the SouthWorks team to devise a plan for the establishment of a new biomanufacturing pre-commercialization facility and the purchase of scale-up testing equipment for fermentation technologies.  

The 17,000 square foot facility addresses a shortage of sufficient, affordable manufacturing space for startups in the Southern Tier. Startups often outgrow the limited space provided by incubators before they are ready to move to standalone manufacturing or lab facilities. SouthWorks aims to provide the bridge resources needed to keep startups in the region as they grow. 

“One of the biggest challenges for commercializing clean tech solutions is accessing the capital equipment needed to test scale-up,” said Alexa Schmitz, co-founder and CEO of REEgen. “Southworks’ planned facilities for regional startups will be an ideal fit for this unique challenge, allowing REEgen and other startups at our stage to access the critical infrastructure needed to develop and accelerate scale-up efforts.” 

As a SouthWorks tenant, REEgen plans to hire 30 additional FTEs for its business, marketing, and R&D teams in the next five years, while RETRN Bio expects to grow from its current 6 FTEs to a team of 20 or more in that time.  

Beyond new hires, the new space will also indirectly support jobs across the economy. Both startups expect to hire local contractors, specialized service providers and lab support personnel during the growth phase, and they will need machinists to customize or refurbish the scale-up equipment, and specialists to help service and maintain equipment.  

The collaboration between REEgen and RETRN and SouthWorks sets the stage for future pilot capacity in other spaces, such as clean room space, materials science characterization and pressure chemistry for new materials development. Ultimately, SouthWorks aims provide 70,000 SF of technology development and advanced manufacturing space in key industries like materials science, waste processing, batteries, building materials, energy systems, agriculture, artificial intelligence and semiconductors.