Open for Business Acceleration: New Innovation Hub

In Houston, The Ion, a hub of innovation, is open for business.

Also, it is open for entrepreneurs, academics and collaborators who can create and advance start-ups in a new campus in Midtown Houston.

The Ion is a redevelopment of an 82-year-old, multi-story Sears building by Rice Management Co, which manages the $6.2 billion Rice University endowment.

Academics Collide with Entrepreneurs

As Houston’s nucleus of innovation, the 266,000 SF Ion is on a steady track aiming to enhance resilient and robust economic growth. Space, medicine, technology and clean energy stakeholders have already attracted major international players like. Microsoft, which has leased the entire fifth floor. Chevron Technology Ventures is building out their space on the third level.

“We want to create collisions between academics and entrepreneurs,” says Deanea LeFlore, Senior Director of Partnerships for The Ion. She shared that the Ion now has four accelerators in place:

• The Ion Smart and Resilient Cities Accelerator (Super Demo Day set for June 14-16.)
• The Ion Aerospace Innovation Accelerator for Minority Business Enterprises
• DivInc Houston (the first cohort is already running)
• Rice Alliance Clean Energy Accelerator (set to begin in early summer)

LeFlore and Bryson Grover, Investment Manager for Real Estate Development for the Rice Management Company led tours for local journalists this week.

“The Ion starts a 5 to 10-year, phased development. As a Rice graduate, I’m excited the University, the City, corporate and community partners are united and committed to Houston’s future in innovation and inclusion,” says Ann Taylor, who has joined the RMC team as Communications and Marketing Strategy Lead for The Ion District.

The Luminescent Blue Screen

A luminescent blue lobby screen welcomes visitor as they enter from Wheeler Avenue, for now as the finishing touches complete on the inviting outdoor seating areas and landscaping.

Third floor view of The Ion on May 13, 2021. Photo credit: Michelle Leigh Smith for Ev Konut Proje.

The second level features a behemoth stair-stepped amphitheater with seating for 250. “Capital Factory will be on this floor, near the academic flex space,” Grover says. College students may congregate here in spaces for business advice on startups or talks with angel investors.

“First tenants will finish construction this summer,” says Grover.

At present, The Ion offices are open and some members of the Rice Management Company team were able to work from there during the tours Thursday.

Grover is perhaps most excited about the natural light that embraces the atrium, from the rooftop down. “As we penetrated the building’s central core, we opened up to access natural light. Even at this scale, normally you would not get this level of natural illumination,” he explains.

Guests walked outside the glass walls of the fourth floor on a terrace, with a gorgeous view of downtown Houston, that was once the Sears roof.

Can the Historic Sears Sign Be Saved?