UNMC breaks ground on the Innovation Hub in midtown Omaha

OMAHA, Neb. (WOWT) - The University of Nebraska Medical Center formally broke ground on the Innovation Hub at Catalyst in Midtown Omaha.

It’s a facility where leaders in medicine, technology and business will come together to create products for the world.

“This project and the neighborhood that will surround it will revolutionize the western edge of our campus here in Omaha,” said UNMC Chancellor Dr. Jeffrey Gold.

The site is located south of Farnam St. between 48th St. and Saddle Creek Rd. It used to be the 1906 Omaha Steel Castings industrial tract.

The new Innovation Hub is part of UNMC’s larger Saddle Creek Redevelopment project, which will center on biotech and medical advancement while helping promising new startups take off.

“The new products, drugs, treatments, devices that are developed in this facility…will benefit all of humankind for generations to come,” Gold said.

Catalyst will bring UNMC’s UNeMed and UNeTech branches together. There will be spaces where teams can collaborate and a venue for events, along with spaces leased to the startups.

University leaders say the large space and the location, just west of the campus, are key to the hub’s success.

U.S. Senator Pete Ricketts says the Innovation Hub shows how Nebraskans can come together.

“You’re going to see scientists, doctors, business leaders, developers, entrepreneurs all come together to develop this site,” Ricketts said.

Nebraska Governor Jim Pillen says it’s a win for the state.

“This will be really really exciting as it brings some of the top talent in the United States here creating high paying, high developed, high needs jobs,” Pillen said.

Catalyst is expected to be completed in late 2024.

UNMC and Nebraska Medicine are planning to build a new administrative tower in the Saddle Creek corridor in 2025.

Copyright 2023 WOWT. All rights reserved.