A little bit of MaRS will come to Ottawa, business leaders hope.

After all, they said, the results of an extensive survey told them to go big or go home.

Since announcing preliminary plans to construct an "innovation hub" in Ottawa that will act as a focus point for Ottawa's business community, proponents have been busy getting back to advisors and scouring the horizon for potential partners.

Some are already lined up, but while proponents aren't sharing who they are, they are giving some details on the scale of what could become one of Ottawa's largest public construction project of the decade.

The hub would be a physical, central facility, improving linkages in Ottawa's business and financial community, helping improve shrinking VC investments and perhaps act as a jumping-off point for commercialization and export, they add.

But while officials from The Ottawa Partnership (TOP) and the Ottawa Centre for Research and Innovation (OCRI) insist the idea is still in its infancy, plans are being formulated for what they hope will be one of the grandest buildings in the capital, and perhaps Canada.

They want something instantly recognizable around the world that will place Ottawa on the world business map.

TOP chair Chris Henderson said an extensive survey of Ottawa's business community over the last few months yielded the overwhelming consensus that bigger is better.

"If it's to be global, it better be significant, because I'm not going to spend my time if it's classically Canadian," was what Mr. Henderson said many top executives told him. "And for that to happen, we need to be big."

Michael Murr, economic development manager at the city, called the hub a "realistic plan that will accelerate innovation and, more importantly, speed up commercialization."

"Ultimately there is no silver bullet, no one thing, that is the defining factor when it comes to commercializing technology," he said. "But (the hub) will do that by creating a physical centre that will (be) a focal point for the community . . . something that has a brand that can define our community both internally and externally, and a whole suite of services that will assist entrepreneurs, scientists, and researchers, that will take their research and turn it into a bona fide product or company."

"Yes, it's a grand idea. But if you don't go big, you may as well go home," said Mr. Henderson, adding there are "piles" of "classically Canadian" reports collecting dust with alternative suggestions, like reforming the tax structure and encouraging more VC investment.

To achieve their goal, he said the project needs partners, a location, and a unique design, throwing out names of renowned local architects.

"It will have to be an architecturally beautiful, internationally-recognizable, a green building," he said. "Let's see if we can do that."

Mr. Henderson first unveiled the idea at a TOP meeting earlier this month. Plans for a $100-million to $125-million building, funded through a public/private partnership (P3) managed like Ottawa's airport authority and modelled on the MaRS Centre in Toronto, at a rough annual cost of $10 million to $15 million.

MaRS is an acronym which once stood for "medical and related sciences." However, the two-year-old facility has since broadened its scope, now incorporating the biotechnology, IT, and nanotechnology sectors.

Located in downtown Toronto in its "Discovery District" close to Bay Street, Queen's Park and the University of Toronto, the facility was built around an existing heritage building, and is a physical locus for capital, business, and technology.

"Even a city the size of Toronto has one hub for innovation," said Mr. Henderson. "Life science, bio sciences, health sciences . . . You go into MaRS, you feel energy. Things happen."

That said, he added, there will also be differences.

"MaRS, fundamentally, has an incubator approach," he said. "It's got a strong element of research. (But) we see this as innovation for the global market. We see more emphasis on commercialization and in applying knowledge, and more connecting together the various pieces of Ottawa's innovation ecology."

Where MaRS provides the vision, Ottawa's International Airport Authority provides the structure, he said.

"The airport authority is very successful," he said. "You just have to look at their results: new airport, new assets, new economic generator. It hasn't increased our taxes, and it operates on a user-pay basis. These are great principles.

"We're not asking for government handouts. We'll be creating a centre financed under a P3 approach."

One of the tenants in the proposed facility would be OCRI, CEO Jeffrey Dale said. OCRI surveyed the 200 or so local VIPs that came up with the hub plan.

He said the idea is in line with Mayor Larry O'Brien's recent "Ottawa, where's your swagger?" speech.

"Everyone can tell us what's not working," he said. A lack of linkages, little commercialization activity, scarcities in capital, experience, global connections and students enrolled in technology courses . . . "the list goes on and on and on," he said.

The results of a survey OCRI has not yet released suggested an innovation centre was the answer.

"MaRS made the cultural change in Toronto," said Mr. Dale. "The facility itself only has 20 people working there. But it galvanized the private corporations, the venture capitalists, the bankers, the law firms . . . to co-locate. Most of the conferences held in Toronto are held at the MaRS conference centre."

Besides corporate offices, it would be home to an exposition hall, displaying new technologies, a place where "you can actually talk it and feel it." It would even display foreign innovation from participating embassies.

The next phase, both men said, is to fine tune the idea with those who were surveyed originally. As well, a spot housing a facility big enough for an expo hall, a small conference facility and Ottawa's entire "innovation ecosystem," including OCRI and the VC, banking and commercial law communities, needs to be nailed down.

"Obviously, downtown is the preference," said Mr. Dale. "It has to be centrally located, with access to the business and education community. We've probably looked at four or five sites, but we're nowhere on any of them."

"I'm kind of surprised that they're saying (downtown)," Bruce Wolfgram, vice-president with the local office of commercial real estate firm J.J. Barnicke, told the OBJ. He said either Kanata or Ottawa's west end seemed like more logical locations.

"On the other hand, Ottawa's not that large that's it's going to preclude anyone from driving in. I don't think it really matters where it goes," he said.

"The dollars that are mentioned here are significant," Mr. Wolfgram said, adding that he thought it was a good plan to bring back an industry that he said still hasn't recovered from the crash of 2001.

"Our high tech industry definitely needs a major stimulus such as this," he said. "We need to become a major centre of high tech again."