Ground will be broken today on the first of two university-connected parks that aim to make Baltimore a leader in the bioscience industry.

The Baltimore Sun

The University of Maryland, Baltimore begins works today on the first phase of its $300 million UM BioPark, the first of two major research parks that experts say are the key to Baltimore's dream of becoming an international leader in the bioscience industry.

The UM BioPark project, on the city's west side, is the smaller of two projects flanking downtown. The second is a much larger development planned near the Johns Hopkins medical campus on the east side.

"These two biotechnology parks are more important to Baltimore's economic future than practically anything since the Inner Harbor," said Anirban Basu, chairman and chief executive of Optimal Solutions Group, an economic and policy consulting firm in Baltimore.

"These biotech parks should result in a leveraging of Baltimore's dominant position in institutional medicine and create a host of private sector companies that over the next two decades has the potential to facilitate tax-base growth, job-growth and personal-income growth. This is tremendously good news."