Dennis Lower

The Cortex Innovation Community has named its next president and CEO.

Sam Fiorello will begin the job March 30, replacing Dennis Lower, who announced last year that he would be retiring.

Fiorello has served as chief operating officer and senior vice president of the Danforth Plant Science Center, the Creve Coeur-based nonprofit research institute, since 1998. In 2009, he also became president of BRDG Park, the center’s affiliated research park.

In nearly two decades, the Cortex Innovation Community transformed a once-blighted, industrial part of St. Louis’ Central West End neighborhood into a bustling tech haven. 

A study of the district released Thursday found Cortex is bringing more money, jobs and development to St. Louis.

Cortex commissioned Ohio-based economic development research firm TEConomy Partners last year to conduct the study, which looked at the tech district’s first 16 years.

A historic building in the Cortex innovation district is being transformed into a focal point for the St. Louis bioscience industry. At least that’s the intention of BioSTL President and CEO Donn Rubin.

“It’s part of my vision that when a guest to St. Louis comes for a meeting in the biosciences, they will be exposed to not just one company or one entrepreneur, but see an entire community of entrepreneurs — a beehive of startup activity.”

Updated at 2:30 p.m., July 30 with comment from StarLake Holdings Managing Partner John Berglund — Mobile payment technology company Square will move its 500 St. Louis employees from the Cortex Innovation Community to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch building downtown over the next few years.

The newspaper is moving around the corner next month, to 901 North 10th Street.

Square signed a lease on the newspaper’s longtime home last week. The building has space for 1,400 employees, giving Square the option to expand its St. Louis presence.

TechShop offered a cutting edge workshop for entrepreneurs making prototypes or those who just wanted to make stuff.

Now the St. Louis location and nine others around the country are closed. TechShop announced on Wednesday it’s filing for Chapter 7 bankruptcy.

The San Francisco-based company came to St. Louis in 2016. The maker’s space had a prime location in the innovation district Cortex in a new, 60,000-square-foot building at 4260 Forest Park Ave.

“It was a surprise to us,” said Dennis Lower, president and CEO of Cortex.

In many ways, breaking ground on St. Louis's first Ikea store is a lot easier than putting together the Swedish furniture maker's latest bookshelf. For Mayor Francis Slay, he just needed a shovel and speech. 

“Fortunately for a groundbreaking, you don’t need an Allen wrench or instructions,” Slay quipped. 

The expansion of the Cambridge Innovation Center to St. Louis is taking on bigger dimensions than originally planned.

CIC is well known for providing space and services to startups in the Boston area. It's attracted hundreds of startups and established tech companies such as Amazon and Facebook since its founding by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1999.

(Updated at 4:15 p.m. on Thursday)

A pro-transit organization released a study today that could lead to a new MetroLink station in St. Louis’ central corridor. 

A study by Citizens for Modern Transit examined the costs and viability of building a MetroLink station between Sarah and Boyle in Midtown. The station would be located close to CORTEX, a fast-growing bioscience and technology hub. And it would also be close to where furniture retailer Ikea is expected to set up shop in 2015.