Leading the way: Rose-Hulman, Union Health begin work on Innovation Grove district
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Leaders of Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology and Union Health break ground on a $102 million Grove Innovation district in Terre Haute on Oct. 3, 2024. (Marek Mazurek/IIB)
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The new outpatient surgery center will be connected to the Rose-Hulman Ventures building at Innovation Grove. (rendering courtesy of Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology)
Some projects use the word “innovation” superfluously when naming developments as a way to throw in a high-minded, placeholder term.
But leaders at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology and Union Health are deliberate about that word and what it could unlock for the surrounding region as they broke ground Thursday on the new Innovation Grove district.
Innovation Grove will use just over $100 million in total investment and is designed to create a hub of engineering and medical care that will see Rose-Hulman students learning alongside one of the most advanced hip and knee replacement surgery centers in the country.
“By positioning cutting edges facilities like Rose-Hulman Ventures alongside an ambulatory surgery center, we’re cultivating an environment where students can engage directly with industry professionals, tackle real-world challenges and witness first hand how their education translates into life-changing solutions,” said Rose-Hulman President Robert Coons told a crowd of gathered officials and institute administrators.
The new facilities, which leaders conceive of as a district unto itself, will be constructed at the corner of State Road 46 and State Road 42 just minutes east of downtown Terre Haute and south of Rose-Hulman’s campus.
Highlights of the planned Innovation Grove include a new 35,000 square-foot space for Rose-Hulman Ventures—the school’s engineering consulting and product design firm that employs full-time project engineers as well as student interns.
Right next door to the Rose-Hulman building will be a 40,000-square foot outpatient surgical center that’s a partnership between Indiana Joint Replacement Institute (IJRI) and Union Health—the largest hospital system in the region. The center will help patients seeking hip and knee replacements but also focus on teaching and research.
IJRI CEO Michael Meneghini said the integration of students and professional research into the same space makes Innovation Grove special.
“There’s so much engineering related to a well-functioning implant that goes into the human body that is best done in person,” said Meneghini, who is also a Rose-Hulman alumnus. “To bring these people so closely in a facility and a campus will accelerate the learning and accelerate the innovation to a level that will be faster than you could do if you were separated physically.”
Meneghini also announced during the groundbreaking that orthopedic giant Enovis is in talks with the IJRI to bring the engineering wing of its advanced 3D printing operation to Innovation Grove, which would create potentially even more investment and attention from the biomedical industry into Terre Haute.
The surgery center would be connected to the Rose-Hulman Ventures building via a walkway. The center would have up to four operating rooms, 14 recovery beds, X-ray and physical therapy services, as well as up to two dozen exam rooms.
Innovation Grove will also feature a five megawatt solar farm to help power the district, a series of walking trails connecting Innovation Grove to other trails in Terre Haute, and a STEM/robotics lab for local high school students. The campus will also have what Rose-Hulman calls a Sawmill Society, or dedicated spaces for the school’s entrepreneurial alumni to collaborate with locals businesses.
A variety of sources are helping fund the medical and engineering hub that has a price tag of approximately $103 million. Rose-Hulman in August received $30 million from the Lilly Endowment through it’s College and Community Collaboration’s initiative. The school is also getting over $4 million in grants from the state’s Regional Economic Acceleration and Development Initiative as well as a $2.2 million federal Economic Development Administration grant and some local American Rescue Plan Act funds.
Rose-Hulman, Union Health and the IRJI are committing over $71 million to the project.
U.S. Senator Todd Young spoke at Thursday’s groundbreaking and said public investments into institutions of higher learning—some of which were authored by Young through the CHIPS in Science Act—are a key to putting America ahead when it comes to emerging technologies.
“I’ve seen around the state how federal investments in … research facilities associated with institutions of higher education lead to new products and services and innovation,” said Young. “My CHIPS and Science Act has shown if we make modest federal investments in areas like semiconductors, artificial intelligence and AG bioscience, it leads to more jobs.”
The new surgical center is slated for completion in mid-2026.