$14.5M Innovation Center to be Built in Downtown Topeka

GO Topeka has found a home for its forthcoming innovation campus.

The local economic development agency announced Thursday it partnered with BioRealty Inc. to close on multiple properties in downtown Topeka, as part of the multimillion-dollar effort to stand up an innovation campus that will serve as the hub for Topeka’s Plug and Play accelerator program and other innovative endeavors in the capital city.

The campus is expected to be dubbed the ASTRA Innovation Center and will be located in the former home of Wolfe’s Camera Shop, which closed earlier this summer after 97 years in business.

The ASTRA Innovation Center is expected to encompass three storefronts on that block — 635, 633 and 627 S. Kansas.

The acronym “ASTRA,” according to GO Topeka, will stand for Animal Science, Technology, Research and Agriculture.

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