City's Innovation Center Work Underway

The interior of the former Union Savings Bank at 158 Main St., next door to the Danbury Public Library, is entirely gutted.

It will be used for the Danbury Innovation Center. The center is meant to be a space where people can investigate new business ideas and new products using computers and 3-D imaging equipment.

The plan is to build a coffee shop where the library and the former bank meet near the library's back entrance. The center will include a SCORE office. Inside the center they will find meeting space and equipment for designing new products and new businesses.

The innovation center, which in some cities is called a hacker space, is an idea taking shape across the country. At the Delray Beach Library in Florida, the library, local businesses, economic development officials and the city are cooperating to create one, said former Danbury City Council President Vincent Nolan, economic development director of Delray Beach's Community Redevelopment Agency.

Similar spaces exist in Watertown, Westport, Meriden, Stamford, Hartford, New Haven, and Providence, RI, among many others nationwide.

The interior will include a sound-dampening room where noisy equipment will be housed. The second floor of the bank, which isn't part of the Innovation Center, is used by the library as a computer training area. Noise from the Innovation Center will be dampened to avoid disturbing the computer training rooms upstairs.

Rick Palanzo, superintendent of public buildings, said he is hoping the Danbury Innovation Center will be completed by early June. Danbury is acting as the general contractor for the job.

Danbury voters approved the $500,000 expense during the November election.