Back in early 2018, Kadans Science Partners acquired another building, Kennispoort, from TU/e. Now the former Meulensteen Art Center has also been acquired, having been vacated at the end of 2016 by its last user: Grafisch Atelier Daglicht. The building was still owned by  Gerard Meulensteen, who in the past has often discussed with the Executive Board the best use to which the building could be put.

That use is now known: Kadans has bought the building from Meulensteen, acquired the land lease for fifty years from TU/e and will be undertaking renovation work in the coming months. The ground floor will house four studios available for rent individually and a communal room for meetings, presentations, and the like. On the first floor a large studio will be built. Kadans is already at work on the premises: slight water damage is being repaired, and electricity and internet being updated. In addition, on the ground floor the facade will be brought forward, thus making the studios bigger, and a central hallway will be added giving access to the studios.

Read on below the photo.

Precision robots

Eindhoven Medical Robotics will have its offices on the first floor. The business is involved in the production of precision robots for surgeons. Over the coming ten years, the owners professor Maarten Steinbuch and COO Anupam Nayak are keen to see it become market leader, as can be read on their website. This will happen in close cooperation in TU/e, other technical partners and hospitals worldwide. Alongside Steinbuch and Nayak, another six people are currently working at the company.

Steinbuch expects his company to be able to relocate in April from the Multimedia Paviljoen, where it is currently based, to the new location, and he thinks that by then the workforce will already have doubled to sixteen. “If everything goes well, I expect our company to adhere to Moore's Law and to see the number of staff double every year. In our new premises we'll be okay for another three to four years.” On the first floor there will be office space and laboratories for testing the robots thoroughly and developing them further, Steinbuch informs us. He is already aware of the interest being shown by other small companies keen to rent space in the building, but for more information on this he refers us to Kadans.

Plans

Johan van Gerven, project leader at Kadans, says that conversations have indeed been held already with startups still operating out of Gemini, the Mechanical Engineering building, but that as yet no firm agreements have been made. “Some are still considering it, others had already made up their minds to move somewhere else. By the way, we are also open to startups closely involved in the theme, software development, automation or artificial intelligence, for example. Something that fits in the cluster.”

Kadans certainly has other plans for the TU/e grounds, says Van Gerven. “Our next project will be the purchase of the Multimedia Paviljoen and here again Maarten Steinbuch is involved, this time with the Eindhoven Engine.” A new build is a possibility not to be excluded, he says, especially given that Kadans's activities mainly concern the north-east corner of the grounds. In the plans for the further development of the campus, this is where TU/e has set aside space for industry. “Kadans is convinced that this is where things are going to be happening in the coming years,” concludes Van Gerven.