At the home of the old Boca Raton economy, the talk was about the new Boca Raton economy. Two weeks ago, Crocker Partners – which owns the Boca Raton Innovation Campus (BRiC) — hosted a discussion titled “Leading the Way in STEM Education.” STEM is the longtime acronym for science, technology, engineering and medicine. A new version adds Arts and calls it STEAM.
The IBM story in Boca Raton began in the late ‘60s when then-Chairman of the Board of IBM, Thomas Watson, announced the company would open a manufacturing facility here to produce its 550 Model 20 Midsize computer. That site, now the Boca Raton Innovation Campus, was designed by renowned architects Marcel Breuer and Robert Gatje, and at its peak covered 3.6 million square feet in more than 40 buildings. It would be big for Boca. But no one knew how big.
Boca Raton is famous for IBM and the birthplace of the personal computer. Now the sprawling complex that ushered in the personal technology era is set to be the centerpiece of a new landmark: An office complex geared to the future Boca Raton employee. The property “presented an opportunity to invest in the future, a place for people to live, work and play in a manner we are seeing all over the globe,” said Angelo Bianco, managing partner of Crocker Partners, which bought the complex for $170 million in 2018.