Chesapeake Innovation Center downsizes

Maryland’s struggling Chesapeake Innovation Center (CIC) — the home of a number of local companies in the homeland security field — took an important step toward financial solvency this month by downsizing its facilities by three-fourths and trimming its tenancy to eight companies from approximately twelve. (The incubator had at one time hosted as many as nineteen. The two companies that are leaving are PharmAthene and Inclinix, both of which will stay in Maryland. CIC will remain in the same building, one floor below its previous space.) The move comes after the resignation of interim director Laura Neuman, who left the company in objection to plans to keep the center in expensive Annapolis by raising the rents on some member companies. If CIC’s financials do not improve — the center is projecting a loss of $150,000-200,000 for 2007 on an annual budget of $1.44 million — critics have recommended that it be managed by a private firm.