The director of the multimillion-pound Inverness Campus is confident of making investment announcements in the coming months.
Project director Ruaraidh MacNeil said it feels like the site has reached the end of its first phase of development. And further investment is expected to flood in, including money from the commercial sector.
The facility at Beechwood is being developed by Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE) and includes the agency’s new headquarters.
It opened in 2015 with the unveiling of the new Inverness College UHI.
Further expansion is planned, with the agency applying for permission to create a new building to businesses in the life sciences sector because of commercial interest.
Mr MacNeil of HIE said: “It feels like we’ve completed the first stage of opening the Campus and getting the original parties on board with the college up and running, UHI are up and running as are SRUC (Scotland’s Rural College).
“We’ve got two companies on site and operating and that’s all going well.”
HIE have commissioned economic consultants Ekosgen to review progress which will establish the template of development for the next five years.
Mr MacNeil added: “So we are more or less taking stock of what we’ve done so far, checking the strategy to make sure we are doing the right things and then updating that and moving forward.
“On the back of that and in parallel with that, we’re starting to get quite a lot of commercial inquiries which is encouraging and hopefully that will give people confidence to keep on investing in the future.
“Hopefully, it will also continue to draw students to the campus because there will be locally-based careers for the students coming out of that system.
“Within the next four to six weeks, we hope to make one or two announcements with regards to new projects.”
He added: “It does feel a bit like let’s draw breath, take stock and get on with the next bit.
“The next bit will have quite a lot of physical projects on the ground.
“We haven’t necessarily got them funded, but we’re talking to people about that.
“Interestingly, there’s lots of activity in the commercial side that’s drawing interest, but also in the academic side where there are opportunities to grow the research side.”
