HAMMOND | Blueprints are being finalized for a planned May start on construction of the downtown high-tech business support center.

The work should be put out for bids in about a week, city finance manager Bobby Lendi told the Redevelopment Commission on Tuesday.

A partnership between Hammond and Purdue University Calumet, the so-called technology park incubator will occupy an 8,300-square-foot office building at 5209 Hohman Ave. which was donated to the Redevelopment Commission last year by Harris Bank.

Renovations to the structure will complement those made to the adjacent Towle Theater, said architect Matt McCord, with American Structure Point of Indianapolis, which shares a parking area with the incubator.

"We want to clean up the utilities," McCord said. "A lot of those wires back there aren't even being used anymore."

The business center itself will be a totally wireless Internet facility, McCord said, which could be enhanced to become an online "hot spot" for the entire downtown area.

Funded through a $1.15 million state technology grant, $100,000 from the city and a matching $400,000 award from the Lilly Endowment Program, the incubator project is designed to attract, keep and help expand cutting-edge technology work in the downtown area.