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DuPont pledges $200M for research center, seeks tenants

To "make lemonade out of lemons'

DuPont plans to merge with Dow this Spring, pending regulatory approvals in the U.S., Europe, Asia and Latin America.

Dow and DuPont have agreed to base their planned farm seed and pesticide spin-off and a mixed company of "specialty" electronics, nutrition and other businesses here. A materials company including most current Dow businesses will be based at Dow headquarters in Michigan.

Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa and officials in Indiana have argued executives and research scientists would better be based in those states, close to big agricultural customers.

DuPont Co. has already been sharing the Experimental Station site with earlier spin-offs and successors, including Chemours (which makes Teflon, paint and plastics bases), Axalta (auto paints) and Invista (the Koch Industries unit that makes nylon, which DuPont invented).

Markell said DuPont affiliates have been interested in working with the University of Delaware, which has recently expanded its own labs at its Newark, Del. campus, about helping coordinate Experimental Station work. University spokeswoman Andrea Boyle said the school and the company have been in talks about expanding research locations, but have not settled on the Station or other sites. (Update)

DuPont pulled out of its Wilmington headquarters complex, which once occupied four block-sized masonry, concrete and glass high rises, last year.

Chemours has remained in DuPont's Wilmington complex near Rodney Square. Chemours said Tuesday it plans to renovate space for 700 workers in partnership with Buccini/Pollin Group, a Wilmington developer which has purchased the building. (Corrected 1/11. The earlier version of the story referenced a different part of the former DuPont headquarters complex.)

Buccini/Pollin has been acquiring former DuPont-related properties and other aging Wilmington business properties, and converting some to hotels and apartments, much as Philadelphia developer Bill Glazer's Keystone Property Group has been planning apartments in the former Curtis Publishing headquarters buildings in Philadelphia.

Wilmington lost thousands of downtown jobs as the former MBNA Corp., Wilmington Trust Co., Delmarva Power and Hercules Inc. sold to out-of-town buyers who downsized operations in the small city over the past decade.

JPMorgan Chase & Co. and other credit card and student lenders and tax-shelter companies have expanded Wilmington-area employment, and former credit card executives have founded a string of small financial-tech companies.

But the city's office towers and its Market Street business district still include extensive vacancies, which newly-elected Mayor Mike Purzycki, a long-ago National Football League player who has led Wilmington redevelopment efforts, hopes to fill. 

NEW: What's the impact of Delaware tax cuts on DuPont successor companies?