Washington Area Business incubator ready to take steps forward
An artist’s rendering of the Washington Area Business Incubator’s courtyard area
Photo courtesy of Sarah Dudik / Washington & Jefferson College
Washington County commissioner Larry Maggi was one of several public officials to speak about the Washington Area Business Incubator during an update on the project last week at its future site in the former pressroom of the Observer-Reporter.
The Washington Area Business Incubator should begin percolating with some programming within the next couple of months, those close to the project said last week.
WABI is a mixed-use incubator that is a public/private partnership between Washington & Jefferson College, the Observer Publishing Co. and the city of Washington, along with numerous members of the business community.
The project was launched in September 2016 when then-W&J President Tori Haring-Smith and Observer-Reporter Publisher Tom Northrop announced the incubator for use by small or start-up businesses across the county. The newspaper is providing its former circulation building on South Main Street as well as its unused pressroom on Strawberry Way to the college rent-free.
On Tuesday, about 80 people, including local, county and state officials, as well as those from the local business community, attended an update meeting at the site of the future incubator. In late December, W&J was notified that it will receive a $500,000 state Redevelopment Assistance Capital Program grant to put toward the construction of the incubator. The project also received a 2017 Local Share Account grant for $250,000 for construction, which is expected to cost between $2.5 million and $3 million.
The incubator project has been in the works for several years. A 2013 study funded by the Benedum Foundation, commissioned by W&J and conducted by Greenwood Consulting Group, whose founder Jim Greenwood has conducted more than 80 incubator studies around the country, concluded that there was strong demand for an incubator.
Local entrepreneur Tripp Kline, who is helping to market the incubator, said Wednesday that it was necessary for Greenwood to update the study to determine whether needs have changed.
Mike Grzesiak, vice president for development and alumni relations at W&J, said the Benedum funding, which totals around $300,000 will also be used to develop programming for the incubator, once Greenwood’s update is completed at the end of this month.
Both Kline and Grzesiak said programming could be available within the next couple of months, adding that courses could be offered throughout Washington County while the incubator is under construction.
“We are not waiting until the actual site is ready,” Kline said.
Grzesiak said the college is also accepting donations for a $250,000 challenge grant offered by a donor who has asked to remain anonomous. If the challenge is successful, it would raise another $500,000 for construction.
Greenwood said Thursday that the updated survey is needed, given that nearly five years have passed since the original survey was conducted.
While the area’s natural gas industry was at the height of its boom in 2013 and has since gone through a downturn and is now in the midst of a recovery, Greenwood noted that Washington County has seen the addition of whiskey distilleries and several microbreweries, indicating that small business is active in a number of areas.
The other big change from five years ago, he said, is that the incubator now has a designated home.
“Besides the new business activity downtown, we’ve had the O-R coming forward with the buildings for the project,” Greenwood said in explaining the need to take a new measurement of what people might seek from the project today.
“Now is the time to make sure we’re aligned” with current demand, he said.
He said the new survey was launched about a week ago, and will remain open until the end of the month. He expects to report results by the end of February.
“We’re off to a good start with responses,” he said, adding that as of Thursday about 140 people had completed the online survey. He invited all residents to participate in the 17-question survey at http://tiny.cc/wabi.
“If there are folks out there with an opinion, we want to hear it.”
The programming is being developed by Max Miller, who directs W&J’s entrepreneurial studies program and has helped to launch other small business incubators in the Pittsburgh area.
Regardless of what the updated survey by Greenwod reveals, WABI will stick to its original plan of being a mixed-use incubator, meaning it won’t focus on any particular business or industry segment, but will instead be open to any type of start-up.
“It will be open to many types of enterprises, whether they are high tech, no tech, service or product,” Kline said. “The WABI will foster new business formation and growth of existing small firms across all of Washington County.”
Kline and Miller added that while they expect construction to begin this year on the bricks and mortar segment of the incubator, the final design, like the programming, will be informed by the results of Greenwood’s latest study.
People wishing to participate in the Washington Area Business Incubator demand survey should access http://tiny.cc/wabi.