Sometimes, you have to start small.
The city of Elkhart, in partnership with the Greater Elkhart Chamber of Commerce, is on target to have a new incubator for small businesses up and running in August. “Launch Elkhart,” as the business incubator is called, will provide coworking spaces for six or seven businesses in some currently vacant space in the chamber building.
The space has already been renovated and is ready to go, and the city will provide financial support, Mayor Tim Neese said.
While there are no specific parameters in place for the types of businesses that could locate there, Neese would like to see technology related companies, perhaps marketing or advertising businesses, and anything that could add diversity to an economy based heavily on recreational vehicle manufacturing.
More than 80 percent of the world’s RVs are made in Indiana, according to a Recreational Vehicle Industry Association report released in June. Elkhart is the center of that industry, which had a direct economic impact of $6.8 billion on Indiana in 2015.
In his first term as Elkhart mayor, Neese visited a business incubator in Fishers and was impressed by what he saw. Although there are some private spaces available, much of the large, single-story industrial building is open.
“So, if you just wanted to have elementary features, you didn’t want to have walls and your diploma hanging on it, you would be given a desk and chairs,” he said.
An attorney using the Fishers space told Neese the Fishers incubator saves him about $1,500 a month.
The Elkhart incubator will be defined a little more by the space available in the chamber building, but new businesses still will save on rental costs.
Members of SCORE, the Service Corps of Retired Executives, will be available to mentor the new businesses, and Neese also hopes to affiliate with Notre Dame and Indiana University South Bend to add an educational component to the effort.
“It’s pretty elementary. A person would pay either monthly or yearly, be permitted to stay maybe two years. And then, after becoming successful, we want to put them in an empty storefront or somewhere in an industrial park to make way for some other new business just starting,” he said.
For now, applications for the incubator spaces will probably be considered on a first-come, first served basis, Neese said.