
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, July 26, 1995                   TAG: 9507260029
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: B6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: By JEFF STURGEON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

PROPOSED ROANOKE INCUBATOR TO NURTURE FLEDGLING BUSINESSES

A STEERING COMMITTEE has formed to begin making plans for funding and setting up the possible institution.

The Roanoke Valley could be less than a year from opening a business incubator, said members of a committee formed to recommend a site for the incubator and people to run it.

Committee members met for the second time Monday and hope to open the proposed facility early next year.

"We could be in business in the first quarter of 1996," said Phil Sparks, acting economic development director for the city of Roanoke and co-chairman of the steering committee with Roanoke accountant Hope Player.

As envisioned, the incubator would provide a home for small, entrepreneurial businesses involved in light manufacturing and technology development. Tenants would rent space at market rates but save on secretarial services, copying and other support needs by providing services to each other or sharing expenses.

A full-time manager would provide free management advice and cultivate an atmosphere in which tenants could work together. Tenants would be expected to move out when their companies are mature, to make room for newcomers. There are more than 500 incubators in the nation.

Officials at Roanoke and the Roanoke Regional Chamber of Commerce have talked of a local incubator for 10 years. State lawmakers earlier this year gave the project $200,000 that could pay for building improvements and help hire staff, Sparks and Player said. None of it has been spent.

A fund-raiser will attempt to supplement that money with $100,000 in private donations.

The planning committee wants responsibility for running the incubator vested with a nonprofit private corporation that was set up several years ago to pass funds from Roanoke to the chamber for operating the Blue Ridge Small Business Development Center, Player said.

The committee plans within about three months to recommend a site for the incubator and procedures for hiring a manager. Recommendations also will include a strategy for paying start-up and year-to-year costs and the names of new members for its governing board, which now has four people, Player said.

by CNB