ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, July 25, 1996 TAG: 9607250030
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: C-10 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JEFF STURGEON STAFF WRITER
Roanoke's new business incubator has its first chick.
Seven years in the making, the tax-supported incubator opens today with commercial sign vendor Brian Keys as its first tenant.
The incubator is designed to help small-business ventures succeed. Business experts will coach the companies that move in. Tenant companies won't have to invest in office machines or hire secretaries because those services will be provided in the rent.
The incubator concept has spread across the nation with success. The number of incubators has risen from fewer than 25 a dozen years ago to 500 today, according to the National Business Incubation Association in Athens, Ohio.
When Keys arrived Tuesday, he found the electricity on, a receptionist ready to answer his calls and a copier loaded with paper. Someone even had made a pot of coffee.
"It's perfect for someone who is wanting to start up," said Keys, owner of Signs, Logos & more. "They should have this place filled up in two months after everyone knows about it."
The building, at 1354 Eighth St. S.W. in Roanoke's Wasena area, is the former headquarters of Advance Auto Parts, which recently moved to a new building. The incubator's 29,000 square feet is divided into offices of various sizes. The smallest, 89 square feet, rents for $150 monthly. The two largest, about 2,200 square feet, rent for about $1,800.
The copy center will be housed in the former office of Advance Auto Parks' CEO Nick Taubman.
When full, the incubator will house 15 to 30 companies which are in the start-up phase, or less than 3 years old. Companies will have to win approval from a majority of a seven-person selection committee to get one of the spaces.
Keys began his 21/2-year-old company in his parent's basement in Lynchburg and has most of his operations, including a production room, in the Forest area of Bedford County and in Lynchburg. Now his plan is to operate a second office, in Roanoke, where he sees expansion potential. By renting incubator space, Keys said he saved about $5,000 off the cost of starting the second office.
Taxpayers are underwriting a large part of the incubator's initial cost, but the success of incubator tenants will stimulate the economy and create jobs, proponents said. They also say the incubator will be self-sufficient in about four years.
The General Assembly contributed $200,000, as did the state-supported Center for Innovative Technology in Herndon. Roanoke committed $60,000.
Start-up expenses have including $325,000 for the building and a few thousand dollars to clean it. The building is owned by a nonprofit corporation, the Blue Ridge Small Business Development Center Inc., an affiliate of the Roanoke Regional Chamber of Commerce. That entity has hired Lisa C. Ison, a former Montgomery County economic developer, to manage the incubator.
Ison said she has shown about a dozen potential clients the incubator in advance of today's opening ceremonies. "My beeper went off three times during lunch," she said.
LENGTH: Medium: 68 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: WAYNE DEEL Staff 1. The new small-business incubatorby CNBhad the office electricity on, a receptionist ready, a copier loaded
and even coffee made for Brian Keys' business, Signs, Logos & more.
2. Lisa Ison (headshot) color.