Greene County progressing on incubator plan
Greene County’s new business incubator will be operational on some level in the next few months, county commissioners said this week.
On Thursday, the board approved the request for proposal from eHive, an entrepreneurial and innovation hub at Waynesburg University, to complete the incubator’s operational and strategic plan. That process could take six to eight months, said Vice Chair Betsy McClure.
Grants from the EQT and Benedum foundations will cover the $55,000 cost of the plan. The county announced the grants, $75,000 each, last month.
Two other proposals had come in from companies in Boston and Wisconsin, but Waynesburg University’s had scored higher, county Clerk Jeff Marshall said during Wednesday’s agenda meeting.
During a joint interview with commissioners Monday, Board Chair Jared Edgreen said the county is hoping to bring in new and up-and-coming businesses to the site.
“This does not want to be a competing venture by any means,” he said. “We want to bring everybody in that already have small businesses that want to grow, and then those … that are starting and their little home businesses, print shops, little things that they want to do, that are interested in renting space.”
That enhanced economic growth could also be a way to keep dynamic young talent in the area, said McClure.
“You walk out of the university, you walk into the incubator space with what you’ve been working on for four years, and then you walk into the community, and we retain you here because you have tools to be successful,” she said.
The county’s request for proposals mentions working with Waynesburg University and West Virginia University on securing space where students can come in to try to start up businesses.
“Not only the university, but the (Community Trade Center), the surrounding community and the high schools, if someone has an idea,” said Board Secretary Blair Zimmerman. “It encompasses everybody in the area.”
There’s about 20 rooms in the building that could be used, plus a basement that could function as a kind of makerspace, Edgreen said.
But the design work done allows for the county to adapt to businesses’ needs.
“There’s been no dividing line — there’s three suites, five suites, 10 suites,” Marshall said. “It’s going to be flexible as far as what the need is — small building space, small office, whatever the person might need.”
The goal is to have at least eight businesses in the incubator within the first year, Marshall said.
The incubator will be located in Waynesburg in the Silveus Building on High Street, which dates back to 1926. Greene County originally bought the building in 2019 for about $130,000 to use as extra office space. As the workforce shrank during COVID, the original need changed. To boost economic development in the county, it turned to the idea of a business incubator.
Help came in 2022 in the form of a $1.4 million federal grant that was used for additions such as an elevator to bring the building into compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act, as well as structural repairs and other renovations.
The renovations took care to maintain the original trim and woodwork for the building, which had been used as law offices, Zimmerman said.
“It’s one of the most attractive buildings in the downtown whenever it’s open,” he said. “It’s beautiful.”
The board plans to schedule an open house so people can tour the new facility.
Greene County residents will have plenty of chances to let the county know what needs the new incubator should be filling.
Responses to a needs assessment survey to gauge resident desires have been “few and far between,” Edgreen said. The low rates may have been due to timing, he said: It came out while renovations were in their early stages, and many residents were still questioning how the incubator would benefit the county.
People can still fill out the survey at forms.gle/qSG1N4uEsRkByJAa9. With the RFQ proposal approved, the county hopes to launch an expanded version.
Within six months, the project might be ready for a ribbon-cutting, Edgreen said.
McClure said over the next eight months, the county will hold meetings with stakeholders such businesses, entrepreneurs and college students to find out what they would like to see in the space.
“When we’ve spent time visiting other incubator spaces and talking with them, they have to reach out to the stakeholders,” she said. “They have to have these public meetings because you want community buy-in.”