In response to an identified need amongst Sault Ste. Marie entrepreneurs, the Economic Development Corporation (EDC) is establishing a small-business incubator in its downtown core that would provide the needed support to help businesses get up and running.
Approved by council in January, the EDC is using $190,000 from the city’s Economic Development Fund, and is now seeking provincial and federal funding to move the idea to the integration stage. “About a year and a half ago we had a feasibility study done by a third party just to see, is there the market we think there is, and it came back positive with some potential concerns” surrounding sustainability, said Andrew Ross, the EDC’s general manager of enterprise services at Business Sault Ste. Marie.
“But the indicators were that there was an interest in the uptake, so there’s a lot of potential businesses that were very interested in that kind of support, and there’s a definitive need considering success rate increases with incubation versus without.”
The Sault Ste. Marie Innovation Centre operating out of Algoma University services the science and technology sector, which amounts to roughly 20 per cent of business in the Sault, but that leaves 80 per cent of the community underserviced, Ross said.
Locations for the incubator will be considered as planning advances, but Ross is aiming for a minimum of 4,500 square feet located in the downtown core, which he also sees as an opportunity to help to revitalize that area of the city.
“It’s had its ups and downs over the years, and right now we just seem to have a number of empty storefronts,” Ross said. “Everybody’s looking for solutions to keep that identity in the downtown.”
Sitting on an advisory committee for the project are representatives of the Chamber of Commerce, the Downtown Association, the Community Development Corporation, and the innovation centre, along with city councillor Terry Sheehan and private sector representatives.
The EDC will look to incubators from other communities to develop the program for the Sault, but services will roughly mirror those offered by a traditional incubator, including a shared used of office equipment, a reduced program fee, networking opportunities, site location services, and market plan analysis.
Prospective tenants will be screened by EDC staff and will have to meet certain criteria before being accepted.
“The idea of the incubator isn’t just cheap rent or free services,” Ross said. “What it is is looking to find the greatest potential businesses in certain sectors, the ones with potential future exportable goods and services, ones that have a high threshold for wealth generation, and taking them and helping them realize that growth and moving to that next round.”
Ross is aiming for a best-case opening date of January 2014, but cautioned the incubator’s timeline is contingent on funding.
If all goes according to plan, he would like to see five to six businesses taking up residence in the incubator within the first year. A typical incubation cycle is three years.
Interest from potential business owners in an incubator was high when the city conducted its study two years ago, and Ross believes that interest persists.
Last fall, the city earned second position (after Sudbury) on the Canadian Federation of Independent Business’ ranking of most entrepreneurial cities in Ontario, and sits in 23rd place countrywide.
All these positive indicators suggest now is the time to expand the city’s entrepreneurial supports.
“City council, the province, the federal government: they’re all supporting small business growth,” Ross said. “They’re thinking about it, and so now this is a step for us to continue to work towards creating that real entrepreneurial environment within this community.”
