St. Louis County plans $1.9M incubator overhaul
St. Louis Business Journal
October 12, 2010
By Kelsey Volkmann
St. Louis County plans to renovate its four incubators over the next three years.
The county has issued $1.9 million in bonds to pay for the Enterprise Centers' upgrades, which will include improved workspaces, security, parking, air conditioning systems, aesthetic improvements and structural repairs.
The county is currently repairing, resurfacing and restriping the parking lots at three of the centers, said Nancy Schnoebelen, vice president of marketing and communications for the St. Louis County Economic Council. The next planned phased is security upgrades and enhancements, she said.
Solicitation of bids will be based on the designated proposed work, and one contractor has not been engaged to do all of the work, she said.
County officials said the improvements are made possible by the county's AAA bond rating.
Five new companies have recently moved into the incubators:
- All About U In Home Services, an in-home health-care service provider
- Ardies Wholesale, a malt-beverage distributor
- The Elegant Cookie, an upscale cookie and gift creator
- Enteral Health & Nutrition, inventor of natural products for digestive health
- Just Sweets, a boutique bakery featuring fresh-baked cookies, bars, muffins and other sweets
The incubators are located in west county, south county, Wellston and midtown. A 2009 impact analysis showed incubator tenants employed nearly 800 full-time employees, which included existing and recent graduate clients, with gross annual revenue totaling $176 million. Currently, the incubators are operating at an 80 percent occupancy rate.
Early in 2011, the county plans to open a 33,000-square-foot, $5.1 million plant and life science incubator called the Helix Center near the Danforth Plant Science Center and Bio-Research and Development Growth Park, also called BRDG Park.
The incubator will be located in a 47,000-square-foot office building at 1100 Corporate Square Drive in Creve Coeur that St. Louis County bought in March for $2.4 million from a real estate partnership. The money came from the county's share of a $4.4 million grant from the federal Economic Development Administration.
In St. Louis City, the Coalition for Plant and Life Sciences plans to open a new $1 million lab for science start-ups Wednesday at CORTEX">CORTEX, midtown St. Louis' biotech research district.
