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Incubating Tech
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Public/private
cooperation yields ’net-friendly facility.
By Kevin Kipp
The dot-coms bombed, but technology is still the future. “The Internet
is not going away,” says Greg Prestemon, president of the Economic
Development Council of St. Charles County. “There will be hundreds
of millions more users in 10 years.”
Prestemon and the EDC board were delighted, then, when they found
a way to incubate web-dependent companies. The Advanced Technology
Center @ Historic St. Charles opened in November at 118 North Second
Street in St. Charles.
“The vision is to have a true state-of-the-art facility for early-stage
companies that rely on the Internet for their life blood,” he says.
The EDC will lease 10,000 square feet of a 25,000-square-foot former
county administration building from developer Jerry Scheidegger
of Corporate Group Inc., and in turn sublease space to its client-tenants.
“We’re not just renting them space,” Prestemon says. “We’re renting
information technology and infrastructure. This is a tech-friendly
space. It has a local area network with servers and data storage
capabilities that all companies need. We roll these benefits into
the lease.”
Ron Mueller a full-time consultant on staff at the EDC will offer
his management and technical expertise.Richard J. Sacks, whose Sacks
Group Inc. serves as a free-standing accounting department for growing
companies, chairs both the EDC board and its incubator advisory
board.
“The idea of a new incubator started about two years ago because
of the success and high occupancy of the first incubator,” he says.
That facility opened its doors in 1993 and has doubled in size from
its original 30,000 square feet.
It offers “space for light manufacturing and warehousing with offices,”
Sacks says. “We were looking at doing more of the same...to nurture
companies and create jobs. Around the same time, Jerry approached
us about his space.”
The building in question was built in the 1920s. It served as the
county administration building from 1972 until 1993. The county
eventually gave it to the city, and the city decided to sell it
rather than turn it into parking.
In late 1999, Scheidegger submitted the winning bid for the building,
which had been vacant since six years earlier.
“The EDC made a bid, too,” Prestemon says, “but the city went with
Jerry’s bid. Our bid was $1. He offered them money. I’m still bitter,”
he chortles.
But seriously folks... “In fact,” Prestemon says, “I think Jerry
is a model corporate citizen.”
Sacks says Scheidegger’s “gracious offer to work with us to establish
the incubator downtown turned the discussion to whether more of
the same was in the best interest of the community.”
Scheidegger says he invested $1.4 million in gut rehab, “right down
to the bare walls. Everything is new...plumbing, wiring, fiber optics.”
Prestemon says, “In a sense, the ability to start from scratch was
a one-time opportunity. I’m not aware of any other building in the
downtown vicinity that was this well suited to our purposes. We
didn’t need 100,000 square feet; we needed 10,000 or 15,000.”
Above: Discussing
opportunities at the Advanced Technology Center at historic St.Charles
are (left to right): Peggy Plont, EDC operations director, Brenda
Gillespie, 1st Tenant at the new incubator, Create-A-Mortgage, Dick
Sacks, chairman of the EDC board of directors and Greg Prestemon,
president of the EDC.
Sacks differentiated the St. Charles facility from the St. Louis
Technology Center, “which is customized for R&D. We were looking
at anyone from a web site designer to researchers to web site hosts...it
doesn’t necessarily have to be a scientific or engineering or medical
business.”
Prestemon emphasizes that the project would not have happened without
the cooperation from many quarters, including the city, Scheidegger,
Southwestern Bell, the EDC board and good timing...okay, luck.
Prestemon says, “If we had done this four years ago, we’d probably
be sitting with an empty building and have a lot of money owed to
us.”
Painful though it was, Prestemon believes, “the adjustment in the
dot-com sector was probably healthy. Now web-dependent companies
have to have realistic business plans. We’ll be positioned to get
true cream-of-the-crop companies instead of good song-and-dance
companies.”
Prestemon calls Southwestern Bell’s assistance “invaluable. We want
a big, wide pipeline out the Internet for our electrons to travel
on. The building will have fiber optics and DSL service from day
one.”
The support from St. Charles was “incredible,” Prestemon continues.
“They invested $190,000, which we used for technology improvements
for the building.”
The Industrial Development Authority, a creature of the EDC, has
agreed to invest $200,000 for the balance of the leasehold improvements,
Prestemon says, and “the EDC will raise another $100,000 to 125,000
in private contributions from the usual suspects.”
Finally, Prestemon credits Scheidegger for his patience “in making
arrangements, which were fairly complex because of the number of
players and the extraordinary level of finish demanded for the high-tech
improvements. There’s a data port anyplace you turn in that building.”
Prestemon and Sacks both say lease provisions , which go out 20
years—were fair, even generous.
Many virtues proceed from the buildings location, including access
to both Highway 370 and Interstate 70, Scheidegger says. Plus, “The
county courts are one block away, it’s adjacent to city hall, and
county administration is just across Second Street.”
Little wonder then that in late October, Scheidegger was negotiating
leases for the remaining 15,000 square feet with several law firms
(including a regional firm with 100-plus attorneys) and a St. Louis-based
CPA firm.
“Its proximity to [Historic Main Street] was just a bonus at the
time I bought it,” Scheidegger says. That, too, has turned into
a real plus.
Prestemon says, “We liked the location because there is a lot going
on with Quilogy and Main Street. Techies love to be in an atmosphere
like downtown St. Charles. They like the architecture, the restaurants,
access to the Katy trail.”
Some 160 employees of fast-growing, high-tech Quilogy work in three
buildings on Main Street, within a block or two of the Advanced
Technology Center.
With his offices at 213 North Main, Historical Main Street’s proximity
to the new center appeals to Sacks, too: “As we developed the idea
of Advanced Technology Center, I thought it phenomenal that Missouri’s
First Capitol building with no electricity sits just two blocks
away from this forward edge facility.”
Kevin Kipp runs Bubble Communications, a creative services and
community relations firm in St. Charles. |
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