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The Daily OrangeSouth side resurgence
University-created center bolsters economic growth downtown
By Dan Briggs
Posted: 2/12/07, 10:11 PM EST Section: Feature
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At 2610 S. Salina St., a building once home to Dunk & Bright furniture's showroom, economic revitalization is taking place in a whole new way. The building now houses the South Side Innovation Center, a business incubator created by Syracuse University.
The innovation center rents office space at a reduced rate to 14 small businesses. High-speed Internet, phone and fax services, conference rooms and printing are included. The businesses have access to special classes and seminars covering topics such as marketing and writing business plans.
Although the center cannot take on more tenants, it has the capacity to provide limited services to additional businesses. These services include access to conference rooms, access to a classroom with computers and consulting by graduate students from the university's Martin J. Whitman School of Management.
"Nobody's wading down into the worst areas of a city from a major university and trying to establish a beachhead of resource availability in which you can begin to grow economic revitalization," said Joe Dickson, manager of the center. "It's just not being done. We're creating the paradigm as we move forward."
The center, which opened on April 24, 2006, is what the university describes as the physical presence of the South Side Entrepreneurial Connect Project. The project's goal is to help create 100 sustainable businesses within five years.
So far the project helped create 15 to 20 businesses that did not exist two years ago, Dickson said.
Management of the connect project is the responsibility of the Falcone Center for Entrepreneurship, part of the Whitman School's Department of Entrepreneurship and Emerging Enterprises.
"It's (the project) kind of almost got a mind of its own at this point in time," Dickson said. "In moving forward it's become kind of the chancellor's poster child on scholarship-in-action and how to really make a difference in the community using the resources of a university."
The center's focus on human resources and personal relationships makes it unique, Dickson said. Other universities' business incubators tend to cater toward universities' engineering departments, focusing more on technology, Dickson said.
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Jo Thomas
posted 2/13/07 @ 11:16 AM EST
Thanks to Dan Briggs for a thoughtful and detailed article. His skills as a reporter and writer really shine. I especially appreciated his including interviews with students who are working in this effort. (Continued…)
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