Incubator designed to help businesses get back on their feet

    They start out small, but then with a little care and someone to watch over them, you can watch them grow big and strong. No, not flowers. Businesses.  At least, that's the idea behind starting a business incubator in Greensburg.
    Plans for the new business incubator, to be located on South Main, call for a large, two-story building that will house 10 to 11 businesses that are still in the start-up stages.
    Then, once each business is up and running, it can move on, and a new business can come in.
    "It's to house start-up businesses so they can get their feet on the ground and go out on their own," said Jeanette Siemens, Kiowa County Economic Development director. "Except we're working with businesses that were totally destroyed after the tornado."
    Each business will pay an as-yet-undetermined amount rent, but there won't be any construction costs and all utilities will be shared.
    Applications to join the incubator were due May 1, and Siemens predicted on April 18 that there would be more interested applicants than available rooms. Each applicant was required to submit a full business plan with its application.
    "The ones that have applied are a combination of service businesses — you know, accountants, insurance people, that kind of thing — plus the retail as well," she said. "It's going to be really tough to make the decision of who to invite in."
    Because the building will only serve as a start-up center, Siemens said they will continue to take applications from interested parties.
    "Hopefully, in four years, the businesses — or the majority of them that are in there — will be ready to expand, to move on to another location, to a permanent location, so applications will be continually taken as vacancies open up," she said.
    Each space will be a different size, and Siemens said they would probably place retail businesses on the first floor and service businesses on the second.
    The total cost of the building is expected to top $3 million and will be paid for by a grant through the United States Department of Agriculture and an anonymous private contribution.
    The building will be owned by the city of Greensburg, which will hire a manager to oversee it. Because the city cannot profit from the business incubator due to stipulations attached to the USDA loan, all rent money will go toward building upkeep and to pay the manager and maintenance staff.
    "They've been doing the dirt work and they're going to have a groundbreaking over the May 4th weekend," Siemens said. "The actual construction will start about the first of May, hopefully. We hope to have it ready for occupancy the first of September, but it's a very ambitious goal."