Turlock has help for fledgling businesses

Incubator touts space to set up, consulting, accounting services

By Patty Guerra
pguerra@modbee.com

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TURLOCK � Right now, there's only one occupied office in the complex at 300 E. Main St. It's the new home of the Turlock Downtown Property Owners Association.

By February, association executive director Trina Walley hopes to surround herself with new businesses that need a little nudge to get going. She is seeking members for the Turlock Downtown Economic Alliance Business Incubator.

Modeled after similar programs in Fresno and San Francisco, the incubator rents space to entrepreneurs who can set up business in an office or retail space within the complex. Other services available include a shared receptionist, accounting and business consulting.

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Walley likened the arrangement to a sublet. "It combines education with cost-sharing techniques for businesses to get up and started," she said. "The idea is that in six to 24 months, businesses are on their feet, with a strong economic base, ready to move into their own space."

Twelve spaces are available: four retail slots and eight offices. Rents and membership in the incubator start at $200 per month for the smallest office. The other services are available for varying fees.

Startup money came from a grant the alliance received, a program of the property owners association, and the association itself.

Walley said she is aiming specifically at startups or expansions that fit with the association's focus of bringing bridal businesses downtown. That includes a caterer, a photographer, a gourmet food store and a stationer. But the incubator is open to other businesses.

The goal is to reduce the downtown vacancy rate of 21 percent, down from 25 percent three months ago. In 2006, before the recession set in, the vacancy rate in downtown Turlock was an enviable 6 percent, Walley said.

Fresno's program, the Central Valley Business Incubator, has generated 2,500 jobs since it started in 1996, said Barbara Rodiek, community liaison for the organization.

"We are a resource for new entrepreneurs and businesses," she said. "We provide a resource for them for many of the core competencies that every business has to master."

Put more simply, she said, the incubator helps with marketing, accounting, even legal advice so entrepreneurs can focus on their business.

Businesses are allowed to stay as long as they want.

"If they're ready and they want to move fast, they can get through a lot of the work in four, five or six months," Rodiek said. "Some stay 12. Usually it's nine to 12 months where ... they're ready to step out on their own."

Fresno's incubator is focused on technology but also works with other industries, Rodiek said. She said national figures show 87 percent of businesses that start in an incubator make it to the five-year mark, compared with about half of all small businesses.

"I think that the important thing for starting a business is knowing that you have to have some support," she said. "I guess that holds true for the incubator itself."

An effort to launch a similar program in Modesto has been under way for two years, sponsored by a group called Commonwealth Modesto.

Focus is different � innovation

Member Chris Ricci, a concert and festival promoter and general manager of the Fat Cat Music House & Lounge, said an innovation center is similar to an incubator, but the Modesto program will focus more on developing new kinds of businesses. Commonwealth Modesto also is developing an enterprise facilitator program, which does similar work with existing businesses.

The goal is the same, Ricci said: bringing more jobs to the area.

"Our goal would be to have something happening by mid-2010," he said.

Walley said she's distributed 10 packets of information about the incubator in Turlock, and believes she is close to filling two spots.

"Our goal is to be launching (downtown as a wedding destination) in February 2010," she said. "I'd need to have the incubator filled by January. I'm fairly confident that will happen."

Bee staff writer Patty Guerra can be reached at pguerra@modbee.com or 578-2343.