Eastern Idaho working on new building for startups

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IDAHO FALLS – The Idaho Innovation Center has big plans for a new three-story, $1.5 million building that will begin construction within a year.

The new facility would include a coworking area and a commercial kitchen, as well as an expansion of the center’s current low-cost rental spaces for startups.

The building, located on the same campus as the existing center, would be called the Eastern Idaho Entrepreneurial Center. Using similar Boise facilities as its model, it would look like the Boise Tech Mall, offer coworking space like Trailhead and business pitch competitions like Trailmix and the Pitch Contest held during Boise Startup Week, which Idaho Innovation Center executive director Bryan Magleby recently attended.

“The things we feel are missing over here that we’d like to incorporate is a combined workspace area and a commercial kitchen so we can cater to food entrepreneurs,” Magleby said. “A business pitch competition like they had would lead people to that being the next level.”

Idaho Innovation Center

Currently, the center, which is owned by Bonneville County, has three buildings on its main campus housing 64 rentable spaces, 34 offices, 16 bays, four labs and 10 cubicles.

“We are a basic business incubator,” Magleby said. “We run at about 98% occupancy. We have a lineup of people who want to be in here. I have more of a problem getting people to leave than I have filling spaces.”

In addition, the facility owns a building on the other side of town and recently signed a long-term lease with Idaho National Laboratory for the entire space, Magleby said.

The buildings start out charging entrepreneurs 75% of what they would pay in the community and then ramp up, Magleby said.

“By the time they hit the three- to five-year mark, they pay the same as they would pay in the community,” he said.

Innovation Center programs

The center caters to two kinds of businesses, Magleby said. The first is an “incubative company,” which can stay in the facility up to three years. The second is an “innovative company,” with an emphasis on intellectual property. Such companies would be thinking outside the box, rather than starting service or retail businesses, he said.

“We’re trying to move more of our focus to innovative rather than incubative,” he said.

An example of the innovative type is Advanced Ceramic Fibers, which produces alpha silicon carbon fibers used to reinforce metals to make items lighter and stronger than ones built with traditional steel. The company won a pitch competition in 2016.

The Innovation Center also offers a variety of classes, ranging from a free “business boot camp” to paid classes on growing a business, Magleby said.

Eastern Idaho Entrepreneurial Center plans

Currently, part of the campus includes the Yellowstone Food Village, which is intended to provide food entrepreneurs with a space where they can set up a food truck or tent and try things out. While the village had as many as four or five vendors when it opened in 2016, it is now down to two, Magleby said.

Magleby’s idea is to move the Food Village closer to the existing Innovation Center and construct the new building on that site, he said.

As far as funding, the organization has enough for about a third of the building in its reserves, Magleby said.

“Although we’re a nonprofit, we’ve accumulated funds over the years,” he said.

Magleby is hoping to get the grant from the Economic Development Administration, a division of the U.S. Department of Commerce. The main Innovation Center building was funded by a $755,000 grant from that organization, as well as a $150,000 community development block grant, he said.

The organization might also consider selling one of its existing buildings to help fund the project. That sale, grants and hopefully a major donation, would cover the costs, he said.