Shopping mall for startups: Northeast Indiana innovation center offers incubator space and resources.

• Author: Mayer, Kathy
• Position: REGIONAL REPORT NORTHEAST - Company Profile

AN INNOVATIVE SHOPPING mall opened in Fort Wayne in August--this one loaded with space and services for startup businesses, as well as the headquarters of a host of business-boosting and educational programs serving the region.

The mall metaphor is how Karl LaPan, president and chief executive officer of the Northeast Indiana Innovation Center, describes the just-built $9.2 million, 41,700-square-foot facility It sits on a 55-acre site on Stellhorn Road, across from Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne.

"We're a shopping mall, an entrepreneurial ecosystem for the startup," he says of the center, which employs a staff of seven of its own and about a half a dozen interns from several universities. The Northeast Indiana Innovation Center's incubator services include traditional office and lab space, lunch-and-learn sessions, workshops, business advice and resources.

Currently, the center has 30 companies under its wing. A dozen are in the new building, which also offers shared conference rooms, a wellness center, space for 13 labs and room for up to three dozen companies. The center is working with another six outside businesses. And 12 have offices at the Innovation Center at Raytheon, a 15,000-square-foot facility the organization opened shortly after its October 2000 founding.

"Our founding chair, Mike Mirro, M.D., was a visionary and a catalyst," LaPan says. "He was board chair of the chamber, and he looked at ways to diversify our community He saw the need and rallied the troops."

That led to formation of the nonprofit and funding from state and local government, foundations and corporations. "It was a total team effort of partners," LaPan says. It also included representatives from higher education--and today the center works with about a dozen colleges and universities.

The team concept continues, too, with a 36-member board that includes higher education, entrepreneurs, large companies, banks, lawyers and representatives from the public sector.

"It's about growing our own, a commitment to reinvent ourselves for future economic benefit, a connecting of the dots," LaPan says. "We're bringing educational efforts, workforce development and economic development all together to create value for the community Innovation and entrepreneurism are key components. If you have ideas and commitment to your ideas, there's a place you can now go to succeed with your ideas."

Two who found that assistance valuable as they launched their...