Mark Smith never intended to start a small business incubator focused on growing new economy startups. The idea is still foreign enough to him that he hasn’t even named the one he grew by accident over the last decade.
Smith ended up with an commercial building at 333 Parkland Plaza, just off Jackson Road on Ann Arbor's west side, after a bio-tech company he invested in went belly up in the early 2000s. Since an empty building is a rarely a profitable one, he did something about.
"We had extra space so we brought in other companies," Smith says.
Smith brought in biotech and medical device firms. He made the rental rate all-inclusive and kept overhead expenses low. He also offered mentoring and other professional services to help grow the firms. More importantly he brought together startups from the drug discovery, alternative energy and life sciences, among others, under the same roof to solve problems.
"We see people come together from totally different sectors and out of it comes solutions and new intellectual property," Smith says.
Today, seven companies occupy the 7,500-square-foot building and its wet- and dry-lab spaces. Some of those firms who have called it home and are currently doing business there include
Evigia,
ePack and
AVAcore Technologies. Smith is looking at adding a couple of off-site facilities to help enable the startups to do small manufacturing and other functions. That’s take a priority over finding a name.
"We have been trying to keep a low-profile," Smith says. "
Ann Arbor SPARK has been generous in sending people to us."
Source: Mark Smith, owner of 333 Parkland Plaza
Writer: Jon Zemke
Read more about Metro Detroit's growing entrepreneurial ecosystem at SEMichiganStartup.com.
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