We've been discussing it for years about a real business incubator in this city, looks like Tulsa is taking us up on our idea since we seem to be getting nowhere on this issue..........



Kanbar provides space for Tulsa biz startup center
by Kirby Lee Davis
The Journal Record
November 17, 2008

TULSA – Kanbar Properties donated 8,000 square feet at the 111 W. Fifth Building to house a startup business incubator and resource center to foster Tulsa entrepreneurs.

The 10th floor of the yellow brick building, often identified by the neon, three-story Garrett Law sign identifying its largest tenant, will house The Collaboratorium, an incubator targeting startups that fall outside the biotechnology, cyberspace or other common development models.

“This will support the development of innovative ideas, those that don’t fit in the traditional box,” Tulsa Mayor Kathy Taylor said at a press conference Friday.

Scheduled to open in 2009, the Collaboratorium itself represents a bootstrap startup, said organizer Shawn Griffin. While Kanbar Properties provided a finished floor subdivided into 25 rooms or meeting spaces, Griffin said the Collaboratorium has just assembled its board of directors and is seeking partnerships or donations for everything from desks and equipment to trainers and consultants.

“We are all searching our houses and offices for excess furniture to outfit the space,” said Taylor.

From its Web site, The Collaboratorium - Entrepreneurial Accellerator of Tulsa (http://www.tulsacollab.com), the Collaboratorium is taking tenant applications that primarily involve a business plan submission. Accepted startups will receive discounted office space and access to shared conference rooms and equipment, along with a variety of resources ranging from coaches and data to network contacts.

“This is not what you would consider an incubator,” Griffin stated. “It is more of a resource center.”

The SpiritBank Small Business Resource Center is aiding development of the new operation, he said, helping create a one-stop entrepreneurial shop for Tulsans.

With the 2008 Mayor’s Entrepreneurial Spirit Award Ceremony starting at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, Taylor said the Collaboratorium continues Tulsa community efforts to celebrate and renew the city’s founding entrepreneurial spirit, still manifest in such firms as QuikTrip and the Nordam Group.

It also reflects the original spirit of the 111 W. Fifth Building, constructed in 1923 by the entrepreneurial Mayo family as the home of the Mayo Furniture store, which it housed for half a century. Later transformed into the Manhattan Hotel, with a 1980 renovation providing a 10-story atrium, that 100,000-square-foot building now stands about 40 percent occupied.

The winner of the 2008 Spirit Award will not only become the first tenant of the Collaboratorium, but will start with a year’s rent free.

“I would like to come back here and spend a few hours and mentor some young people,” said San Francisco entrepreneur Maurice Kanbar, who made a rare stop in Tulsa to kick off Friday’s effort in advance of Global Entrepreneurial Week. “We will do everything we can to help them.”

With the jobs of tomorrow still in the realm of the imagination, Taylor said the Collaboratorium will help realize and create those jobs in Tulsa.

“This will take our economy and the city of Tulsa to even greater heights,” she said.

"Those that don't fit in the traditional box." That quote by Tulsa Mayor Taylor goes to the heart of why it is so hard to attract help for truly traditional businesses. "Traditional" now defines companies are are doing research into life sciences or building an enterprise Internet applications, instead of small manufacturers, transportation companies, energy industry suppliers, even coffee shops, drycleaners and florists.

I met with UCO earlier this year and offered to help fund an incubator that would support start-up companies through student research, investor capital accumulation, board development, but I've heard nothing but crickets.

OKCTalker, have you tried talking to OKC-U? They might be more apt to do so since they are in the heart of the city? Either that or just starting one up in the heart of downtown? That would be an excellent assett to the city, I know we have i2E but they are primarily biotech and other sciences and technology. It would be great to have one for more common businesses.

Steve Kreidler at University of Central Oklahoma (not OCU at 23rd & Blackwelder), but I'll bet that Vince Orza would entertain the idea.

That's what I'm saying, Vince Orza at OKC-U would probably be open to something like this. Perhaps they could further extend their downtown offerings by heading this up somewhere downtown.

This is all news to me. You do realize that OU has a very successsful business incubator in Norman, as well as the Center for the Creation of Economic Wealth (CCEW)? I know of at least 2 or 3 companies started through here that eventually moved up to the HSC in OKC. I have a fraternity brother who has recently become CEO of a startup formed between several engineers and biochemists. Also, the Presby Health Center serves as an incubator through the EDGE program and its funding.

I'm not saying a business incubator wouldn't be nice. But I have always understood that this area has always ranked high for start ups due to the OUHSC and its activites.

Again adaniel, we're talking about an incubator that is not for biotech, sciences or engineering, we have those although it wouldn't hurt to have more. We're talking about an incubator for other types of businesses that don't qualify for the biotech/sciences/engineering/technology type incubators........

Yeah I remember something like this was talked about for First National. I guess nothing happened on that.

Steve Kreidler at University of Central Oklahoma (not OCU at 23rd & Blackwelder), but I'll bet that Vince Orza would entertain the idea.

Steve's the CFO of UCO, isn't he? I would think you might want to meet with whomever is the Dean of the College of Business (Orza's counterpart). UCO already has a presence in downtown OKC, so I would think that there's a fair chance that the school of business might be interested in something like this.

Since OCU is a private school though, unless doing this would somehow help their foundation financially, I don't see them being interested. IMHO, that school doesn't have a very altruistic outlook.

Yeah I remember something like this was talked about for First National. I guess nothing happened on that.

I believe that wasn't much more than wishful dreamers on this site, not actual reality, but I could be wrong.

Steve's the CFO of UCO, isn't he? I would think you might want to meet with whomever is the Dean of the College of Business (Orza's counterpart). UCO already has a presence in downtown OKC, so I would think that there's a fair chance that the school of business might be interested in something like this.

Kreidler is the VP of Administration, and the Dean of the Business School reports to him. It was specifically because of the Small Business Development Center being in downtown OKC that I approached them.

WOW, Tulsa announcing a second incubator in less than a week's time. Hopefully this will wake up OKC's leaders that we need more business incubators here.

Second Tulsa incubator in the works
by Kirby Lee Davis
The Journal Record November 20, 2008

TULSA – Mayor Kathy Taylor presided Wednesday over her second small business support center launch in less than a week.


Mayor Kathy Taylor addresses the audience at a press conference in north Tulsa. (Photo by Kirby Lee Davis)

After more than a year of development, the north Tulsa economic development program FORWARD announced plans Wednesday to build and operate a business incubator on 3 acres at 1731 N. Peoria Ave. in north Tulsa.Rose Washington Rentie, executive director of the Tulsa Economic Development Corp., said the officials and citizens working in FORWARD hope to hold a grand opening one year from now. Details remain fuzzy, with no contracts completed, but Rentie said the organizers are considering a building of around 20,000 square feet, enough space to hold 10 or more startups.

This would anchor a small shopping center under development by Walman Commercial Real Estate Services of Tulsa. Those 3 acres owned by the Tulsa Development Authority offer room not only for the incubator, but two restaurant pad sites and one bank location. Katie L. Plohocky, a sales associate with Walman, said pad prices have not been finalized.

This follow’s Friday’s announcement of The Collaboratorium, an 8,000-square-foot incubator planned at downtown Tulsa’s 111 W. Fifth Building in space donated by Kanbar Properties.

Both operations will include some sort of financial aid. Rentie said the FORWARD program will offer 10 loan packages to north Tulsa residents, while the Collaboratorium will provide discounted office space.

Both programs also promise to go beyond traditional incubator services with executive coaching and mentoring, technical assistance and other educational options.
In both cases, the incubator operators themselves remain at the startup stage. Backers of the Collaboratorium are seeking to acquire or finalize everything from desks to mentors, while the nonprofit organization that will operate the FORWARD incubator has not been formed yet.

Rentie expects details on the loan program, including filing period, to come over the next few months. To enhance their success rates, the incubator program will encourage new franchisees.

She expects applicants to face few hurdles, with requirements including north Tulsa residency, a completed business assessment plan, having at least one member working the startup full time, and a small amount of equity.

A normal startup loan, she said, would require 10- to 20-percent upfront equity. Their program may require as little as 5 percent.

Through work with the North Tulsa Economic Initiative, Rentie said they have arranged lending resources topping $1 million, with other needed funding in reach.

Wednesday’s announcement drew a small but enthusiastic crowd from a predominantly black part of the community that, outside of an Albertson’s anchored shopping center landed in 2004, has struggled to attract new commercial growth. No grocery has entered the space Albertson’s vacated last year, although other retailers in the center continue on.

Crafted by the Tulsa Economic Development Corp., FORWARD is backed by the North Tulsa Economic Initiative, a community development group formed by Taylor. Community leaders behind that group have worked for more than a year to gather both economic growth strategies and support within the community.

Besides FORWARD, Taylor’s program also endorsed the Walman retail development and a north Tulsa marketing and communications campaign by Xposure Inc. of Tulsa.
All three proposals hope to build north Tulsa’s commercial business sector and strengthen that historically challenged region.

Rentie cited retail studies indicating north Tulsa loses some $210 million a year in retail trade because the region lacks the needed services.

“If we are able to capture just 2 percent of that, that would mean over $4 million in spending would stay in this area,” she said.

Reuben Gant, director of the Greenwood Chamber of Commerce, welcomed the development as a starting point.

“This is an opportunity to demonstrate that development can occur from within,” he said.
City Councilman Jack Henderson howled when he got to the microphone, excited by these developments.

“Tulsa is going to understand that north Tulsa is a part of Tulsa like everything else,” he said.