Innovation Pavilion wants $150,000 commitment from Bradenton, Manatee before investing millions

BRADENTON -- Denver-based Innovation Pavilion is getting more serious about opening up a new multimillion-dollar innovation center and business incubator in Manatee County, but wants a signal that local government also is serious.

Spark Growth founders Stan Schultes and Sara Hand, who operate Bradenton's Station 2 Innovation Center, are leading an effort to recruit IP to the county.

IP builds and develops innovation and business incubator hubs with a specialty in determining an area's next big industry. The facility's investment alone would be upward of $30 million with long-term investments into the community totaling more than $100 million. IP wants local government to make an initial $150,000 investment to show "they have skin in the game," said Hand, who noted it's not about the money, it's about showing a commitment.

"They are asking for the government to participate as leaders and invest into what they want to do," she said. "We believe this is what will take the community to the next level."

Schultes cites IP's success in Denver where just a few years ago, Colorado wasn't on the map of digital health care. IP did the research and created the environment, and now Colorado ranks sixth in the nation for the digital health care industry.

That wouldn't necessarily be the best fit for the Bradenton area, so determining what kind of industry Manatee County is ripe for would be IP's first step.

An IP innovation center not only offers small business opportunities, but has corporate suites for Fortune 500 companies to offer product development and business expansion opportunities. If you look at the overall community like a mall, Hand said, the key is to have a solid anchor client.

"IP is like a mall's key anchor client that will make the community go forward," she said. "You can certainly continue to do things the same way, which will be slower, but we are hoping that we can all work together in a public-private partnership that will make things happen quickly, not 20 or 30 years from now."

Vice Mayor Gene Gallo said land is limited within the city for a potential 200,000-square-foot facility. If it had to be built outside city limits, he questioned how that would bring jobs into the city.

With IP, Hand said, people shouldn't think within borders.

"It's not thinking city or county," she said. "All of the key infrastructure for the city and county is right next to each other. Bradenton is the key destination, whether a facility is built within the city limits or in the county.

"It benefits Bradenton in terms of jobs and business development opportunities for its citizens and brings new people into the city to live, work and play," she added.

Hand can't guarantee where the facility would be built until IP searches for possible locations. That won't happen until IP knows that local government is a willing partner.

"We don't want to bill this economic development idea that the county and the city are somehow competing," Ward 4 Councilman Bemis Smith said.

Smith said it would likely be easy for the city and the county to split the $150,000 investment, calling it a small price to pay for millions of dollars in investments into the community.

"We've invested those kinds of funds into visioning plans that were put in a filing cabinet never to be seen again," he said. "We are excited about this, and now we need to get into the weeds to see what's fair for the county and the city to do. I think we enthusiastically support this, but the devil is in the details. There's always a risk in anything, but the key is finding the balance to make it successful and that our constituents believe it was done fairly."

City administrator Carl Callahan will initiate talks with county staff and report back to the council.

Mark Young, Herald urban affairs reporter, can be reached at 941-745-7041 or follow him on Twitter@urbanmark2014.

This story was originally published April 1, 2016 at 7:13 PM with the headline "Innovation Pavilion wants $150,000 commitment from Bradenton, Manatee before investing millions ."