The new Buchanan Business Incubator is set to open next month with four start-ups inside.
Live Buchanan’s Ashley Regal tells us the city acquired the former Hometown Video building on Days Avenue so it could be converted into a place where fledgling businesses could get off the ground.
“It takes businesses that are emerging or start-ups or in the early stages and it houses those businesses in a safe environment that helps them grow and thrive to eventually be hatched, or kicked out of the nest so they can thrive on their own,” Regal said.
Regal says the city started taking applications from entrepreneurs this year, and now they’re putting the finishing touches on the building for all four to operate there.
“We have a market space for food and retail vendors that we will take in the early stages, provide them classes, affordable rent, feedback on their business model and conversations with experts to help them find success with their business and hopefully be placed long-tern in our community.”
The businesses that represent the incubator’s first cohort are Taqueria Don Chepe, McBain Lane’s Mercantile, Diana’s Kitchen, and Goddess of the Moon Leatherworks. Regal says they’ll be able to operate in the incubator for more than a year and then have to move out on their own. After that, the city will start new cohorts each March.
The hope is to open the incubator, to be known as the Hometown and Company Mercantile and Food Market, in mid-October.
