Red Wing incubator to create jobs

By Jen Cullen  |  The Post-Bulletin, Rochester MN

RED WING — City officials hope to stimulate the local economy with a new business incubator focused on attracting and cultivating technology companies and high-paying jobs.

The incubator will be housed downtown at the city’s Community Development Building on Bush Street.

City leaders are creating the Red Wing Ignite Incubator as part of the White House’s U.S. Ignite initiative, a public-private partnership that will develop new technology applications in communities nationwide that have high-speed broadband connections.

Red Wing was nominated as a U.S. Ignite community by Hiawatha Broadband Communications, which offers a fiber network to about half the city’s homes.

“The HBC broadband network is Red Wing’s super highway,” said Red Wing City Council Administrator Kay Kuhlmann. “The U.S. Ignite initiative gives us a proactive vehicle to transport Red Wing into the future.”

Red Wing Port Authority Executive Director Randy Olson said the initiative is a five-year partnership that initially does not include any funding opportunities, but gives the city chances to develop some invaluable contacts with public and private sector technology professionals. 

Olson said funding opportunities from the initiative’s public and private partners like Comcast and Verizon may arise at some point.

Until that happens, he said Red Wing Ignite officials will share best practices and technologies with other cities involved in the project.

“If you don’t have the infrastructure in place, you could lose out to other regions of the world,” Olson said. “If we’re going to be serious about our business development, we need to do this.”

Target: 250 new jobs

Red Wing City Council member Mike Schultz said he wants to see the incubator attract five new businesses with 250 new jobs over the next five years.

“That would be wonderful,” said Schultz, council liaison to the Red Wing Port Authority Board. “That would be the home run.”

Olson agreed.

“If we can create this presence of tech companies that would actually attract people back to Red Wing, that would be a good thing,” he said. “We’re hoping that as we recruit these businesses that many of them will stay and add employees.”

Olson said fundraising and getting the Community Development Building ready for tenants will be Red Wing Ignite’s goal over the next several months. The incubator will offer those tenants services like business consulting, a mentorship program and seminars.

Equity fund proposed

Olson said officials would also like to create an equity fund they could use to make Red Wing a more desirable location for potential businesses.

The equity fund would be separate from Red Wing Ignite’s incubator project but could be used by those businesses. 

The Community Development Building is owned by the city of Red Wing and has approximately 6,500 square feet of leasable space between two floors.

Red Wing Ignite will manage the building for the city.

Kuhlmann said the City Council agreed Monday during a special 2013 budget meeting to continue paying roughly $71,000 to keep the building a functional city asset by providing minimum heat and other required maintenance.

Kuhlmann said the council has approved the city’s 2013 budget but it needs to be signed by the mayor before anything is final.

The city will also pay about $65,000 for new carpeting and the removal of several walls. Olson had requested $150,000 for additional capital improvements like new paint and furniture.

“You never know what’s going to land here in Red Wing because of the infrastructure we’re putting in place,” Olson said. “An Amazon warehouse, a data storage center for Google? There are just all kinds of options out there.”