CARY -- A trio of business executives plans to open a business incubator in downtown Cary later this month. The Cary Innovation Center will offer office space and mentoring to local business owners.
“Our intent is to work with entrepreneurs at any stage of business maturity,” said Bill Warner, executive director of Entredot, the project’s backer. “The results should be more successful businesses in downtown Cary, and that means more jobs and revenues for the community.”
Warner informally introduced the plan at a Heart of Cary Association meeting Thursday morning. Entredot, a nonprofit, plans to put its new venture in a 5,000-square-foot office at 201 W. Chatham St., he said.
The Cary Innovation Center will be the first physical office for the two-year-old Entredot. The nonprofit already offers business consulting in rural areas and is piloting an entrepreneurship program for high school students in Franklin County, Warner said.
Entredot is accepting business owners’ applications for help from the planned Cary center. Once accepted, clients would pay “nominal fees” for business consulting service and, if need be, a subsidized rate for office space at the facility, Warner said.
Warner, an angel investor and founder of a for-profit consulting firm, said he could also find funding for some projects.
He and his partners, Bill Sarine and Neal Hill, want to help businesses with “reasonable market demand” and the potential to employ at least two to five people within a few years.
“If there’s a willingness and a passion, if you will actually go after a business, we’ll work with them,” Warner said. “We’re kind of agnostic to (the type of) industry – it doesn’t much matter to us.”
Sheila Ogle, a Cary businesswoman, has been a driving force behind the project. She brought Entredot the idea, which has found early support from the Cary Chamber of Commerce and other local business owners, Warner said.
Terry “Doc” Thorne, head of the downtown Heart of Cary Association, couldn’t recall any recent projects of this type in central Cary.
“I think it’s a great idea,” he said. “Some of these companies are going to take off.”
