Innovation is the name of the game for the Georgia Southern Business Innovation Group. Since 2014, the Business Innovation Group, also known as BIG, has helped aspiring entrepreneurs create, incubate, and accelerate their business enterprises. With the expansion of the Georgia Southern City Campus almost completed, the BIG will be able to offer entrepreneurs more resources and spur innovation in the Downtown Statesboro area.
The new facility, located at 64 E. Main St., houses an assortment of offices, suites, and conference rooms to be used by on-site businesses. The newly renovated building is intended for small businesses that have expanded and outgrown a single office, and soft-landing companies that need temporary office space until a permanent office is built. In addition to office space, the Georgia Southern FabLab, a fabrication facility, will be housed in the building. The FabLab contains 3-D printers, an industrial mill, one of the largest lathes in the area, and much more to allow entrepreneurs to create virtually anything.
“A key feature of the new facility is its proximity to other downtown assets,” said Dr. Dominique Halaby, the Associate Vice President for Innovation at Georgia Southern University. “Visitors to the new conference center can easily walk to a restaurant for a lunch break, stroll on the McTell trail for recreation, or connect with one of our existing downtown business development units or tenant companies.”
The front area of the new building will have tables, benches, and other fixtures to make it a gathering place, and an area where the professionals can work and relax according to Halaby. With help from the city, the Downtown Statesboro Development Authority, and local contractors, the new facility will have an aesthetically pleasing atmosphere that will blend seamlessly with the rest of the downtown area.
The Georgia Southern City Campus was a project that the Downtown Statesboro Development Authority (DSDA) started in 2011 to get the university into the downtown area. “Our goal was to take old buildings and do adaptive re-use and put them back into productive use,” said Allen Muldrew, the executive director of the DSDA. “Those buildings were not completely utilized, so it was the perfect place to help the university kick off their entrepreneur center.”
In addition to bringing students and faculty downtown, the campus would incubate and grow businesses that could expand and become permanent fixtures in the downtown area. “We think the downtown environment fosters entrepreneurship because you have so many different businesses and entities to help them out,” Muldrew said. “With a community of our size, we are really fortunate to have that kind of footprint and those resources for our small businesses.”
The expansion of the city campus was made possible by a $2 million grant awarded to the DSDA by the U.S. Economic Development Administration (EDA) in 2020, which was matched with an additional $500,000 from the City of Statesboro to enhance business growth and resiliency efforts. After the development authority purchased the building, they partnered with Georgia Southern University and the City of Statesboro to repurpose it and make it into what it is now. “We’ve dreamed of this expansion since we opened the first building,” Muldrew said. “Expanding businesses and developing the city is what we do.”
The new facility will have a ribbon cutting and opening on August 27 at 10 a.m. ET at 64 East Main Street.
To learn more about Georgia Southern’s Business Innovation Group, visit their website at https://www.georgiasouthern.edu/research/big/. Follow them on Facebook to stay updated.