A downtown Hartford workspace for start-up ventures is open for business, drawing the first entrepreneurs with ideas for phone apps, texting services and other enterprises.
The concrete floors of the 27,500-square-foot space at 20 Church St., known as the Stilts Building, have yet to be polished, and a wall slated to come down still stands. But a temporary space elsewhere in the building has been put to use, bringing in business owners even before Innovate Hartford, as the high-tech hub is known, opens in mid-January.
“We’re starting up. We’re catering to an immediate need,” said Shana Schlossberg, a New York entrepreneur organizing Innovate Hartford. “We want to be part of it, but we can’t wait until January.”
Her goal is to bring in 100 high-tech companies – robotics, coding, communications and other products and services – and 500 people in a year. About 15 businesses have committed to moving in next January, she said Friday.
Businesses will pay $300 a month for workspace, Wi-Fi,opportunities to meet and work with other start-up founders and free coffee.
Higher monthly charges will apply for higher-level service, such as reserved space.
Innovate Hartford will be open 24/7, offer a game room with a pool table and arcade games, a kitchen and perhaps a climbing wall.
“You have nothing of that when you’re sitting at a Starbucks,” Schlossberg said.
Innovate Hartford, which Schlossberg says is a nearly $3 million project, has gotten a push from New York real estate developers who want to foster business and “deal flow,” she said.
Among those moving into Innovate Hartford is Gary G. Brandt, president and co-founder of TEN DIGIT Communications. He’s developing a texting service connecting customers with customer service operations at insurance companies, government agencies, medical offices and other enterprises.
The objective is to replace what is often a punishing experience for consumers trying by telephone to reach a doctor’s office, a cable TV company and other businesses. It could also save a company money by reducing its reliance on call centers.
The downtown Hartford office building provides Brandt with working space at an affordable cost, he said.
“We have been working virtually,” he said. “Now we have space.”
An added benefit is a call center operating in the office building that Brandt hopes to sign up as a customer.
Also working at the Stilts Building is the developer of a phone app for energy audits, working with utilities that currently perform time-consuming work at homes and businesses. Nick Sackandy, an Ellington entrepreneur whose business includes weatherization, learned about the app from Schlossberg, calling it a “perfect fit” for his business.
Business advocates see Innovate Hartford as the start of an effort to make Hartford a high-tech hub, connected to the region’s universities and colleges and professors, researchers and graduate students whose research leads to spin-off startups.
Other business start-ups operate at the University of Connecticut and elsewhere, and Hartford benefits from UConn’s business school downtown. Schlossberg said interns from area colleges and universities will be connected to businesses using Innovate Hartford, and she sees the possibility of many deals created by bringing together business developers.
“We haven’t scratched the surface,” she said.
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