County Commissioners Look to Move Forward with Business Incubator

With the county’s first small business incubator up and running in Philipsburg, Centre County Commissioner Mark Higgins is now working on the bigger incubator project in Bellefonte. On Aug. 23, he brought a memorandum of understanding between the county and Rural Business Innovation to provide consulting services and temporary operational support and implementation of a business incubator program for the purpose of economic development.

“We’re to the point we need to bring someone on board to help us along on this project,” said Higgins. “This group has the experience we need, and the resources that will help get this project up and going.”

According to Higgins, the first thing that must be done is finding a suitable location for an incubator, and he believes with the help of RBI, they could secure that location rather quickly, allowing them to move ahead on other parts of the project.

Higgins said because the Bellefonte incubator is going to be larger and have significantly more tenants, the consultant is necessary, and RBI fits exactly into the county’s plan.

“The reason why we chose this group is because they are currently handling the nine counties due east of us, including Columbia, Luzerne, Lycoming, Montour, Northumberland, Schuylkill, Sulliven, Union and Snyder,” said Higgins. “Many of these counties have towns with populations similar to that of Bellefonte. In fact, this group assists in running multiple business incubators in areas such as Lewisburg, Selinsgrove and Sunbury. So, we felt this was a very good group to work with.”

Higgins said the company’s home base is about an hour away, making their services and consultations “rather” local.

According to the contract, the rate of pay to RBI will be $45 per hour including a travel stipend of 70-cents per mile for on-site visits.

“The $45 per hour is a very, very affordable rate for this field,” said Higgins.

He said once hired, the company will be able to help determine the best location for the incubator, as well as sign a lease, begin marketing the incubator and writing grant requests.

“They have all the resources and knowledge to do all these things,” said Higgins.

Commissioner Steve Dersham asked Higgins why a memorandum of understanding was brought before the board instead of an actual contract.

“At this point, the consultant needs to go to her executive board and get their approval to be working with us on this,” said Higgins. “After the MOU is approved and you want to see an official contract, I’m sure they’ll be able to do that.”

Higgins said the contract will be based upon approximately 181 hours of work.

The memorandum of understanding was added to the commissioners’ consent agenda and official action is expected to be taken at next week’s board meeting.