What’s Next For Montgomery’s Business Incubator?
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Businesses in the downtown incubator are nearly up on their leases, so what’s next for the area?
It’s been almost one year since Charlie’s Donuts and Yogurt opened up in downtown Montgomery.
With their one year lease almost up, manager Sandra Fowler says there’s a plan.
“We have recently agreed with the city, they’re going to let us stay one more year, which is great for us. We were dreading moving. It’s really now just getting where people know where we are. It’s taken us a while,” said Fowler.
She says business has basically tripled over the last several months in the downtown incubator.
There aren’t any spaces ready for Charlie’s to make a permanent downtown home, but she’s on the lookout.
The city of Montgomery says it’s been a hard process to bring places like Charlie’s and AUM’s new gallery to the space.
“We want it to be something unique downtown, we don’t want it to compete with other businesses. So we get a lot of inquiries about a lot of service type, like barber, salons and things like that. We have those downtown. We wanted to make sure our tenants are unique to downtown,” said Melanie Golson with the Department of Development.
The incubator has been set up next to the Riverwalk for the last four years. It was always a short term plan, and the city isn’t sure what’s next after the plan comes to an end next year, about the same time Charlie’s new lease is up.
“The building was built so it could be moved. We’ve discussed moving it to other places West Fairview, West Montgomery, things like that. But we’re not sure. We’ll see what next Fall, fall of 2016 is our target to reevaluate,” said Golson.
