How West Dundee might assist new entrepreneurs

Aspiring entrepreneurs looking to start a business should consider opening in a West Dundee storefront, says Village President Chris Nelson.

As the village moves ahead with downtown redevelopment plans, officials are considering establishing a business incubator program in partnership with Elgin Community College and Community Unit District 300. It would allow traditional and nontraditional students to develop business plans and test strategies and ideas at a shared office space downtown, Nelson said.

"It allows people with some good business ideas to get the business skills that they need to open a stronger business down the road," Nelson said. "Ours would also be intended to be an educational space. We have a few sites that we are talking about."

The concept of business incubators started catching on in the 1980s. Private companies, governments and public institutions, such as colleges and universities, often sponsor business incubation centers to help create and grow new businesses by providing them support and financial and technical services. While there are only a few such programs in the Northwest suburbs, there are more than 900 business incubators nationwide, according to the National Business Incubation Association.

Benefits incubators provide to startup businesses include office space at below-market rates, advice and expertise in developing business and marketing plans, and even funding.

Twenty percent of the buildings along West Dundee's Main Street are vacant, offering plenty of storefront spaces to act as a test incubator for businesses, Nelson said.

"We would like to have two or three spaces where we could try out the concepts over three to six months," he said. "These pop-up retail and pop-up restaurant concepts are part and parcel of what we attach to the incubator. If they do well, hopefully they will stay in the area."

Nelson said he hopes the idea will generate interest in downtown and spawn future businesses that want to locate there.

"If we can get everything ironed out, by the end of the year we will have a space identified and (be) establishing it," Nelson said.