By Emily Kresse
A new “creative factory” is taking up residence in the former Wedge Pizzeria’s Pedestrian Mall location. Being in the heart of downtown and close to campus is a physical representation of MERGE’s partnership among Iowa City Area Development Group, the city of Iowa City, and the University of Iowa.
“We knew from the outset we wanted to be in what I like to call the ‘living room’ of the community — downtown and close to campus,” said Mark Nolte, the president of the development group.
So when both floors of the South Dubuque Street location became available, it was an obvious fit, Nolte said.
MERGE is a co-working space, which is a place for numerous new businesses to be in the same building to promote sharing ideas and collaboration. Nolte said MERGE, 136 S. Dubuque St., was also created as a way to keep UI graduates in the state as well as bring new business to the area.
“We’re tired of letting our best and brightest leave because they think they need to go somewhere else to be successful,” he said.
Nolte said the partnership with the UI Office of the Vice President for Research and Economic Development was important for the development group because previously there had not been as much collaboration between the two groups as he would have liked.
“We can break down the barrier; what if we do something together? How much more powerful would that be?” Nolte said. “There’s so much more potential if we leverage the business community with the full capacity of the university and its resources.”
The space, which will be closed September for renovations and reopen in January 2017, will be a place for UI students, emerging entrepreneurs, and small start-ups to have access to support systems and to network with other new businesses.
Kate Moreland, the director of collaboration and community relations at the development group, likened the co-working space concept to a gym membership — you can drop in or pay as you go. It is especially attractive to remote workers or start-ups that do not want a long-term lease, she said.
“We will become a hub for creative thinkers,” Moreland said. “You can bring an idea and get help moving forward.”
Nolte iterated that MERGE’s goal is to enable creative thinkers and give them the space, both literally and figuratively, to grow.
“We want [MERGE] to be the epicenter where everything innovative is taking place — a place for people to gravitate to and share ideas,” he said. “We’ll help provide access to capital, all the support you need to commercialize ideas.”
Neil Quellhorst, a retired engineer, recently joined MERGE as an engineering prototype director. Although the latter half of his career was spent working with large corporations such as Rockwell Collins, the first half was spent working with smaller start-ups. Quellhorst said he looks forward to being able to aid similar entrepreneurial companies in the early stages.
“[MERGE] is going to be a nurturing and incubating type of environment,” he said.
As an adjunct lecturer in the Tippie College of Business, Quellhorst has had the chance to teach UI students, and he said he will continue work with that population at MERGE.
“We want to … engage them to give them experience in real-world opportunities,” he said, noting that the team wants to focus on bringing in students from a wide range of disciplines.
Quellhorst said not only will MERGE be a resource for students, it will also help Iowa’s economy in a variety of fields.
“The emphasis is on medical devices, but it’s not exclusively that,” he said. “The goal is to create economic growth here in the state of Iowa.”
The renovation of the 13,000-square-foot space is partially funded by a $1.5 million grant from the Iowa Economic Development Authority. The grant also enabled the purchase of 3D printers for protostudios, a design and prototyping lab nestled in MERGE.
“The space is going to be one thing, but it’s really about the people you can put in there,” Nolte said. “We want to foster a lot of cross-idea collaboration.”