The Baltimore Development Corp. plans to restart one of its flagship technology development programs, but without the coworking space that helped establish its reputation.
The quasi-public development agency released a plan Monday to relaunch the Emerging Technology Centers after previously shuttering many of the center's programs, which were geared toward fostering startups in Baltimore. The new plan marks a sea change for the entrepreneurship organization as it shifts from a coworking space into an economic development organization focused on talent development, venture funding and general economic development. The coworking space was too expensive for the nonprofit to maintain, making it hard to focus on programming and staffing, BDC CEO Colin Tarbert said.
The decision to relaunch the ETC comes after several changes to the technology organization that left it with a leadership void and an uncertain future. Longtime CEO Deb Tillett left the organization in 2022 for reasons that differ depending on who you ask, according to previous reporting from Technical.ly. Tillett claimed that BDC leadership asked her to retire, while BDC officials claimed she retired of her own accord.
The ETC began slowly closing down programs this past year while it prepared for a transition under new leadership. The ETC shut down its 19,100 square-foot Highlandtown coworking space last month, putting an end to one of the area's largest incubators. Annual events like the Baltimore Innovation Week Conference and the pioneer program for early-stage businesses also stopped in 2023.
Tarbert plans to resume ETC programming within six to nine months, but first needs to hire a new executive director, he said. The company plans to restart with a $800,000 budget, significantly more than past city appropriations. Most of the funding will go toward hiring around six staff members, paying for consulting services, and funding events. The new executive director will be paid between $115,000 to $125,000, according to the job posting. The nonprofit also plans to bring back some of its old programming, such as a revamped Baltimore Innovation Week conference in 2025.
A strategic plan that the BDC created with several outside consultants gives a peak into the future of the economic development organization and the reasoning for the shutdown. The Covid-19 pandemic and the growth of other coworking spaces across the region like the Cube Cowork and Towson University’s StarTUp at the Armory reduced the need for ETC’s offices causing revenue to decline dramatically over the past several years. ETC’s rental income from startups plunged from $680,000 in 2017 to $130,000 in 2021.
The cost of the lease for coworking space took up around a third of the ETC’s budget, Tarbert said, taking money away from other valuable programming.
“Instead of running an accelerator incubator, you end up running a real estate operation,” Tarbert said. “You have to keep businesses there to pay the rent. We had a number of businesses that were in ETC that clearly moved on from being a startup, but we were reluctant to let them leave.”
Many of the companies that were part of ETC remain at North Haven Street in office space provided by the landlord, Tarbert said.
The ETC hopes to branch off into a new role focused on bringing technology players from outside the region into the city along with connecting different players in the tech ecosystem and creating training programs for staff and entrepreneurs. Tarbert views the ETC of the future as a connector that fosters collaboration between organizations and connects entrepreneurs with funding opportunities, not an organization that directly provides a wide amount of services or funding.
"ETC can be a champion around workforce programs and entrepreneurial accelerator programs that are broader in the community than universities," Tarbert said. "So I don't think ETC is necessarily going to take on training, aspiring software coders, etc. but we will be hopefully partnering with Betamore to figure out how we can help them scale up their training programs."
