Miami University and the city of Oxford have received a seven-figure pledge from JobsOhio to help get College@Elm, a planned “incubator on steroids” in Butler County, off the ground.
The funds, a $1.5 million JobsOhio Vibrant Community grant, represent the largest individual commitment made to the project so far. Miami said it will take $10.7 million to renovate a university-owned building west of campus for make way for the future hub for art and science, creativity and innovation, imagination and design.
College@Elm has been years in the making and has been billed as a catalytic project for the city, university and southwest entrepreneurial ecosystem.
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For two decades, the building slated for the project, at 20 S. Elm St., west of campus, has sat vacant. In 2018, Miami and the city clashed over a planned proposal to raze it to make way for private student housing. Miami and city officials regrouped, and College@Elm emerged.
The envisioned facility will house office space, an entrepreneurship center, startups, a workforce and small business development resource center, a design and testing area and space for manufacturing operations.
“It’s important for Ohio, but even more important for our country, to figure out what we’re going to do with some of these places that were thriving at one time but are now looking for something new,” Miami University President Greg Crawford told me. “We want to be the epicenter of this. In today’s world, it’s no longer blue-collar jobs or white-collar jobs, but ‘new collar’ jobs. This convergence of creativity and high-tech is going to be ideal.”
Besides Miami and the city of Oxford, the Fischer Group, a Butler County-based manufacturing company, will serve as the building’s anchor tenant. Fischer Group will occupy more than half of the building’s 39,000 square feet and operate at least three manufacturing lines.
Big picture, College@Elm will create more than 50 new jobs, add $4 million in annual payroll, bolster a distressed rural economy and attract new students and businesses to Oxford.
Once established, Miami anticipates College@Elm will launch at least three new startups a year.
“College@Elm will be the lighthouse, the beacon, for students and community members,” said Randi Thomas, vice president of ASPIRE, or Advancing Strategy, Partnerships, Institutional Relations, and Economy, at Miami.
REDI Cincinnati was instrumental in assisting Miami and the city of Oxford with its JobsOhio Vibrant Community application. Vibrant Communities, a new program, aims to assist distressed communities implement “catalytic development projects that fulfill a market need and represents a significant reinvestment in areas that have struggled to attract new investment.”
In a release, Kimm Lauterbach, REDI Cincinnati president and CEO, called College@Elm a perfect fit.
“The activation of vacant buildings to further community development, business growth and entrepreneurship is the new formula for success in economic development,” Lauterbach said.
The grant brings the total amount raised for College@Elm to $4.5 million. Besides the $1.5 million Vibrant Communities award, the initiative received a $1 million jumpstart in the Ohio 2021-2022 state capital budget. The university has also raised an additional $2 million.
