A Gateway University District anchor spot that's seen two restaurants come and go now bustles with Ohio State University students building businesses.
The Student Entrepreneurs' Center is the first physical home for the 23-year-old Keenan Center for Entrepreneurship, Cheryl Turnbull, Keenan's senior director, said in an interview.
"I don't even know how we functioned before this," Turnbull said. "The place is packed. ... We conduct the vast majority of our programming at the center now."
Next week, the center at the corner of High Street and Chittenden Avenue hosts the third finale pitch competition of the President's Buckeye Accelerator. Eleven finalists from about 40 student startups will vie for six grants of $50,000 each, funded by the office of the OSU president, and a year of business coaching.
With windows from floor to soaring ceiling, the 6,500-square-foot space was last home to Trism, a restaurant and event center that opened in 2017 and closed during the pandemic. Original Gateway tenant Eddie George's Grille 27 moved in 2016 to Grandview Yard (and closed during the pandemic). (The former back bar of Grille 27 was walled off and opened as a bar in 2017.)
The Student Entrepreneurs' Center had a soft opening in January and a grand opening in March. It's convenient to student housing, bus lines and the Union across High Street. Half of the entrepreneur center's High Street frontage is subleased to a Starbucks – the franchisee is an OSU alum – because what's a startup without coffee?
"This is a marvelous space for our student entrepreneurs," Turnbull said. "We gutted the entire thing."
Rebekah Matheny, OSU associate professor of interior design, led a team of students who interviewed student entrepreneurs about what they needed in a workspace. The center is "100% designed by the students," Turnbull said.
Check out the slideshow for a look inside the Student Entrepreneurs' Center.
OSU Keenan Student Entrepreneurs' Center
Keenan programs are offered starting freshman year, including Launchpad, a weekend to build and pitch a business plan, and Boost Camp, an accelerator. Best of Student Startups, or BOSS, is a seven-week program on the basics of running a business, with introductions to mentors and potential customers.
"Really the most important part of the programming that we do is we're building community," Turnbull said.
"We're giving our students that mindset of how do you recognize a real problem?" she said. "How do you find a solution for that? And then how do you bring that to market in a business that you can sustain?"
On average, students have spent 10 hours a week building their businesses – on top of classes and any outside job. Starting in the fall Boost Camp participants will earn academic credit as part of the entrepreneurship minor.
The current Boost cohort had 85 teams, up 50% from the prior session, Turnbull said. Just under half opted to enter the presidential competition.
"Our students are just phenomenal in their dedication and their passion and just their grit," Turnbull said.
Past winners have included a drone startup helping first responders survey a site for safety before entering, a sanctuary for primates after they age out of use in medical research, an app to help guide a healthy, safe pregnancy to reduce infant and maternal mortality, and a textile business that prints artwork on pillows and linens for hospitality. The last one just won a contract with OSU's Blackwell Inn, Turnbull said.
Unlike with faculty or staff technology or businesses developed while being paid by OSU, the university does not take equity in the student-founded businesses.
Who started (and expanded) the Keenan Center?
The center leases the space from Campus Partners, OSU's real estate affiliate that developed Gateway. It has key-card access open only to students involved in Keenan programs or working on their business.
The buildout cost about $2.5 million, funded by the Keenan gift, fundraising and other efforts, a spokeswoman said.
Columbus venture capitalist Rich Langdale founded the Center for Entrepreneurship at his alma mater in 2001, and led it on a volunteer basis for two years. He's stayed closely involved ever since.
"I give all sorts of credit to Rich," Turnbull said. "He's part of our programming."
The center was renamed after $17 million planned gift in 2018 from the Keenan Family Foundation, which stipulated that it move outside of Fisher to be available to students in all 15 OSU colleges. In 2020 the center reorganized as part of the university-wide Enterprise for Research, Innovation and Knowledge, which coordinates OSU research, technology commercialization and industry relations.
The foundation of Tim Keenan, a business consultant in the Washington, D.C.-area, had earlier donated $1 million to create a technology track in Fisher's undergraduate entrepreneurship curriculum. The 1980 Fisher graduate co-founded a tech contractor to the military and federal agencies that was acquired for $143 million in 2011.
"Tim has been instrumental in bringing his vision to life on Ohio State's campus," Turnbull said. "He and his wife, Kathleen, ... have a vision of entrepreneurship really spurring economic development throughout the Midwest."
