The network of KY Innovation hubs is composed of six organizations located in various parts of Kentucky, but Steve Smith would love to add one more next year when organization's fiscal year starts in July 2024.
That would be in his home base of Elizabethtown, a city in the middle of the state that currently is in the territory of the Central Region Ecosystem for Arts, Technology and Entrepreneurship (CREATE), a nonprofit organization headquartered out of the Western Kentucky University Innovation Campus in Bowling Green, Kentucky.
“We’re not talking too forward: Our goal is to be our own hub in Elizabethtown … so by this time next year, hopefully we will be our own Death Star,” Smith told me, with a “Star Wars” reference and a hearty laugh.
Smith, the new director of CREATE's Elizabethtown office, spoke with me on Monday from what would be the command center, so to speak, of the burgeoning Elizabethtown operation: the meeting room inside the new Center of Kentucky Entrepreneurship — or COKE as it is also known as.
Opened on May 3 with a ribbon cutting ceremony, the approximate 10,000-square-foot space, the center was built on top of a former 100,000-plus-square foot Coca-Cola bottling plant at 1201 N. Dixie Highway. The clever name is credited to Bobby Crabtree and her husband, Bucky McQueen, the founders of USA Bridal, based in Elizabethtown.
The couple owns the building. They came up with the idea to convert an unused portion of it for the center, albeit in pre-Covid times. They did so alongside Lisa Williams, who had served as the Elizabethtown office director for 20 years — and happens to be a longtime friend and neighbor of Smith’s.
“She pretty much told me I had to,” said Smith about Williams’ request that he be her successor.
After working in a part-time capacity for about eight months, Smith took over Williams’ role officially on July 1. Williams is currently on vacation and was unavailable for comment about the leadership transition.
An entrepreneur in his own right, Smith has started several enterprises, but he is most known in Elizabethtown as the co-owner of the Bourbon Barrel Tavern, a bar in the city’s downtown area. His establishment also sponsors the popular Tavern in the Garden event, and its founder-themed spinoff, Startup Garden, both in Elizabethtown and Bowling Green. The next Startup Garden will take place at 5:30 p.m. (CST) on Aug. 30 at KYC, LLC at 1000 Wilkinson Trace in Bowling Green.
Smith is also a former deputy judge of Hardin County, where Williams had also served as the magistrate for the county’s fiscal court. Williams retired from that position as well in December. It was under Smith’s tenure as judge executive that the Elizabethtown office that Williams occupied came into creation.
“I believe in the cause more than anything … Right now having the biggest economic opportunity in our history right in our backyard — folks are gonna need some help. So, we’re looking to create those opportunities here instead of letting them go somewhere else,” said Smith, alluding to possible uptick in startups as a result of — among other news items — the construction of the BlueOvalSK Battery Park being built down the street in Glendale, Kentucky.
“We’ve got the chance to be our own market,” he added.
Accepting applications
To meet those aspirations, though, the COKE needs some fizz, one could say.
Currently there are four startups which — similar to the Collaborative SmartSpace at Western Kentucky University’s Innovation Campus — pay a monthly fee to use the space, which overlooks Freeman Lake. The startups include a social media content provider, a social media marketer and two software development companies.
A majority of the desk infrastructure in the middle of the main room was provided by the WKU Innovation Campus, as well as several chairs. Throughout the room, one can see donations sent from several locally based companies such as a treadmill desk and several chairs donated by Humana. The main room also features three traditional cubicle spaces as well as a whiteboard space and several tables.
Smith that in total the center has approximately $250,000 worth of combined equipment as well as labor — from sources as Elizabethtown’s Public Works Department — and other contributions. He also mentioned the $100,000 in allocated funds set aside by the Hardin County Fiscal Court in 2022 and the collective efforts of Elizabethtown Mayor Jeff Gregory. There were several other names on a whiteboard in the meeting room of those who helped make the center possible.
“We built it,” Smith said. “Now we’ve got to sell it, and we’ve got to get people in here.”
KY Innovation is the entrepreneurial arm of the Kentucky Cabinet for Economic Development. The other five KY Innovation hubs are: Amplify Louisville; Awesome, Inc. (Lexington); Blue North (Covington); GroWest (Paducah) and Shaping Our Appalachian Region (SOAR, Pikeville).
