For Wisconsin entrepreneurs looking to start up a manufacturing business, help is just south of the border.
At mHub, a Chicago incubator launched in 2017 for hard-tech and physical products, the opening of its new $50 million campus means it has room for more.
After supporting more than 500 startups and 200 manufacturers at its former headquarters at 965 W. Chicago Ave., the manufacturing incubator has moved to its new Near West Side campus on the outskirts of Fulton Market.
Functionally about 50% bigger, the new facility comes with more event and collaboration space throughout, giving mHub the kinds of features it needs to attract new companies in 2024.
Since opening its new site, mHub has added new collaborations with Grainger, Dell, Constellation and KPMG, with Marmon expanding its footprint at the facility and hundreds of active companies scaling their manufacturing-based ventures there.
"Their space that they were in before was second-generation space — they inherited it from Motorola," Shane Mathewson, technical director at Gensler, the designer on the project, told the Chicago Business Journal. "This space really is tailored to them. The ground floor gives them all of the shop, mechanical and lab space that people need while the second and third floors gives them all of the business and office function that they need."
Moving forward, Mathewson expects the space to continue to evolve to meet the hard-tech incubator's needs.
All the wet lab space — which is equipped to handle various chemicals and potentially wet hazards — is completely booked and sold at this point, for example, so mHub is already thinking about adding more, according to Mathewson.
Gensler's Design Forecast 2024 indicated that the most successful office workplaces will be ones that foster a sense of community and connection. The report also showed that companies are investing in innovation hubs, product experience centers and other multiuse spaces that bring diverse teams together to co-create, cross-pollinate and develop new products.
The design team tried to avoid defining spaces with hard walls to allow for organic growth and flexibility in the future based on mHub's evolving needs.
Gensler predicts that more government municipalities will try to incentivize adaptive reuse strategies and conversions whose renovations breathe new life into cities and offer vital infrastructure enhancements. That's exactly how Mathewson sees this project, comparing it to other recent projects in Chicago that fit that bill as well.
"[I'm] thinking about the Old Post Office and their adaptive reuse, the repositioning work we've done at Willis Tower, revisioning of The Mart," he said. "This building is about 100 years old and sat vacant for a very long time, so it's great to see a building get revitalized that can be a beacon for the neighborhood."
