Business Incubator Hopes to Hatch Jobs for Anderson County
Greg Wilson/Anderson Observer
Anderson County has a home for those running a small business that could expand or those with a business startup idea that could produce jobs paying more than $20 per hour.
The 1428 Incubator and Soft Landing Facility, which just completed its first year, offers almost 200,000 square-feet of space to help these groups solidify their operations before expanding or opening stand-alone operations in the county.
“It’s been a benefit to our manufacturing and the support of our manufacturing,” said Anderson County Economic Development Director Burriss Nelson. “It’s easier to grow a local company than recruit a company from somewhere else on the planet.”
Located in the old Singer/Ryobi/TTI Building at 1428 Pearman Dairy Road, the incubator shares space with a number of other county offices – including economic development – plus Clemson Extension Service, Tri-County Technical College and others.
“We are really just getting it off the ground now,” said Nelson. “The goal is to create high-paying jobs and raise the area’s standard of living.”
Any potential employer using the facility must have the potential to create jobs which pay more than the current Anderson County average of $21.73 per hour.
The county meets with those seeking to use the incubator to evaluate this potential. A few have already moved into their own buildings and begun hiring.
“The soft-landing idea is particularly attractive to European companies with a vision to come to the United States,” said Nelson. “ It gives them a chance to come here, store their product, have a minimal assembly operation with an office and sales center, and allows them to test the potential of their coming here with a minimal amount of expense.”
“The goal is to help these businesses for a year, then help them take off to from that point and go, where we can help them find a facility.”
The incubator also offers short term space for established businesses needing temporary housing.
Businesses using or having used the facility include:
SyncMD-SyncMD: a software development company whose mission is to empower users by providing a secure, mobile, multi-dimensional data exchange platform to collect, store and instantly share information. They originally began the development of a medical information app that could be used by veterans in managing and controlling their medical records. This app is now available to the civilian population.
Zono Sanitech. LLC: The ZONO Ozone Cabinet kills 99.9% of common viruses on non-porous surfaces and common bacteria on non-porous, porous, and semi-porous surfaces. The original units were developed for institutional applications, but COVID generated the need for an office size machine. ZONO Sanitech developed a cube-frig sized cabinet that utilizes a combination of: Process control, Ozone Concentration, Humidity and Time to achieve consistent and U.S. laboratory confirmed disinfection and sanitization levels. Simply place items in the ZONO and items are disinfected and sanitized in 35 minutes. No rinsing or wiping needed. Items may be used immediately. ZONO assembles, tests and ships the small cabinet machines in the incubator.
Quadcor Arms- Quadcor: is an arms assembly operation, using AR platform components to develop custom order long arms. They also offered training in basic pistol, tactical pistol, basic Rifle, Tactical Rifle, In Home Defense, Out of the Home Defense, Concealed Carry Weapon intro, operator intro, low profile operator, women's defense, door entry/dynamic room entry, room clearing, vehicle assault/vehicle takedown, long range shooting solutions, range safety officer certification, hunter education/hunter safety certification. Quadcor has graduated to an independent Anderson County operating location.
Palmetto Engineering: Palmetto Engineering, a local engineering firm, needed temporary space while they were renovating areas of their office. Palmetto leased 500 square feet of office for approximately 3 months. They have returned to their renovated space.
Blue Ridge Pure Water: Blue Ridge Pure Water (BRPW) is a locally owned and operated drinking water provider. They provide water to a substantial number of local businesses as well as a few county offices at 1428. They are in the process of building their own building, but before they could complete construction, their landlord asked them to move out in favor of a long-term lease opportunity, so they are in the Incubator until their building is completed, (August 2023).
One Com Consulting, LLC: One Com is a fledgling telecommunications company that is a sub-contractor to Verizon. One Com does custom installations for small to medium business applications. Up until now they have been operating out of the owner's garage. They are building a building in Anderson County to house their operation and hope to be in there new building December of 2023.
Latitude Applied Technologies: Latitude supplies a wide array of Tier 1 and Tier 2 products for the automotive industry as well as other manufacturing sectors. Their product line includes ISO-certified soundproofing components, adhesives, custom manufacturing safety insulation, and custom packing and shipping materials. Latitude is moving from a Simpsonville location into a building at Exit 35, Palmetto Industrial Park. Their move into the new location required the staging of some new equipment and 1428 offered a short-term storage space to assist in their move. They anticipate needing this space for less than four months (May 2023).
runVirt: runVirt is a spin-off of Electric City Printing. This start-up printing operation includes printing custom athletic competition bibs for all manner of sporting events, such as: track and field, bicycle, motorcycle, and water sports events. The bibs are used in national and international events including the Olympics.
Ground Crew Events, LLC (Yamaha): Ground Crew is the boots-on-the-ground team that handle all the promotional display of Yamaha Outboard Engines and companion products at all of the various Bass Master events all over the U.S. This team will be housing the latest Yamaha technology and outboard engines in the soft-landing space. They will use our location as their center of operations. Yamaha has been recognized as one of the Top 10 Most Innovative companies in the marine industry for the Yamaha Rightwaters sustainability program.
E&INertiv: E&INertiv is the manufacturer of specialized electrical switch gear equipment for data centers all over the US. E&I Engineering, an Irish electrical manufacturing company, came to Anderson County 6 years ago and located their operation in the former Supreme Machine Facility. Last year E&I was purchased by Vertiv, a US company, that was seeking a segway into the data center market. The E&I operation has doubled its footprint as well as its sales over the last 6 years and growth continues at an exponential rate. They had an urgent need for warehouse space while waiting on the completion of local, commercial warehouse space.
TTI: Since moving out of 1428, TTI has exhibited explosive growth creating a need for massive amounts of R&D, manufacturing, and warehouse/distribution space at their Exit 27 1-85 location. TTI has held, by lease at 1428, approximately 120,000 square feet, but as they have been able to complete construction of, as well as purchase of additional space they have released space back to the county. Currently TTI has approximately 30,000 square feet ofl eased space at 1428, however they will completely vacant space here by June 2023.