In East Lansing, there has been a significant transformation in the last eight months.
The Technology Innovation Center (or TIC), part of the Lansing Regional SmartZone, a partnership among the City of Lansing, City of East Lansing, MSU and others, to promote growth of technology-based businesses in the Lansing region, the TIC grew out of the need for a creative space for business start-ups.

The 6,600-square-foot center is located above Barnes and Noble on Grand River Avenue in East Lansing and is a creative, flexible, contemporary space, developed as a business accelerator, complete with access to resources like accounting and legal services offered by LEAP and SBTDC.

Jeff Smith, project manager with the City of East Lansing, oversees the operation of the TIC. “We were looking at being half full in the first year and we are more than exceeding that goal; we opened at 80 percent capacity,” Smith says, “which I think says a lot about demand versus recruiting. The Lansing business community really needed something like this.”
The space is now host to 14 businesses, in the fields of IT, media arts, homeland security and others. “We foresee 70 percent of the businesses succeeding. Hopefully they will hire more employees and move on to larger facilities; the impact of the TIC is more about creating a mindset versus creating a culture,” Smith says.  

Tim Dempsey, with the East Lansing planning & development department, says, “We looked at the need for a high-tech incubator close to campus. With the research happening at MSU, the City looked at other incubator-type facilities and held focus groups with potential start-ups involving younger companies, trying to identify what they needed.
“One thing we heard from that research was that a facility was needed for this type of space, at an affordable cost. Our economic development team brainstormed and tapped into our DDA for financial resources. We obtained a master lease, built the space and it sort of snowballed from there.”

Smith comments that the TIC is on the lookout for additional tenants and will eventually expand. “We know it will be exponential once businesses leave this place…the next Apple or Microsoft may come out of these doors. We’re providing the atmosphere and eventually we’ll tap into the next big thing.”
Here’s hoping they do.

Information Technology Empowerment Center (iTEC)
One day last year, Adam Pitcher, who lives in north Lansing near the then-vacant Holmes Street School, thought, “We have to find a use for this school.” Being a systems analyst at Michigan State University’s department of computer science and engineering, he also realized the growing need for education of K-12 kids, particularly in the realm of science and math.

“Out of that need,” Pitcher, who is involved with the Holmes Street School Association, says, “I looked at what’s around me and thought it would be good idea to start this project.”
In another part of town and around the same time, Ryan Vartoogian, CEO of Spartan Internet, heard about a collaborative effort to restore the school. He approached the City of Lansing and purchased the building, which will soon house Spartan Internet’s new offices on its third floor.

This was the genesis of the Information Technology Empowerment Center (iTEC for short), a unique nonprofit partnership among business, government and education entities to give low-income children and adults access to information and technology.  The goal of the center is to bridge the tech divide, equipping residents to fill jobs in the IT and computer science fields.  

Kirk Riley, executive director of the iTEC, says there are a few things that are driving the formation of the center. “As of December 2008, there were 300 IT positions open in the area, in a place where we’ve got a high unemployment rate,” he says. “But the qualifications aren’t there; we have a local shortage of people applying for positions in the tech sector.”
 “We are working with DL Kesler and Sons Construction Company for the renovating,” Vartoogian says. “We are focusing on conservation techniques such as geothermal heating and cooling, which will provide a 50 percent long-term energy cost savings.”

The move will also allow Spartan Internet to add more jobs. “We are excited about moving; it’s been a long time in the works. It’s going to help us sustain our growth; we’re fortunate to still be growing,” says Vartoogian.
Vartoogian says there are a number of tech and homeland security-related companies interested in locating to the old school, and he is still seeking additional companies to get involved in the space, estimated to hold a grand opening sometime this summer.

Riley says iTEC instructors have already worked closely with teachers in the Lansing School District to offer classes and the response has been positive. Pitcher adds that the pilot programs at Pattengill Middle School, Sexton and Eastern High School have been exciting and have engaged kids in engaging, tech-based activities. He adds, “What we will soon be doing [at iTEC] will be really powerful and our neighborhood is excited too.” The program will eventually reach out to schools beyond the Lansing School District.

Author: Sarah E. Wardell
Photography: Terri Shaver