Bloomington Trades District Technology Center construction starts 2022
City leaders hope a new $5 million, 22,000-square-foot building in Bloomington will spur tens of millions of dollars in private investment, bolster the region’s technology sector and diversify the local economy.
Local officials said the Trades District Technology Center, at Maker Way and North Madison Street, will provide resources and expertise to early-stage companies to help them reach their next level of development and to set them up for growth.
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In a sense, the tech center would serve as a next step for businesses in The Mill, the city’s coworking space and business accelerator, which provides services for remote workers, freelancers and startups.
The U.S. Economic Development Administration recently awarded the city a $3.5 million CARES Act Recovery Assistance grant to support the tech center’s construction. The city’s redevelopment commission has pledged $1.6 million toward the project. The EDA projects its grant will create 530 jobs and spur private investment of $51 million.
“This is actually a pretty big deal,” said Alex Crowley, director of the city’s Economic and Sustainable Development department.
The center will enable the city to take the next step in creating the infrastructure that’s required to spur private investments in the tech sector, and the federal grant validates the city’s efforts, he said.
Crowley said the center will provide a space primarily for companies that outgrow The Mill. While the business incubator provides inexpensive space and wraparound services for startups, the tech center will offer services for a company’s next stages of development, including how to raise capital, how to commercialize a product and how to identify and move into a market.
Crowley said city leaders hope the new center also will generate regional, national and global interest in Bloomington's startup scene, which will increase the city's success in recruiting new enterprises from other cities. However, the center will focus primarily on companies cultivated in The Mill.
'Big step' for Bloomington
Brad Wisler, a Bloomington entrepreneur whose company is based at The Mill, said the new center will bring a vibrancy to the neighborhood.
“I think it’s a big step for the trades district as a whole,” he said.
Wisler is founder and CEO of Periodic, an online platform that makes it easy to schedule and book appointments. Founded in 2016, the company’s platform enables bookings as simple as one-on-one appointments for a phone call or meeting or as complex as time-based commerce, in which someone can schedule a delivery or service that has to be paid upon booking, with prices being calculated on the fly based on feedback.
Periodic moved into The Mill a couple of years ago and since then has about quadrupled its employment to more than 20.
The Mill provided the company a private office and enough space for additional employees without any long-term obligation.
In the very early phase of a company, when it has a small team, Wisler said it cannot afford to pay for more office space than it needs and it cannot risk getting locked into a long-term lease.
“In the early days of a startup, you just don’t know what’s going to happen,” he said.
However, he said, once a company reaches a certain size, the importance of flexibility gives way to the need for stability.
“We’ve really already outgrown The Mill,” Wisler said.
He said the company’s size has made it difficult to stay at the business incubator, even though proximity to other entrepreneurs and startup employees remains critical to addressing business challenges.
Wisler said Periodic now needs a place where it can stay for the long-term that it can customize and which offers a little more privacy.
A company the size of Periodic would fit well into the tech center, he said, especially because its tenants will remain near The Mill. The new structure will be diagonally across the street from The Mill.
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Having other founders and entrepreneurs nearby provides tremendous value, Wisler said, because it enables everyone to learn from others’ knowledge and experience.
For example, Wisler said some of Periodic’s developers meet with employees of other startups at The Mill to talk about JavaScript, a programming language, which enables everyone to get a fresh perspective on how other companies deal with the same or similar problems.
“That’s really beneficial to us,” he said.
Impromptu meetings and conversations at The Mill also often enable founders to learn from one another, Wisler said. Someone may talk about a challenge, then hear about possible ways to address it from a peer who has dealt with a similar problem.
Collaborative energy
Ravi Bhatt, founder and CEO of Folia, agreed.
The tech center will provide space for companies that outgrow The Mill, but the structure will maintain many of the things that make The Mill concept work, especially a layout to encourage chance encounters and an atmosphere of collaboration.
While companies in The Mill may be difficult to discern, as the open space often reveals energetic people doing work, Bhatt said the new structure will feature a lobby with distinct offices.
“We’ll see … an actual place of business,” he said.
Bhatt, who did his undergraduate work at IU in Bloomington, said when he launched his previous startup about a decade ago, the city’s ecosystem for developing businesses was fragmented. But now, with The Mill, more entrepreneurs and engaged city leaders, the situation looks vastly different.
Bhatt and his family moved to Bloomington this year from Chicago. His new company, Folia, which went live a few weeks ago, enables customers to digitally mark up all kinds of documents, collaborate on them in real time and to share them securely.
Bhatt said that clients, such as attorneys, may have to review and annotate all kinds of documents, such as financial data, memoranda, emails, case law, contracts and licensing agreements. Usually, all the documents are printed to enable people to highlight some sections and make notes on others, and then the stacks have to get copied again to be shared with other people.
“A horribly manual process,” Bhatt said.
Folia enables clients to complete all of the highlighting and annotations digitally and to share the documents easily and securely.
The company has five employees in Bloomington and 20 across the globe. Bhatt said he hopes to triple the company’s employment in the next few years.
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Wisler said structures like The Mill or the tech center also provide much needed emotional support for founders.
He said getting a company off the ground requires hard work, dedication and tenacity — but it also can be lonely because early on, the company has only one employee, the founder, whose shoulders bear all of the responsibilities.
Especially in difficult times, it’s valuable to get support or encouragement from others who have been in a similar situation, he said.
Jennifer Pearl, president of the Bloomington Economic Development Corp., said the new center will help diversify local job offerings beyond manufacturing and life sciences.
The BEDC and the city’s redevelopment commission were co-applicants for the federal grant.
Pearl said by focusing on the tech sector, the community is building on already available assets from educational institutions such as Indiana University and Ivy Tech, as well as private sector companies or the Naval Surface Warfare Center Crane Division.
“We’re really excited about what this can do for the region,” she said.
Crowley said he expects crews to break ground on the tech center in 2022, with completion projected 18 months later.
Boris Ladwig is the city government reporter for The Herald-Times. Contact him at bladwig@heraldt.com.
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