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Lakeshore Advantage to get new quarters
2/23/2006
By Mark Sanchez
msanchez@mbusinessreview.com
The economic-development agency for the Holland-Zeeland-Saugatuck area will get a new home this month, as it moves into quarters across the street.
Lakeshore Advantage is leasing space in the 138,000-square-foot former Colonial Clock/Sligh Furniture Co. building on Washington Avenue in downtown Zeeland that was recently renovated into modern office and commercial space.
Lakeshore Advantage, which includes the business incubator Lakeshore Business Garden, will lease less space than it now occupies in its current office in a nearby, older industrial building.
The new location offers far better aesthetics, function and efficiency as well as improved visibility and accessibility, Lakeshore Advantage marketing manager Katy Rent said.
Much like the start-up companies it works to support and nurture, Lakeshore Advantage is maturing, and the move into better quarters reflects the two-year-old organization's progress, Rent said.
"We started off as an organization trying to find our way and find our niche and we've found that. It does kind of mirror the growth of the organization," she said. "It's a place we can see ourselves for a while."
Lakeshore Advantage should make the move by the end of the month, she said.
Once settled, the organization will add a new wrinkle to its business incubator with what Rent describes as "intermediate space." The goal is to provide growing start-up companies separate office space within the Business Garden that offers a little more room and privacy.
"It will be their own space," Rent said. "It will almost appear a separate office."
The business incubator now provides low-cost office space to entrepreneurs who need only one or two workstations when they start out and are housed in close proximity to one another.
Lakeshore Advantage will lease the intermediate space at a higher yet still affordable rates. Tenants will still receive all of the support amenities such as shared conference rooms and I.T. systems. Tenant businesses also are matched with a business mentor.
The Business Garden has five tenants that collectively employ nine people. A sixth business is expected to move in after Lakeshore Advantage relocates, Rent said.
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