Bonavista gets even more business-friendly with new incubator space

A new initiative opening this week in Bonavistaaims to create a hub of business innovation asentrepreneurship in the area continues to growby leaps and bounds.

The Commons is housed on the second floor of the Bonavista-Trinity Regional Chamber of Commerce's PublicBuilding on Church Street, offering a co-working space, services like printing and scanning, plus meeting rooms and Wi-Fi,all available for a monthly membership or at a drop-in rate.

"It's going to be a central hub of innovation, incubation, collaboration and a lot ofthe basic and maybe not-so-basicsupports that a business or entrepreneur may want," said chamber president John Norman, also the mayor of Bonavista.

"As far as we know, it's the first-of-its-kind co-workingspace outside St. John's."

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According to Norman, 31 new businesses opened up in Bonavista alone in 2017, with at least another four in the last six weeks. Similarly, the chamber of commerce has grown from 38 members in 2013 to more than 150 at the end of 2017.

Breaking down biz barriers

That increasing depth of resources has allowed the chamber to hire staff and pursue what Norman calls "a bold vision" to make the Bonavista area more business-friendly.He hopes the Commons can help solve entrepreneurial problems as they arise.

"Ithink one of the big obstacles we've heard, and I've seen in both urban and more rural settings in the province, is access to affordable space for businesses to launch," he told CBC's Central Morning Show.

To that end, the Commons will feature the Marketplace, a space to foster storefront pop-upsfor short periods of time anywhere from a week to a year to helpnew businesses find their feet.

"We incubate you for a year, maybe more, and then we launch you out into the world, and hopefully that business carries on somewhere within our region," said Norman.

As the Commons prepares for its first entrepreneurs, Norman said there are three applicants in the works to use the space, although rental rates and other details have not yet been ironed out.

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