Hub for entrepreneurs
Promenade Building to house VentureNorth, a new location for Peterborough Economic Development offices and The Cube business incubator offices
An office building on George St. N. with plenty of empty space is going to be renovated into a modern glass cube where budding entrepreneurs go to get training, support and help.
The Promenade Building, where Peterborough-Kawartha MP Maryam Monsef rented space for her campaign office, is the building.
It is being renamed VentureNorth.
Cam Taylor, one of four private investors behind VentureNorth, said the idea is to create an “environment” for entrepreneurs and public agencies to help new businesses flourish.
“We’re going to see some truly awesome businesses coming out of Peterborough, in addition to the ones that are already here,” he said.
VentureNorth is owned by Taylor and three other investors: Bob Gauvreau, Mike D’Alessandro and Paul Bennett.
They say they are going to pay to renovate, and also plow all the money they make from rent back into programs to support entrepreneurs.
Local firm Lett Architects has been hired to give the building a contemporary look.
There are also plans to eventually add a second, adjoining building to the south, over the parking lot.
For now, there are already two major tenants lined up: The Cube and Peterborough Economic Development (PED).
The Cube is already open, on the third floor. It is a training centre and temporary office space for up to 50 entrepreneurs, run by the Greater Peterborough Innovation Cluster.
The original Cube will continue to operate at Trent University – this is an additional location.
Meanwhile, the PED will move to VentureNorth in 2017 from its current, city-owned office building on Wolfe St.
Rhonda Keenan, the president and CEO of PED, said the Visitors Centre at Crawford Dr. and The Parkway will also move to VentureNorth.
The PED runs the Visitors Centre, as well as the area’s tourism-promotion programs.
But the current Visitors Centre is expected to be razed to make way for the new casino planned for Crawford Dr. and The Parkway, so it needed a new home.
All of this was announced Wednesday at a press conference at the building.
“This is major progress,” said Mayor Daryl Bennett.
Peterborough MPP Jeff Leal said the plans will only enhance the already-healthy downtown.
“Mayor Bennett and his team can take pride – Peterborough has one of the healthiest downtowns in Ontario,” he said.
J. Murray Jones, the warden of Peter borough County, called it a great opportunity to work together.
“Let’s bury everything negative we can think of,” he said. “Let’s go forward.”
Right now, there are offices located in the Promenade building: There’s the Cooperators, for instance, and the office of the Crown attorney.
The idea is to gradually add more business-development agencies so it becomes a centre completely devoted to entrepreneurship.
Mike Skinner, the president and CEO of the Innovation Cluster, said Junior Achievement is an example of one an agency that is planning to move in.
“It was always a dream to put all of these organizations together,” he said.
It’s been a long-time dream of Skinner’s, actually.
He had been a fifth investor, nearly a year ago, when the building was bought and the concept for Venture North was developed.
But he says he walked away from his part-ownership earlier this summer, when he was hired as the new president and CEO of the Innovation Cluster.
For several months prior, he was the interim in that job; during that time, he declared a conflict in all negotiations to relocate The Cube to VentureNorth.
He said he also stepped down from the board of directors of PED, and he wasn’t involved in any negotiations to move PED downtown.