Former Midtown grocery to house Greentown Labs
The former Fiesta Mart in Midtown will be the new home of Greentown Labs Houston, a clean-energy incubator that hopes to make the city, which has roots firmly planted in fossil fuels, an epicenter of clean energy.
Greentown Labs of Somerville, Mass., the nation’s largest clean-energy incubator, expects to open its Houston site in spring with 40,000 square feet of space for about 50 startup companies. Construction will begin next month to transform the former grocery store, which closed in July.
The site is part of 16 acres — about eight city blocks — of prime real estate in Midtown being developed by Rice University as an innovation district. The development’s centerpiece will be the Ion, in the former Sears store. Rice Management Co., which oversees Rice University’s endowment, is expanding and
converting the former department store into a 300,000-square-foot collaboration space.
Greentown Labs announced in June that it would open a second U.S. location here to capitalize on Houston’s role as energy capital of the world.
The former grocery store, with concrete floors, loading docks and trash compactor, is perfect for Greentown Labs, CEO Emily Reichert said.
The lab, which grew from a small group of startups nine years ago near the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, will provide space and funding to new companies on the road to commercialization.
The nascent ventures are expected to focus on carbon capture, hydrogen fuel technology, battery storage and other clean energy sources. The Massachusetts lab has helped launch 280 companies, of which 88 percent have been successful, Reichert said.
Greentown Labs plans to raise $10 million to retrofit the store and provide three years of operating capital. It has raised nearly $8 million, including non-monetary donations such as legal services, Reichert said. She would not say how much each donor has contributed.
The incubator plans to begin signing membership agreements in the next month or so, she said.
The Ion is expected to be completed during the first quarter of 2021, said Ryan LeVasseur, managing director of direct real estate for Rice Management Co.
Chevron Technology Ventures, a division of the California-based oil giant that focuses on new energy technology, is the first tenant to lease space, he said.