INCUBATOR PLANS CO-WORKING OFFICE EXPANSION TO ILL.

The Innovation Pavilion on Tuesday named Joliet, Ill., a Chicago suburb, as the next city to get its own innovation campus.

The Centennial-based incubator company, which likes to open hubs in suburban cities often on the outskirts of urban activity, received unanimous approval from the Joliet City Council in July. The city approved $200,000, free city land and other incentives, according to The Herald News in Joliet.

Similar to previously announced facilities in Parker and Olathe, Kan., Innovation Pavilion wants to build a 100,000- to 200,000square-foot campus in Joliet that would offer local entrepreneurs a place to work, live and make stuff, thanks to a maker lab for prototyping. The Joliet campus also would include a school focused on STEM, or science, technology, engineering and math.

It’s part of a plan the company announced last year to accelerate the growth of one of the area’s first business accelerators. Innovation Pavilion founder Vic Ahmed earlier shared that the company is talking to 20 cities to expand the incubator model, which targets young entrepreneurs. The STEM school is modeled on the STEM School and Academy in Highlands Ranch.

The company expects the Joliet campus will take three to five years to be completed.

Innovation Pavilion, which opened in Centennial in 2011, employs 15 people and is one of the rare co-working spaces located outside of Denver. Galvanize and WeWork each have two facilities in central Denver.