With the launch of Excelerate Essex (E²) – a co-working space – Essex is open for startups. An open house at the new Excelerate Essex will be held on Friday, June 5 from 4 PM to 8 PM at 15 Pearl Street (aka Route 15), just off Five Corners. This public opening is the first chance the community will have to see the new facility and is the first chance Vermonters with business ideas and business plans will have to learn about the affordable membership structure and plans to build a community based on collaboration and sharing of resources.
Attendees will see the facility, meet project principals, share food, drink and music, and engage with others who care about the economic vitality of Essex. Moreover, they will learn how they can build a business at E². Several Essex-based start-ups – including Rex’s Outrageous, Tour Impact Golf, and Heco Engineering - have committed to demo their products and share their business story. Located in the former Kaleidoscope Yarn Company building, a 3,000 sf, 3-story structure just west of Five Corners, a determined group of Essex residents are bringing together the resources to promote business development in Essex and Essex Junction.
The building was purchased by Essex High School graduate and business owner Emir Heco, who is working to build a community where taking ideas from vision to prototype to production is an everyday occurrence. Emir Heco, founder of E², comments on his motivation to create this space: “I want my 2 year old son to grow up in a community where people “make things”. That is how we will keep the next generation here in Vermont. It is my passion and my life story.”
The Chair of the Essex Economic Development Commission, Greg Morgan addresses the potential impact of E² on the local economy: “Essex has an incredibly strong economic base, and needs to create a network to support for innovators who want to turn their ideas into new businesses. Excelerate Essex has the potential be our missing link – the center of a community support network.” As the long-time home of IBM – and the new home of GlobalFoundries - and also anchored by Vermont grown companies Keurig Green Mountain (started in Waitsfield), Autumn Harp (Bristol), Vermont Systems (Essex Town), Market Forge, a Division of Blodgett Oven (Burlington) and Flex-a-Seal (Essex Junction), the Essex community is working to support and grow startup businesses.
Vermont’s second largest municipality and the state’s leader in advanced manufacturing jobs, Essex is home to a strong stable of enterprises in many sectors and several thousand existing high value jobs. To build off this history and tradition, Excelerate Essex envisions becoming the hub of an Innovation District that includes the communities of eastern Chittenden County.
Essex Junction, VT – June, 3, 2015.