By Natalie M. ZeiglerCity Manager
If you have passed by the City of Hartsville Public Service Department on West Carolina Avenue lately, you may have noticed a transformation there. The office space has been split up, with the Public Service offices remaining open in the rear of the building, the new front office area undergoing a remodeling, with its walls painted in many vibrant colors.
This office’s unusual and creative appearance will hopefully mirror the program soon to be launched in it: the Duke Energy Center for Innovation in Hartsville. Part of a program created by the Clemson University Institute for Economic and Community Development, this business incubator has been made possible with a grant from the Duke Foundation, and serves as one of the first programs to be driven by the newly formed Hartsville Community Development Foundation. The office space itself was provided by Hartsville City Council. Going forward, the center will be supported not by tax dollars but by private investment.
The many community leaders behind this incubator plan for it to be a means of transforming small business opportunities in Hartsville and around the Pee Dee. It works by providing resources, guidance and business space for technology-oriented businesses to take off using proven methods Clemson has developed in its Technology Villages program.
Many times, tech-heavy small businesses develop in large cities, but Clemson has been working to install these incubators outside of urban centers, creating a greater variety of businesses in the partner communities and therefore strengthening local economies. Hartsville is developing one of these incubators at the same time as Rock Hill, for example.
As we sought to bring this program to Hartsville, we became very familiar with the Don Ryan Center for Innovation, which another incubator launched last May in Bluffton, one of the fastest-growing cities in South Carolina. That success story has launched nine businesses now, including a company producing eco-friendly pest control products, one producing antimicrobial coating which can make surfaces self-sanitizing, a company creating presentation software for tablet computers and smart phones, and more. Economic development takes work and resources, but the payoff is very worthwhile. It creates jobs, and it provides our city more resources so that the next round of development can be built on top of what we are building now.
When we were lobbying for a business incubator in Hartsville, we knew our city’s assets made it an excellent fit for the program. We have major industries such as Sonoco, Hilex Poly and many others, as well as valuable educational institutions like the S.C. Governor’s School for Science and Mathematics and Coker College. The Duke Energy Center for Innovation will expand Hartsville’s pool of assets and lay another part of the foundation for our city’s bright future.
