The business incubator had an ambitious goal: to nurture and hatch new companies that would create 2,000 high-tech and environment-friendly North Bay jobs in 10 years.
Four years later, the promise of a thriving job generator created in the shell of a shuttered high-tech manufacturing plant in Rohnert Park is far from being realized.
The Sonoma Mountain Business Cluster, launched in 2007 by Codding Enterprises, was designed to help recover ground lost after about 3,000 jobs at Agilent Technologies and other North Bay high-tech companies disappeared, many overseas to Malaysia, China and India.
"It's a little economic engine," a consultant to the project said before the business cluster opened.
But those high aspirations collided with a recession and a long economic slump that has stifled public and private job creation.
The North Bay's particular business limitations also have slowed the incubator's progress. And some say management missteps have hindered it as well.
Codding Enterprises CEO Brad Baker, who is a director of the incubator but is not involved in its management, said the venture is already proving its worth. Its 2010 state designation as an Innovation Hub, to foster regional job creation, was a crucial milestone, he said.
But Baker concedes the incubator has fallen well short of its goals so far.
"I consider it a success," he said. "Is it the success we envisioned in 2007? Absolutely not."
The nonprofit incubator aims to give small and startup businesses a running start by providing low-rent office space and Internet, phone, legal, marketing and mentoring services.
Codding spent $200,000 to start the Sonoma Business Cluster, or SMBC, at the former Agilent complex on the eastern edge of Rohnert Park. And Sonoma Mountain Village, the $1 billion mixed-use development Codding is developing on the site, lent it $1.3 million at zero interest for building improvements.
"My ultimate goal was to create this self-perpetuating place to help entrepreneurs realize their dreams," Baker said.
Rohnert Park, hoping to revive its economy, also invested $500,000 in redevelopment funds.
But while the incubator has fostered some significant successes that have taken root in the area, it remains nearly half empty and has produced fewer jobs than projected.
"For a long time I've sort of seen the incubator ... as a starting place for companies, and they would feed into Santa Rosa as they grow and come into larger space," said Nancy Manchester, economic development program specialist for the city of Santa Rosa, one of the collaborating partners in the cluster.
"It has not yet" happened, she said. She blames that on the economy, which nose-dived soon after the incubator opened, drying up much of the venture capital that startups rely on.
"It's a victim of timing in some ways," she said.
The business cluster's executive director, Michael Newell, estimated it has so far created about 200 direct and indirect jobs. Interviews with 17 companies that have moved on or are still tenants, found that 105 jobs had been directly created.
Even as it broadens its ambitions into being a creator of jobs in Marin, Sonoma and Napa counties, the incubator is still trying to find its own feet.
Its website is out-of-date and, more notably, management only now has begun to track the number of jobs it has produced.
"We're a startup company and we have focused on putting the chassis in and getting the engine in," said Newell, a former JDS Uniphase business development executive.
Baker, too, said it has taken longer than he'd hoped to get the business cluster off the ground.
"I hate to call this a startup after four years, but it is still a startup trying to find its way," he said.
He noted that the incubator has met goals set by Rohnert Park in the agreement governing its initial $500,000 investment: to produce 32 jobs in four years.
Two former tenants, Westcoast Solar Energy, a maker of solar energy systems, and Escape, an indoor recreation center, moved from the incubator into other Rohnert Park locations and together they employ 48 people.
But in a tough economy, the incubator, which supports itself through rental income, grants and donations from businesses including local banks, has itself struggled financially.
Codding Enterprises in 2010 had to forgive $1 million in rent to help it remain afloat. And that year the incubator turned again to Rohnert Park, which agreed to give it $888,000. The money went to partially pay off Sonoma Mountain Village's initial loan, restoring the incubator to the black.
"No question about it," the cluster would have gone under without that help, Baker said. "It was bleeding red ink."
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