Manassas leaders float idea of downtown co-working space

Manassas City officials propose spending up to $200,000 to place a co-working space inside the newly acquired downtown Fiducial building.

The co-working space would serve entrepreneurs and start-up businesses in the market to rent personal workspaces, offices, and conference room space to hold client meetings. The move comes after the Mason Enterprise Center, which catered to small start-up businesses on the Science Technology Campus of George Mason University in Prince William County, was shuttered a year ago.

The vacant Fiducial building, once home to Fauquier Bank, was jointly purchased earlier this month by ECU Communications and Whitlock Wealth Managment. ECU will relocate its offices from Prince William County to the 2nd floor of the building. Whitlock also plans to open a second office there.

The $200,000 would be used to build out the 1st floor of the building for the co-working space, according to sources familiar with the project. The money would be a one-time investment on the city’s part, and funds could come from a pot of about $600,000 the Manassas City Economic Development Authority has in reserve — not taxpayer funds.

A group made up of city administrators, Historic Manassas, Inc. officials, and the new owners of the Fiducial building approached the EDA about acquiring the funds, according to sources.

The city’s EDA is funded by monies it receives from outstanding loans issued by private banks and backed by the city and state economic development authorities. The city’s EDA collects a tenth of one percent of each outstanding bond at the end of the year, said EDA Chairman Holmes Smith.

The city’s EDA also provides grants to help city businesses open and expand. Recently it gave $20,000 in grant money to help open Jirani Coffeehouse in downtown, and The New School on Liberia Avenue to open its doors, Smith added.

The one-time $200,000 for the co-working center would be a one-time, good-faith investment to spur new business in the city. Some cities, like Fairfax City, which provided $25,000 from its annual fiscal 2017 budget to fund its Mason Enterprise Center located off the university campus, can opt to fund incubators on a yearly basis.

Mason Enterprise Center business incubators in Woodbridge and Spotsylvania County have closed. A Mason Enterprise Center at the Science and Technology Campus of George Mason in Prince William is now the Serious Games Institute. Stafford County leaders this month voted to use $500,000 fund a new business incubator in that county.

If the Manassas co-working space fails within three years, the money must be paid back to the EDA, sources said.

Fredericksburg provide a $50,000 grant to Fredxchange so it could open its co-working space called “The Foundry” which opened in August 2015.

Neither the Manassas City Council or the EDA have held public discussions about the project. A straw poll during a closed session at the EDA’s last meeting May 17 ended with two Board members in support of the project, two who opposed it, and three others on the seven-member board seeking more information about the proposal, sources said.

Historic Manssas Inc., the city’s downtown promotional arm, would be tapped to staff the co-working center, promote it, and recruit new businesses to rent space the center, sources said. The organization is already charged with promoting the city’s downtown by holding events, and advertising empty storefronts.

New responsibilities at the co-work space would be an expansion of Historic Manassas Inc’s role in downtown. Any additional expenses incurred by the expansion of duties, to include new staff, would be paid for by the building’s owners, sources said.

ECU Communications Founder and President Jackie Krick and her company provide marketing and recruitment advertising for Federal Government agencies. She has received multiple calls from interested business owners about renting space in her new building, she said.

Krick said she started her business from her kitchen table and would have benefited from a co-working space early on. She declined to comment about the co-working space eyed for her building. 

“We want somebody to fill the space as soon as possible,” said Krick.

EDA Chairman Holmes Smith said he wanted to hold a public meeting on the matter “as soon as possible.” Smith suggested that he could call a meeting of the EDA in the conference room of the Prince William Chamber of Commerce at 7:30 p.m. June 16 to discuss the matter for the first time publicly.