Published October 2003

EDC move to create
one-stop biz help center

By John Wolcott
SCBJ Editor

The Snohomish County Economic Development Council is moving its south Everett office in the Quadrant I-5 Corporate Park — but it’ll still be in the same building. EDC Vice President Michael Cade said the short move will mean a big improvement in convenience and services for the county’s business community.

“We’ll move from the second floor to the ground floor to share space with Edmonds Community College’s Small Business Development Center, run by Ron Battles, and we’ll also have the Northwest Women’s Business Assistance Center in the same space,” he said.

The new location — with a different entrance to the building, just south of the EDC’s previous entrance — will also house the local office of the Department of Commerce’s Export Assistance Center, which works closely with the EDC staff. Cade said he hopes the move will be made by early October. The EDC’s telephone and e-mail addresses will remain the same.

“In our search for new space, we realized all of these organizations, including our own, provide business assistance at one level or another, with different expertise or slants. By banding together with all of our resources we have created a center that is very proactive in growing businesses and communities,” Cade said.

The groups will share expenses and overhead for the space, but that wasn’t the primary reason for the move and for co-locating with the other groups, he said.

“The main question was how do we increase our services to meet the needs of small to medium-sized businesses in the county. Working together, we will not only be physically more accessible to our members and businesses moving into the county, but we will also benefit from sharing ideas and goals for the future,” he said.

It was fortunate, he said, that both the EdCC group and the EDC had leases expiring at the same time, enabling them to discuss sharing new space together.

Cade said one possibility might be a long-term program to create incubator space for new businesses, helping start-up firms to grow and expand faster, with more support all in one location.

“We have to all get comfortable with our new partnership first, then we can start planning. Actually, when we were co-located in the United Way headquarters building for several years with the Private Industry Council, we had a very successful incubator program together,” he said.

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