Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Amen. Thank you.

Good evening. Welcome to the June 8th study session. Um, first item on here is, uh, a resolution sponsored by council member Perkins. So I'm going to turn it over to council member Perkins.

Thank you, mayor. First, I want to say a big thank you to the friends of the fellow mansion and big and Wagner and spring cabinet for being here. So thank you for, for coming and filling the room for support for this. Um, just to kind of go back a little bit, just kind of talk about what brought us here. So. PJV, April 13th, had brought forth some information regarding thoughts on their ideas for the historic sites that really didn't come with a lot of round of applause. So at that point, as you recall, we decided to pull over about 45 days, hold a meeting, kind of reset the table and do some discussion regarding that. So on May 26th, Councilman Atkinson and I, we did hold a meeting with the Bell Mansion team, the Bigham Wagner team. City manager was there. Our assistant city manager, DeSalle, was there. And Councilman Atkinson and I were there kind of leading the conversation. Had a very good, robust conversation about a little bit of the history of what brought us here, what got us to this point. Vented some frustration on everyone's part. So it was a very fruitful conversation and also discuss about what some next steps were to do going forward next. A couple of those next steps or the next step was to work with the Public Policy Committee with the Chamber of Commerce that we come up with an idea working with that group. So there will be meetings coming shortly regarding that. So what brought us here now was part of the conversation with PJV with the thought of selling our historic sites, which nobody up here has an appetite to do. So that's what brought forth this sponsorship regarding putting this resolution forward. I won't go through all the whereases, but I'll just start with the Section 1s, which is the meat of it that begins with what will hold us as a city too. So Section 1, the City Council of the City of Independence expresses its intent to retain ownership of the Bigham-Wagner Estate and the Bell Mansion. Section 2, the council desires to explore ways to fund and support all city-owned historic sites, including a future general obligation bond issuance to adequately cover deferred maintenance needs of the Bigham Wagner Estates and the Bell Mansion. So with this, that should put a pause and bring some comfort that we're not going to offload these sites willy-nilly at any point. So that is the spirit of this conversation with this that will be brought forward. And Mr. City Manager... Do you know when that will be up for consideration?

I'll have to get together with folks and see if and when that's going to appear on a council agenda, but I don't have that information available to me right now.

Okay, but it'll be coming up probably in, gosh, probably what, late June?

Late June, early July.

Yeah, okay. So this is the first step moving it forward for final consideration. And with that, Mayor, I'll open it up for questions or comments.

Any questions or comments for Council Member Perkins?

Mr. Mayor.

Proceed.

I just wanted to say thank you again. I know that Councilman Perkins has already said that, but we really appreciated your time and effort and all of the various ideas and input we were able to gather at that meeting on May 26th. It's great to have that open communication and dialogue, and I appreciate that Councilman Perkins facilitated that meeting. I know that this is something he is very passionate about, and we look forward to continuing that work and dialogue together to make sure that these sites receive the support and help that they need. It would be a real tragedy to see them continue to deteriorate. And, you know, I think each one of us up here is going to work their tail off to make sure that those are protected.

Anybody else? All right. We have no citizens request to speak tonight, so we're gonna move on and I'm gonna turn it over to city manager Anderson Yeah, thank you mayor at this time.

I'm gonna call on miss Danielle Dupree Good evening council

My name is Danielle Dupree. I'm the Executive Director of the Innovation Center, and this is our Board Chair, Dan O'Neill. I'm going to let him start off, and then I'll take it after him.

Good evening, Mayor and City Council and citizens. As Danielle mentioned, my name is Daniel O'Neill, and I'm the Chairman of the Board of the Independence Innovation Center. And I've been tasked tonight to give you a little running history of our organization. In 2007, the Independence Regional Hospital closed its doors, leaving behind a large vacant facility, creating a significant challenge for the community. Community leaders recognized an opportunity to transform that vacant space into an economic development asset rather than showing it to remain empty. In 2009, the City of Independence and the Independent School District and the Independence Economic Development Council came together to develop a business incubator concept for the facility. The vision was simple. Create a place where entrepreneurs and innovators and small businesses could access affordable space, share resources, mentorship, and business development support. In October of 2010, the Innovation Center officially opened its doors as one of the region's most unique business incubators. The name Innovation was intentionally chosen, replacing the I with an E to emphasize entrepreneurship and education. The Innovation Center became a public-private partnership built upon collaboration between the City of Independence and the Independence School District and the Economic Development Council. Over the years, the Innovation Center expanded to support food entrepreneurs, science, and technology companies, serving businesses, non-for-profits, students, and emerging entrepreneurs from throughout the region. The organization developed commercial kitchens, biosafety level 1 laboratories, office suites, co-working spaces, and business coaching service under one roof. In 2023, following the dissolution of the Independence Economic Development Council, the Innovation Center became a fully independent, not-for-profit 5013 . and organization and began operating under our own board of directors. What began as a vision to repurpose the vacant hospital has become one of Independence' most significant entrepreneurial and small business development assets. I can tell you as the chairman of the board, that my biggest challenge today is no longer proving that the model works. The challenge is having the capacity and the resources to meet the demand. Tonight, we're going to share where the Innovation Center came from, which I just did, and we're going to ask Danielle to take us to the current place where we're at and explain that to you. Thank you.

Okay, to date, as of today, we have serviced 651 new businesses. We've had a $20 million economic impact to the city of Independence. We've had a $40 million impact to the state of Missouri over the last 15 years. As we speak, a new economic impact report is being created, so we're going to have new numbers this fall. Dan went over who we are and I'm gonna go over the impact by numbers, go a little bit more into our economic development role, our funding story, some of the programs and services that we do. I'm gonna share a few of our graduate success stories. You'll be able to see some of the media coverage we've gotten and then looking ahead and some public policy recommendations. Here's the timeline that my board chair went over for you. In 2023, the Innovation Center hit 91% minority in women-owned businesses at the Innovation Center. We have consistently been between 70% and 95% in my, this is my fifth summer at the Innovation Center. And we had a great 15th anniversary celebration in October of 2025. At the Innovation Center, our mission is simple. We want to help businesses start and help them grow. We are very blessed to have a very dynamic and great board of directors. Right now I have a picture of our executive board. Dan O'Neill, chair. Ron Finke is our chair elect. Sansi Bleckinger is our treasurer. Heather Wiley is the city's representative, and she's on our executive board. And then Dr. Cynthia Grant. So the superintendent of the Independence School District and the City of Independence always have a spot on our executive board. Our other board directors are Teresa Dortch with Englewood Arts, Christina Lakey with Truman Heritage Habitat for Humanity, Dr. Bridget McCandless, Greg McGee, who's the facilities director within the Penn School District, Bob Glazier, and Senator Joe Nicola. We have a little but mighty team. I serve as the executive director and as the business consult. And we have a contracted executive chef, Chef Myron. He does not like to have his picture taken. Jennifer Hurst is also a contractor of ours, and she's helping with some development and strategic growth. And then Dave Pennington, he's my right-hand man, and he's our entrepreneurial support specialist. In our facility, we have over 30,000 square feet of the Independence Regional Hospital, and we have over a million dollars in shared equipment. So that is a lot of wear and tear every year on our equipment. So there's a lot of maintenance and day to day. And Dave does a great job with keeping all that afloat. So at the Innovation Center, we specifically help in the beginning stages. We are an incubator. So we help vet the business idea. Some business ideas need a little tweaking. And then what we do is we go into business planning with them. And then we help them with their first marketing plan. And we help them with their first distribution plan if they're making a product. We also spend a lot of time with them on sharing all the resources in the Kansas City Metro. Right now, Kansas City is numbered... at 43 and best cities in the world to start a business. And that is because of the great work of KC SourceLink, which was founded out of UMKC. The SourceLink model is a regional database and website that keeps records of all the ESOs, Entrepreneurial Support Organizations, what they do and then also what ESOs are aligned with their business idea. KC SourceLink went on to franchise the SourceLink model and it is now international. Last summer, Last summer, I represented the Kansas City Metro at the International Entrepreneurial Congress, which was hosted in Indianapolis. I really did get to see how far Kansas City is in its entrepreneurial ecosystem. However, we do still have some challenges. We have six commercial kitchens and one food manufacturing kitchen. We have housed up to 88 food businesses at one time in our kitchens. That was too much. Right now we sit at 70 and we are at capacity, and we have a list of 30 entrepreneurs waiting to get into our kitchens. We have eight biosafety level one labs, which are also at capacity. We have some amazing innovation that has been done in the past out of our labs and then is currently being done. One thing I love to tout is in this whole state of Missouri, the only breast milk bank is located in Independence in our incubator. We have co-working spaces. We have a lot of meeting rooms. We have meeting rooms from six people up to 200. We have an event space. And then we do all of our business coaching and consulting at no cost for any organization and nonprofit and business in Independence, Missouri. So a lot of times maybe a chiropractor will get a new piece of machinery and they'll need help with a marketing plan. We help with those things. We also help our entrepreneurs try to get ready for funding at the incubated stage. We take on so much of the risk for the entrepreneurs that they don't need a lot of funding. But they do start to need funding. We did a very big ecosystem search throughout the metro from Lawrence, Kansas, through Columbia, Missouri. And one of the findings was that every year the Metro is $1.6 billion short in startup and small business lending in the Metro. So we also help them find other ESOs that help with granting, pitch contests, and alternative funding sources. We have a lot of really great partnerships in the Metro. We partner with Mid-Continent Public Library and K-State Olathe and we throw a huge regional food business conference. We've had guests from Atlanta, Chicago, California come to this annual food business that we do. We partner with KC SourceLink to put on Global Entrepreneurship Week the week before Thanksgiving. It's always at Union Station. We have anywhere from 2,000 to 3,000 entrepreneurs come to that free event. We also partner with a lot of school districts. Now our most important partnership is actually the Independent School District because we share their building with them. They are a fantastic partner and Dr. Grant is a champion of the entrepreneurs at the Innovation Center and we're very thankful to our partnership with the school district. We are also a real learning partner with Kauffman Foundation. We are an independent school district, Fort Osage Schools District, and three other school districts. We're teaching entrepreneurship education for the next generation. And also, too, we help with the DECA students. We serve on the board, the advisory board for the Independence Academies, their business academy. Every summer, we also host anywhere from four to six interns through the Pro-X internship program through Kauffman. Okay. Now, this is a scary statistic that I'd like to share. 80% of businesses fail within the first five years. That is a scary number. But statistically, that 80% drops to just 13% failure rate if they're using the resources of an incubator. And these are the national statistics, but they pretty much align with ours on the success rate. Let's see. Our current clients employ over 200 employees. Some of our immediate graduates are employing hundreds of employees by themselves now, so a lot of job creation is coming out of the Innovation Center. We had so many companies grow so successfully that we actually had to incorporate graduation requirements. So we allow our clients to be at the incubator for five years. They can stay longer, but once they've hit a million in sales or revenue, we do help them graduate. And we do try very hard to keep them in independence. It is very important to me as a native born independent citizen to positively impact my community and through economic development is the way I've chosen to serve my community. At any given time, we have between 90 and 120 active businesses operating out of the Innovation Center. Many of our graduates have graduated into brick and mortar locations, including industrial parks in the Independence Center and the Independence Square. This has created local supply chains for independents. The Innovation Center prides itself on retaining entrepreneurs who might leave the Kansas City metro or to leave independents for Kansas City. We serve a lot of underrepresented entrepreneurs, Hispanic, Spanish-speaking, Entrepreneurs were our fastest growing group. However, two years ago, that halted suddenly. But black women entrepreneurs are now our fastest growing segment of entrepreneurs, not only at the Innovation Center, but in the Metro as well. We've created many K through 12 pipelines. via our school partnerships and partnerships with local colleges and universities. We've created 30 million in new Kansas City Metro salaries from our graduates. That was just the first 11 years. All right. Neighborhood revitalization. We need to be able to grow. And we want to grow. It is very hard when we have to tell someone who has a dream that we can help them with the planning of it, but we don't have the spaces for them. Man, and that probably kills some of the dreams forever. And that's not something fun to sit on. So we've been looking for opportunities to move to a second location. Another challenge that we have being in the Old Independence Regional Hospital with Independence School District is we've turned away, I stopped counting at 133 businesses about three years ago. Businesses that want to, on the culinary side, maybe cook with alcohol, incorporate wine, alcohol into their food products, CBD into food products, and we've had a few people want to do cannabis. That's a lot of people that we could be housing if we were in a separate location and didn't have that restriction. There is a demand for it. We are in the barbecue capital of the world and everyone wants to make sauces and that's who we're turning away most of the time are these people wanting to create barbecue sauces. Another, we are always at capacity in our business suites. People are always wanting business suites. And in our business suites, we provide their furniture, their phones, their internet, and we take on all the costs. They pay a month-to-month lease, which is well below market rate, and it has a 30-day out. So none of our entrepreneurs are stuck and a contract that could financially harm them. They just have to have good communication with us. Why this investment matters? The Innovation Center is one of the few things that brings an ROI for taxpayer dollars, right? It has an ROI. It might take a decade to get it, but it really does. We have hosted almost 100 different governments who have come to tour the Innovation Center. to replicate our program. Two years ago, I partnered with the Missouri Department of Economic Development and we hosted 16 people from all over the world, Japan, India, the Netherlands, Britain. They all wanted to come see what we did with the empty building and independence and how we turn it into a win for the taxpayers. Let's see. Of course, we all know small business creates two out of three new jobs in the United States. And at the Innovation Center, the Innovation Center graduates, they generate between $28,000 and $54,000 in annual tax revenue, according to the Kauffman Foundation. Generally, for every dollar that's invested into an incubator, statistically, three comes back to the community. And talent is leaving. A lot of times when Kauffman gets us together, they're expressing that we have talent leaving. And this really needs to be addressed. Let's see. This right here just kind of goes into some of those statistics that I've talked about just now. I did want to pause and just see if anyone had any questions before I keep going. No? Okay. The funding story. All right. So a lot of nonprofits would love to be able to say what I'm getting ready to say. Currently our, our month to month leases and our month to month membership packages in the kitchens pay for the program. However, It has not been able to keep up with failed equipment. A lot of our equipment is 15 years old, so no investment has been able to back into it. We've had a lot of funding challenges because for many years we were ran as the Economic Development Council and not as its own nonprofit. So as of January or July 1st, 2023, we started operating as the 501c3. And so that created a new, we went from not having, we went to having business credit to no credit. And then also to, to find funding opportunities. We have been turned away from audits because we were, did not have enough financial history as a 501c3. So we're heading into our third year, and we're able to secure to have an audit this summer, which will open up some funding opportunities. But our revenues have declined. So when the city council funded the Economic Development Council, part of that funding was for the Innovation Center. And so when we dissolved the EDC and the Chamber started doing economic development, all funding from the city fell off from us. We are working hard to tell our story. get those grant requests out there. But funding is a challenge as a quote unquote new organization. All right. All right, Jennifer, you wanna come up? Now I'm gonna introduce Jennifer Hurst. She's one of our contractors at the Innovation Center and she's gonna help me finish out our presentation alongside me. We're gonna talk a little bit more of our funding history and then some ideas that we have for the city. So our early funding came from a TIF. Right? And $12 million was set aside to build the Innovation Center. Mid-years, when we were still the EDC, the Innovation Center was funded partly through the city, and then the in-tech program funded through city HUD. We have not been able to secure funding from Missouri Tech Corp because we need to have matching funds and an audit. Our revenues have declined and we've had some big financial spins. For instance, our baker's oven that was $70,000 died after about three years of putting about 15 grand into it. And so right now we are sitting on a pretty big negative budget this year. So the Innovation Center is now operating primarily on earned revenue. All right. So what was lost when the EDC wound down? The salary support for myself. We had dedicated EDC staff time that was for business development referrals. We lost co-branding and co-marketing of the Innovation Center as a city resource. The city's organizational commitment to the entrepreneurship infrastructure faltered significantly. Renewed city investment would stable operation funding we would like to grow up grow the staff and add more business consulting I'm consultant and we would like to provide more programming and we desperately need maintenance and Renewed co-ownership of the independence entrepreneurship narrative. The first time this new CEO and president of Kauffman Foundation, Dr. D'Angelo, took over, she mentioned how the Innovation Center was pillar of entrepreneurship in the Metro and we are and that's something that we need to be proud of and the Innovation Center is truly a hidden gem I was an entrepreneur since I graduated college and I had no idea the Innovation Center existed I didn't know until 2018 and I definitely would have utilized this this this resource so I've worked really hard just getting our name out there and We need to be able to unlock those matching private and federal grants. And like I said, we need to serve more entrepreneurs. At any given time, 7,000 people in the metro are trying to start a business, and we have 240 ESOs. So even though we have a great ecosystem, 240 organizations helping 7,000 people at any given time is a strain on our ecosystem. Foundational support has been hard too because a lot of times you need to have an annual operating budget around a half million. You can imagine with Argentina having its base camp here, They're really shining really bright right now. Palomino's. Palomino's was a beloved restaurant that was open for decades. And after COVID, they couldn't keep their doors open and it went viral. People were sad. It was an institution right there on the border. And Veronica, their daughter, she didn't let it die. She came to the Innovation Center and now she's doing tamales and salsas and you can find her in Walmart and Hy-Vee and Price Chopper. She's at several different farmers markets and she's just killing it. Pickin' Sweet Treats. They were manufacturing and wholesaling candies out of our kitchen and they graduated I think two Decembers ago to the Independence Square and they have the cutest little storefront. Wake and Bacon, they are some of our greatest ambassadors in our kitchens. They started out as a kitchen caterer and now they're in dozens of coffee shops and they're just wholesaling their breakfast burritos. Ginger's Bread and Treats, she is our record for graduates. She is a baker that specializes in breastfeeding moms and she graduated in three months into a storefront across the 23rd Street Hy-Vee and she is now shipping internationally. Novus Power Supply, they graduated into one of our industrial parks and now they probably need to, they're outgrowing their spot in the industrial park. They might be a future tenant of Eastgate. What they do is they started in their garage and they do time accuracy for the military, for airplanes, cellular companies. They have equipment still on top of our building and they have equipment in Antarctica, but they do military precision for Space Force. Musketeer Home Care, she graduated two Thursdays ago, and she started herself as an RN in a cubicle in her incubator. Now she's employing 150 women in independence in her home health care company, and she graduated into a building across in Cattie Corner from the Innovation Center on Truman Road. who is a hometown kid as well, she is making a lot of charitable contributions now that her business is thriving. She's sponsoring CSL events and Special Olympics and even some of our events. To me, it's the perfect graduation story for our clients. We definitely get our share of media. Entrepreneurship is something that's very well touted. And you know, when it's Hispanic Heritage Month or our African American Heritage Month. A lot of times since we have such a diverse group, the media outlets reach out to us and want to do features on our entrepreneurs. We do contract by George on the square occasionally for some of our bigger events and they do a great job. Many of our clients have been on cooking shows, morning news shows. We don't take the press for ourselves. We always share the press with our clients. I won't go into our voices from the community, but if you ever want to go on our website or go see our Google reviews, they're pretty wonderful. We're doing some really great things. I truly have the best job in the world. I get to help people start their dreams. All right. Okay, partnered endorsements. So of course the city of Independence was our first economic development partner, the Independence School District, Kauffman and the K-12 Real Learning Partnership, the Independence Economic Partnership, the Independence Chamber of Commerce, Nonprofit Connect, and most of the universities and community colleges in the metro. Let's see. All right, looking ahead. All right, Jennifer, I brought you up a little bit earlier. So we have some dreams of our own. We have a few opportunities. Right now we have an entrepreneur that owns a lot of properties in Englewood who's making us an offer on one of his sites. We did kind of have an offer with the Friends of Englewood Theater, but I think there's some decisions being made on their purchase of the Five and Dime, and so that opportunity may not be coming soon. However, Avila College has reached out to us about an empty building on their campus and then Blue Springs downtown has been actively courting us to come to Blue Springs. I'm an independence kid. I wanna stay in independence. So what we're asking for you guys is to renew the partnership Restore some optional operational funding we do have an ROI for you guys and invest in an expansion If we can double our program we're going to double the impact to the city right our number one issue is we don't have enough space We don't have enough space So we have hired Jennifer, and she's been the one that's been helping us kind of put together our plan. And so we... Sorry, I got a little off kilter real quick. All right, did you want to add anything else?

Okay, so hopefully you guys have kind of seen we have endless amounts of data to support our case. You've also gotten to see kind of behind the scenes of what the data doesn't show, some of the personal stories, some of the success stories of our entrepreneurs and things like that. We want to expand. We're ready to expand. The other thing is we are very well aware of the city's budget and that the city is currently looking for opportunities of investment and opportunities that will grow revenue. And as you can see, this is a model that is easily sustained that would do just that. And so while we have been looking at Englewood, we've been looking at different locations and things like that. What our main ask for this meeting and tonight is to be able to continue this conversation with you guys, to be able to come back and think creatively of how we could do this perhaps together for our city. Where could we go? Where would have the best impact? How could we have accessible storefronts? How could we make sure that the needs for our expansion are met? Those are the kinds of things that we are asking if we could continue this conversation so that we can really be the ENTREPRENEURIAL SUPPORT HUB OF EASTERN JACKSON COUNTY. WE DON'T WANT TO LEAVE INDEPENDENCE. WE DON'T WANT TO GO OTHER PLACES. BUT OBVIOUSLY WE HAVE TO MAKE THE BEST DECISION BUSINESS-WISE FOR OUR EXPANSION EFFORTS. SO WE WANTED TO SHARE WITH YOU SOME OF OUR HISTORY, WHERE WE'VE BEEN, WHERE WE HOPE TO GO. and how we would like the city to be involved and go along with us. So that's kind of our presentation for the evening. We would love to answer any and all questions and we would love to have future conversations with you guys, tours, whatever we can do, interviews with graduates or current folks that we have in our ecosystem would be great. Anything that we can do to just kind of take a look at this together and see, is there something we could do together for our city that would be really creative that would be a wonderful business opportunity as well as help us with our city budget and help us generate funds that we can certainly use for the community. So with that, we'll kind of step aside and answer any and all questions that you might have.

Any questions from the council members?

Yes.

Yes, proceed.

From above.

Lee Summit, Blue Springs, and a rural school, Hume, Missouri. We have never said no to any school district that has asked us to be a real-world learning partner, so we would love to be a part of Raytown. Yeah.

Anyone else? I have a couple questions. Go ahead. So I'm looking at the numbers. I'm just curious. Do you guys have a breakdown out of the 645-plus businesses that have started? How many of them have made it through the graduation and then My next question is, you said it's a five-year program and or to get to a million dollars in sales and revenue.

So when I came in, so to answer your first question, I'm not exactly sure because I came on at the It had been around for 13 years when I came on. So the prior data to me, we have been digging through part of its digital, some of its paper. It was done on some on a Google platform, some on a Microsoft platform. So we're working through that. But I know every time we've run the numbers, it's been pretty in line that it's about between 13% and 18% of them have failed. And we have over 100 right now, so that's including that number right there. So the reason that I incorporated graduation requirements, when I came in, we had a $60 million tech company dominating the upstairs labs. We had a $13 million food manufacturing dominate in multiple spaces in the kitchens. Um, so when I came in, I let everyone who had, I gave everyone seven years and I said, if you're doing over a million in sales annually, you're going to have to graduate. We're going to help you with that. And we gave them a year to graduate. We're an incubator. We're not for big companies. At that point, they're taking advantage of the affordability of the program. So on the market, biosafety level one lab commands up to $50 a square foot. we charge $8 a square foot. We also provide a lab with over 100,000 and lab equipment for them to use. So when you have a $60 million tech company, you know, icing this, it's not really fair. So, and the reason I did 1 million is because on the food manufacturing side, um, once a food producer gets to a million, um, the F it becomes a big deal with FDA. And then it kinda, the FDA is in the kitchen a lot and then it, kind of flows into some of the smaller businesses and it's disruptive. So, and when they're doing a million in sales, they don't need below market pricing. Right. I mean, that's the thought.

Yeah. I'm looking cause I'm, it says, you know, one of the things that you mentioned was coaching to graduation. And then we have the five years and the 1 million sales and, and revenue and, So what's the next chapter? Because I mean, is there a succession plan that you guys help them get into brick and mortar? I'm trying to I want to make sure I understand that we're just not saying, well, congratulations, you graduated the program. You're on your own at this point in time.

That's when we work with the Economic Development Partnership, and we introduce them to Jarvis. And Jarvis will meet with them, share locations that are available, drive-by numbers, those types of things. And we allow people to stay more than five years. But if they've hit the million at the five-year mark, then we make them graduate. And our second location, we foresee it as an accelerator. So in our ecosystem right now, we actually have enough incubators. Oh, let me see. We don't have enough, but we have a lot more incubators than what we have accelerators. So an accelerator is the next phase on. That's when the accelerators are actively training business owners on how to scale, how to bring on employees, how to find funding, how to entice investors, how to build those banking relationships, right? So we don't specialize in that. We refer them to an accelerator when they get to that point. Now, we do have a financial business coach that is a retired SCORE mentor who was an accountant and was an entrepreneur, a successful one. And she does all of our business financial coaching at no cost, which is very nice.

So just trying to grab my head around this a little bit. Can I ask how many businesses are the owners from Independence? Are we taking everybody around the metro area? And so, for instance, we have somebody that comes in here from Kansas City that are going through the Innovation Center and then go open up a business in Kansas City. Does that make sense?

So all of our clients have to become an independence business. If they're a food business, they have to go under the Independence Health Department. There is a lack of commercial kitchens. So we have entrepreneurs that come from all over the metro. We've had one from Arkansas that comes up twice a year to use our kitchens and goes back. They are all licensed in independence. For instance, we have FitStyle Foods. They graduated last summer. They do meal prep, and it's a whole wellness company, and they have fitness there. Her storefront has always been on the Kansas side, and she produced all of her food in our kitchens. So she was always under the authority of the health department. and a business owner in Independence. Now that was before me when she came on, but we still consider her a success story, right? So, and she did graduate out of the program. We prefer independents, but we're going to take anyone.

I would hope. I mean, they would either be an independents resident that's trying to get in here or somebody that's going to put their business in independents because that's how we grow our communities. We're talking about small businesses here. That's what I look at.

Sure. So when I first took my role, I had a meeting with, at the time, Councilman Steinmeier, and he had a long meeting about how important it was. He didn't feel like prior to me we had done the best job with that That is my priority. I want people to stay in independence. And a lot of it also doesn't depend on us. It depends on the community showing up for them. When you guys show up to the ribbon cuttings or the celebrations, it leaves such an impact on them. And so when this community shows up for them, it makes them want to be in independence. Some of our laws, though, we did lose the most successful food truck we ever had because of some of the laws in the city regarding not being able to put your food truck on your property. We lost her to Raytown. Only four cities didn't have that law, and I can't remember all the details of that law, but she just didn't work out.

All right, thank you.

Council Member Perkins, did you have something?

Yeah, thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you for sharing what you're doing there at the Innovation Center. You've done a great job taking over with that transition. It wasn't smooth, to say the least. And we've had some sidebar conversations about how to work with that, meaning since you're in the Innovation Center, you're also obviously talking to small business, entrepreneurs, people who are wanting to start up. And they come to you maybe not necessarily just to be in your facility, but how do you start something? How do you work through the process through the city of Independence? And don't freak out, Mr. City Manager. These sidebar conversations, I think, are at a point to where we need to have more sit-down conversations about what are those partnerships with the city of Independence on how we can use that leverage as you being a point of contact. concierge service, if you will, for those individuals. On the west side of town, we're not going to get the big industries, if you will. We're not going to get the big restaurants or businesses necessarily, but we are going to get a lot of entrepreneurs and people who want to start up. With the growth of Inglewood is a prime example. The things that are getting ready to work forward into Fairmont in that area, that's going to take some time. But the point is to have a good point of contact that we can work with our community development department to help with the permitting process and follow from start to finish getting their permits done, whether it's the well, all of it from constructions to, you know, it's. When people come forward in a food industry, grease traps, hoods, all of the stuff that people don't think about, which costs a lot of money.

Yes. So if you guys look, I had left. So that's one thing, too, I brushed over. We a lot of times City Hall and the health department will send people to us and we help them step by step. This is how you get a business entity created. It's going to cost you 56 bucks. Here's the link. Then you're going to go get your federal EIN number. This is where you do that. We walk them through. So by the time they go apply for their business license, they already know what they need. They know what they need for their independence food establishment permit, their health permit. They know when their food managers classes are and how much they cost. And it goes very well when we're helping them with, you know, we answer a lot of questions along the pathway. I always say we're kind of like good customer service for people trying to figure it all up. And then also we help them navigate, are you gonna have to be under the authority of the USDA, the FDA? We have a breast milk bank, that was Havana. I knew nothing about breast milk banks. Now I know a lot about breast milk banks. But we help them navigate the different government agencies that they're going to go under the authority of. Yeah, and we like doing it, right? We like taking the questions out for them. Not only do we give them a step-by-step guide, we also give them a checklist that goes along with the guide so they know, boom, boom, boom, then they can go to City Hall and get their health permit, right? Or they can go online and get their business license. One thing that we have tossed around is I know there were some people upset with this being moved to this part of town. We already take all of these docs. We keep them on file in case we get audited. So we have a copy of everyone's insurance and we keep up on it, right? If their insurance lapse, they can't be there, right? We let them know right away. And we put this up in a platform that the Independence Health Department is on. So they can see our clients. They can see when they're scheduled in the kitchens. You know, they can see when they can come do health inspections. They can see, they tell us who hasn't paid for their business license, who hasn't paid for their health permit, and we help with that. We do a lot of communicating for the city to the clients.

Well, I think there's a, Mr. Mayor, if you don't mind, I think there's some good information Well, we're right in the middle of our budget. And as our historic friends know, it's pretty tight. It is pretty tight. So there's definitely some room for dialogue to see how we can, going into the future, how can we sit down about what makes sense for the city, community development, and for the betterment of our small businesses. So I think there's some good conversation that we can begin to have. Pre-minutely, in my opinion.

Yeah. Any properties you guys are sitting on that you don't want? Any old freezers or assets that you guys are sitting on that you don't want?

That's on my list. It's coming down the line. Vacant buildings in general.

Yeah, right. We turned one into a thriving economic tool, so we can do it again.

You sure did. Well, to freezer space, when Xavier was here, that was one of the biggest problems that you had. You didn't have cold storage, freezer space storage. And I'm assuming that's still a big concern.

If we really want to accelerate ourselves, we could make a food manufacturing freezer where it could store and then they can also produce food. in the freezer. But the board set aside about $60,000 for a new freezer, but then it was $40,000 in structural changes to the building. So that could put in our freezer for the time being.

The big dream that Xavier and I had talked about, and it just didn't get a lot of legs, you know, a lot of this is money too, is The old lumber yard that's down there off of Truman Road, that space is to acquire that. Not us necessarily, but some type of a partnership of acquiring to turn that whole area into the innovation district coming.

Yeah.

in that little hub while you have all the components there. So big dreams.

And, you know, things that the city could think about too is a food truck park. A lot of property owners are now wanting to charge food trucks to be on their properties, which is their right. But to have a dedicated place for our food trucks to go and people know that they're going to be there would be Great, and then safe parking for it, but in Independence, you cannot park your mobile food unit on your property, which does cause some issues too.

To speak to that, with our food truck policy as is now, and please feel free to speak candidly, So what's your thoughts on that?

So in Independence, if you're a mobile food unit and you want to be at the stadiums one day and the next day be in the parking lot of the stadiums, which is Raytown, the stadiums of Kansas City, and then you want to go a few blocks away to Independence, that's three health departments, five health inspections. and first-time startup cost of $2,500 just to go through the whole county. And it's expensive. And we are bleeding food trucks to the state of Kansas that has one state fee, one state inspection. They can go throughout the state. And I think there's been food trucks stomaching it this year because of FIFA coming. but I am worried about next year. And when I brought this up at Entrepreneurial Support Organization convening in Columbia, Missouri, St. Louis also bleeding food trucks out of the state. This is a state issue. But Jackson County, we don't need three health departments inspecting the same person and then charging a fee every time. Now, one nice thing that the city does is a lot of times when a person or business gets their health inspection, they have to pay for it on top of their food permit. If they're an Innovation Center client, they do not get charged that inspection fee. So the health department's at the Innovation Center at least three times a week, I would say. They're there a lot.

Do you have some thoughts that you can help the city help streamline our process? The county's going to be, well, the county, and working with them to streamline anything is...

I think the ultimate goal, which I know this is not plausible, so that's why Senator Joe Nicole and I were strategically trying to step it up. The ultimate goal is if you have a health permit, in a Missouri health department anywhere in the state, that health permit should follow you to any festivals out in the rural communities. You know, the exact opposite issues out, the more rural you go, they have no health departments. They have no rules. They have no one overseeing things, right? And that's dangerous too. The whole point of being under authority of the health department is to keep the masses safe. So, but it is too much. It's definitely too much.

if there's any letters of support, I'd be more than happy to, to work with you to, to get them to Senator Cola, any type of legislative help. I'm happy to go to Jeff city and at committee to, to help out. I know he's down there all the time and, He's in that whole thing. We understand the halls down there.

Now, Independence did listen to me. It was $750 for a mobile food unit. If they're going to be mobile food unit and then also have a commercial kitchen in Independence, now it's back down to $550. But it's still higher than Kansas City and Jackson County.

By how much?

I think it's like $344 for Kansas City and They actually all might be changing July 1st, the fees might be.

Going up or down?

They always go up.

Yeah. And usually they all go up on July 1st.

You're right, you're right. So actually I need to look into that. Now, when we're advising and consulting, we only consult them on how to become a business in independence. We don't consult them how to go to Clay County, Kansas City, that way. We share with them the painful process for the caterers and mobile food units, but we don't do that for them. We really do try to keep them in independence. Do you know the amount of amazing food that's coming out of these kitchens, guys? We don't want it to go across the state line.

Agreed. To switch gears just a second from food, I mean, You have non-food entrepreneurial there. Can you explain just a little bit about what the offers you have there?

So our newest client is Spectrum Clinical Research, Jovanna Schlossenberg. She's an independence kid. She just graduated Harvard with her master's last month. So Spectrum Clinical Research is... They're doing a phase four pharmaceutical testing. So it means that this product is being prescribed by doctors and it's a food product that helps with chemo side effects and hair loss. So they're going to be doing research on that. We have Dragonfly MSP, their IT and then data security. We have innovative materials and processes. They received congressional funds last year. They do a lot of stuff they can't tell us. One thing I can tell you about was there are a lot of them are former military. They all have different science backgrounds and they created a mine detector for third world countries. Not only can they detect the mine, they can deactivate the mine remotely and it's saving lives. We have the Pure Shea store. So we have two entrepreneurs that are making shea butter lotions and soaps and oils. We have Empire Remodeling KC, a high-end remodeler. They also own Compass Marketing Group. We have the Mid-America Milk Bank, a breast milk bank. We have indie talks, podcast. We have collective vision studios. So we have an independent film production company. We have two radio stations out of our incubator with Radio Revolutions, 60s music and independent artist music. And he's also right now in real time. He's invented a platform to help local artists get on local radio and get paid to be on local radio. We have a fractional fundraiser. Let's see, we have a property management group that does oil and gas property management. Yeah. Oh, and then the cross-critical materials, trying to get the critical materials and battery manufacturing. We signed a partnership with them. They have a lab waiting for them. It's been put on pause. We have it on good authority that that project is down to five sites, but Lake City and Sugar Creek are probably the top contenders. They do love our proximity to Sugar Creek because our first scientist has come from India, so he's going to be making battery powder in our labs.

Interesting. Well, there's a lot going on.

Oh, and Jennifer wants to mention something. Oh, yeah. Sorry.

So I would just ask as a favor, as you're asking these questions and as you're thinking of all these things and you're hearing all these things, please keep in mind there are two full-time staff at the Innovation Center. So all of this is being done by two full-time staff. They do have me, but I'm really here to help them expand and things like that. I'm not doing day-to-day operations. Same thing with our chef. He's specifically helping those in the food industry. Everything else is being done by two staff. And so a combination of that and that we haven't been able to do a lot of significant upgrades and keep up with things in the last 15 years is the main reason that we're coming to you tonight to ask for your help in this. So I just wanted to kind of clear that picture. Danielle kind of skimmed over that because I'm sure it's a little bit awkward for her to talk about, but I just wanted to kind of put that picture in your mind that of all these things that you're hearing about, two people are kind of making it happen.

Well, thank you for the presentation, and here in the next couple weeks, let's compare calendars and see if we can't get something on the books with the city management team.

Yes, I would love to host any and all of you, and if I have prior knowledge, a lot of times some of the Clients in the kitchen will have some samples for you guys.

Come for the smells alone. I promise you'll be happy. Oh, yes.

It's a great place to – it's a good smelling place, I'll tell you. All right. Well, thank you, guys. That's the end of the questions. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Okay.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Go ahead. So can you go over some reasons why once folks are graduating that maybe they don't have – the space needed here? Or, you know, why may they be choosing somewhere else?

I feel like I've done a pretty good job keeping a lot of them here. Some of the issues is, especially with the Gen Z and younger millennials, it's all about the micro- They want micro housing. They want micro retail. You know, a lot of them love the idea of the Independence Square, but the spaces are so big, it doesn't suit them and they can't, they don't, they don't want that overhead cost, right? When they really just want four to 500 square feet. you know, another, you know, another reason could be, they just found a more attractive, uh, real estate offer. Um, I was really sad. We lost, um, Cerise Kitchen, um, who's a Indian food truck. She started doing farmer's markets and pop-ups. She worked so hard. She got her food truck and then, um, and she worked with our financial business coach and, um, they found a better opportunity in blue Springs, but they wanted to be in independence, but they had to make the right decision for them. Um, but then, The thing was they wanted to be here, right? You know, sometimes people think it just sounds a little bit sexier to be in KCMO or, you know, downtown Lee's Summit. And also, too, though, we've seen some entrepreneurs actually from, like, downtown Lee's Summit, they get fatigued of their brick and mortar experience. And then they come for more work-life balance. So it's kind of the opposite of what we want to happen, but at least they're not calling it quits completely.

Would you be able to kind of document some of the things that maybe would help secure some more folks in independence? And that, I believe, would help us inform us on economic development plans moving forward, making sure that As folks graduate there, we keep them here.

Sure. Another thing that is important to some of my younger entrepreneurs, they want to work and play and live in the same place. Probably once a quarter, one of our new entrepreneurs moves to the neighborhood because they want to be close. In fact, when we were envisioning our second location, micro apartments is part of that vision.

And then, you know, I guess I'll be proposing some zoning changes. We can get that food truck park right next to my house if that's okay.

So... A few years ago, I went with about 40 community leaders here in Independence. We went and visited West Des Moines. We did a community exchange. And they had an outdoor amphitheater with beautiful art. And we're out there looking at it. And all of a sudden, they're like, and you guys are in our food truck park. And we're like... because it was all just on the ground, I thought it was part of the art, and it was so beautiful. And when I came back, Mayor Rowland was mayor at the time, and I said, man, wouldn't it be so great for us to actually utilize our waterways, because they do that very well there, but also have like a nice food truck park where there's consistent food trucks there, and it's a safe place for them, and then the community knows that that's where they're at. There are some predatory food truck associations in the area that have been brought to my attention. So that also, if cities are providing spaces, then those things won't happen with some of these organizations that don't have the best interest of our entrepreneurs at heart.

Yeah, I'm going to kind of talk about what Council Member Atkinson was talking about because I think that's one of the things that maybe is frustrating to me or disappointing to me that we have 645 plus businesses that are going through here. We don't have 645 plus new businesses left. you know, in the city of Independence. So that's why I was asking the questions earlier about where are they coming from and, you know, are we, are they opening businesses here? Because I don't see the correlation with them coming in and using the Innovation Center and growing and then all of a sudden they're gone. Some of them are staying here, I get that.

Yeah.

But I also know that they're like Fit for Life, for example. They're out of Liberty, Missouri. That's where they were at when I talked to them. And so I understand about not living here in Independence, but I think my frustration is, are we holding them to a point where they should be opening up their businesses here in Independence if we're going to spend the money on them?

Okay. Well, we don't have... Like, are you talking about from our 15th anniversary?

Yeah, that was one of them that I talked to. But look, I will say this.

They're operating out of here, though. That's the thing. They're not a Liberty business. They're an independence. They have to be an independence business to be in our incubator. There's no exception to that rule ever.

I didn't get that from them. So I guess that's where maybe there may be some confusion.

So you see, if you look, that's not a confusion for anyone. I literally tell everyone on every tour, the Independence taxpayers need to build this. You have to become part of the business community here in Independence. I can't talk to before me because I wasn't here.

If we want them to stay here, what would be the reason that They're not staying here. I mean, that's kind of what he was talking about and trying to figure out who's graduating out of this and where they're going with their businesses. Because if you're telling us that they have to be here.

I guess I'm losing something here that... We can't force anyone into their second... Like, we can't force someone to... You have to be here if you graduate out of our program. But we force them to be a part of the Independence business community while they're a part of our program. and we absolutely do everything that we can to make sure that they stay in independence. And that's why I always hand them off to Jarvis. Before Jarvis, it was Jody Krantz, and we had a well-oiled machine. Jody would know who's coming down the pike. She'd start working with our clients to try to find them a solution in independence, a place in independence. Now I introduce them to Jarvis, and he helps try to keep them in independence. but it can't just be us. That's why I said my clients that stay in independence, they've had the community show up for them. You know, the mayor showed up for them. City council people show up for them. These are the things that make them feel like they're a part of the community and it makes them want to stay. Right. Cause I can peer each independence all day long and I do believe me. Um, that's the whole point is to drive the economy here in the, in independence.

Exactly. Exactly. So yeah, I kind of would like to see if you don't mind, do you guys put out a list of who's graduated the program and, and all that kind of like what council member Atkinson was talking about?

I can put, there was no graduations until I became part of, so I can do that from my point on.

Sure. That's great. All right. Thank you. Any further discussion?

Now, when we forced graduation, I think every single one of them stayed in independence.

Any other questions? Well, I love the food truck park idea. I think that would be great. We need to showcase what we have here. Any other questions? All right. Thank you, Danielle.

All right. Thank you.

With nothing further, I call the meeting adjourned. Thank you. Thanks, everybody, for coming tonight.

Don't worry about any of that other stuff.