eFactory, Green Street Plan Office Incubators

Peter J. Burns III, CEO of locally based eFactory, says the incubator prototype is already up and running at its headquarters--a 10,000-sf freestanding office building at 2625 E. Rose Garden Lane. Meanwhile, the first official eFactory office will open in 90 days in 8,000 sf in the Shoppes at Val Vista at 2582 Val Vista Dr. in Gilbert. Scottsdale, AZ-based Green Street Properties developed the 300,000-sf Shoppes at Val Vista.

The plan also calls for a 10,000-sf business incubation space in Goodyear at the intersection of Estrella Parkway and Goodyear Boulevard and another 10,000 sf in Chandler, adjacent to the Chandler Fashion Square Mall along West Chandler Boulevard. Dallas and Las Vegas were included because "they happen to be the home of Green Street major properties," Burns says, adding all are long-term leases. "They also happen to be hotbeds of entrepreneurship."

It's the population of those "hotbeds" that Burns is targeting through an affiliated business, Club Entrepreneur, or "Club E" for short. Club E was developed to provide networking tools for entrepreneurs both on line through a social networking site and ion physical chapters with meetings, educational programs and speakers. Burns' belief is that eFactory clients will come from Club Entrepreneur.

Burns tells GlobeSt.com that the initial vision for eFactory sites were freestanding buildings from 10,000 sf to 20,000 sf. But, Green Street Properties' vice president of leasing Joshua Rush suggested that Burns consider retail centers, specifically Green Street retail centers, for the incubation offices. From Burns' perspective, the retail centers offer a lot of foot traffic while Green Street had a slightly different take. "They said they'd like to be landlords for businesses that grow beyond the incubation stages," Burns says.

This is not to say, however, that Burns won't consider freestanding 10,000-sf buildings. "Any community with a small business population and an empty building or a site with a potential build-to-suit is fair game" he says.