Programming is Open for Business, Building is Next
We bet a good number of you reading this newsletter are asking yourself, “Shouldn’t Distillery Labs be open by now?” There are days when we ask ourselves the same thing! When we started 2022, we were looking forward to starting to swing some hammers in the summer. Our design was done, and the plans were looking great. All the finances were lined up and available. All we needed to do was gather bids from construction companies, sign some contracts, and get to work. But if you know anyone who has tried to build something – from a backyard shed to a state-of-the-art cancer therapy center – you’ll have heard their woes of skyrocketing prices. That is exactly what hit us. When we opened bids in early June, we found that our construction costs were about 30% higher than estimated (and what we had available).
Over the past few months, we’ve been hard at work revising our design to fit within the new reality of construction costs. We’ve taken particular care to ensure that all the programmatic elements of Distillery Labs – the makerspaces, commercial kitchen, recording studio, coworking space, etc. – were preserved. We cut back on some of the “back of house” amenities that will not impact Distillery Labs’ members and rethought some of the aesthetics. The result will be a facility that is just as amazing as originally planned. We just got word that our new design looks to be slightly under budget, and we have the green light to continue. We will be doing the public bid for the work right after the first of the year and hope to be under construction soon after that. We promise that it will be worth the wait.
As cool as the Distillery Labs building will be, it won’t be of any value without robust and meaningful programming. And the good news is that we haven’t been waiting around for the building to open to develop and host some great programming. We recognize that entrepreneurship and innovation are about community, and we need to build that along with the physical construction of a space to house it. In this article, and in the ones to come, you are going to learn about those great efforts. Fifteen startups have already gone through the gBeta business accelerator. We have been working with our great partners on building the Central Illinois Living Laboratory. Stay tuned as we will announce the first of many smart city projects piloted in the new year. Our monthly Biz Labs education series helps entrepreneurs take their next steps toward success. The monthly entrepreneurial collision events (aka Happy Hours) create unique connections and collaborations between people, ideas, and resources.
Taco Tuesdays co-organized with the Turner School of Entrepreneurship and Innovation at Bradley University and gBETA Distillery Labs were a hit. There were so many students in attendance that we took over the restaurant.
We are building momentum now so that we have a running start when the doors of Distillery Labs open. We invite you to be part of all this. Whether you are an entrepreneur, someone who helps entrepreneurs, or just a supporter of this incredible initiative, you are welcome to join in the fun and help build this momentum.
Happy Holidays and Happy New Year!
Distillery Labs Team,
Chris, Andrew, Aaron, Danielle, and Nate
Tl;dr… Okay, so what is Distillery Labs exactly?
Distillery Labs is a community-driven incubator for entrepreneurs and startups. With access to a café, coworking space, maker space, recording studio, and commercial test kitchen, it's the perfect place to turn your big idea into a reality. But it's not just the facilities that make Distillery Labs special – it's the people. Our supportive community of like-minded individuals is here to help you every step of the way.