CLAYTON COUNTY, Ga. — Plans are in the works to bring a small business incubator to Clayton County. This comes after the county scrapped plans at another site and fired the developer.
Clayton County just paid $3 million for a lot and the former social security building on the property in order to build a small business incubator in hopes of bringing more opportunity in the county.
A site in Lake City was supposed to be redeveloped into Clayton County's small business incubator, but the deal with developer Roman United fell through. The Clayton County Board of Commissioners asked Roman United to return more than half a million in taxpayer dollars for three separate presentations.
Clayton County Chief Operating Officer Detrick Stanford said the county found a new site with a building already in place on Merchants Way. That's close to the Southlake Mall in Morrow.
“We've hired an A&E firm, an architecture and engineering firm, to kind of help us get a sense of how the building can be repurposed," Stanford said.
The incubator could include several different kinds of businesses.
“Whether it's logistics, whether it's looking at business admin, whether it's service, whether you're looking at a restaurant that might need a culinary space to do a kitchen," Stanford said.
The goal is to have the small business incubator up and running within a year.
“We anticipate there being some renovations in the facility, so hopefully it’ll be within the next 5 to 6 months," Stanford said. "We're hoping this time next year we have occupied the facility with staff and with different stakeholders to provide a service to our community.”
Clayton County has a survey up where people can give their input on what kinds of businesses they’d like to see here. You can take the survey by clicking here.