TU: UNF Will Bring Entrepreneurship Center to Downtown in 2018

Times-Union Article Link: http://jacksonville.com/news/metro/2017-07-14/unf-will-bring-enterpreneurship-center-downtown-2018

UNF will bring Enterpreneurship Center to downtown in 2018

Ivy isn’t climbing up the walls of downtown buildings, but Jacksonville’s core will get another helping of higher education when the University of North Florida moves forward next year by opening its Entrepreneurship Center.

The new center will give up-and-coming entrepreneurs a place to run their ideas through the initial vetting stage.

UNF students will work as interns at the center, giving them a chance to work side by side with entrepreneurs on nitty-gritty tasks such as developing marketing plans and pro forma statements.

The center also will have three 50-seat classrooms where UNF will offer classes for graduate programs and continuing education.

Mark Dawkins, dean of the Coggin College of Business at UNF, said the Entreneurship Center will give people a chance to see if their ideas “have legs” and can move onto the next stage of development.

“Most cities that have thriving entrepreneurship eco-systems usually have a university involved as part of that,” Dawkins said this week.

He said the university, which is in the midst of seeking donor gifts for the center, has not finalized an exact location yet for the building, but it definitely will be in downtown.

UNF, which already has a downtown presence through its ownership of the Museum of Contemporary Art Jacksonville, will join a budding education scene when the Entrepreneurship Center opens.

Jacksonville University had an open house Wednesday for prospective students in graduate-level courses that will start Aug. 28 on the 18th floor of the SunTrust Tower. Some students arrived by making a two-block walk from their jobs at the EverBank Tower, a convenience factor that helped convince JU that downtown is a good market for attracting professionals.

“We think this can grow,” said Don Capener, dean of the Davis College of Business. “We’ve hired initial staff for this initiative, and we think there could be hundreds of JU students eating in restaurants and being part of the downtown community in the next year or two because of this opening.”

Florida State College of Jacksonville is eager to put its own mark on downtown when a private developer finishes renovating the Lerner Building on West Davis Street. FSCJ will lease the building for student housing, marking the first time the college has offered housing.

FSCJ doesn’t have a target date for when students will move into the building, however, because the timeline is subject to the building’s owner finishing renovation of the century-old building. It won’t be in time for the fall semester.

“We are working as quickly as possible to get it open as soon as possible,” college spokeswoman Jill Johnson said.

FSCJ plans to have a cafe on the building’s ground floor as part of the college’s culinary program.

The UNF Entrepreneurship Center would give similar hands-on experience for business students. Dawkins calls it a “living-learning lab” because students would work closely with people who have ideas for businesses and need help developing their concepts. Dawkins said UNF students can apply for those entrepreneur slots as well, but even if they don’t have an idea they want to hatch, the experience will help them down the road.

“That just accelerates the learning curve for when they have their own ideas they want to build and pursue for potential businesses,” he said. “They’ve been in the trenches and helped support someone else’s idea.”

UNF and JU both view downtown as a good location for graduate programs because more than 40,000 people work in downtown. The courses for professionals typically happen in the evenings. JU is offering courses at SunTrust Tower that combine instruction in the classroom with online coursework.

In addition to classes for a master’s degree in business administration, JU will have classes in the health field at SunTrust Tower, such as master’s degrees in nursing and in science in health informatics.

The UNF Entrepreneurship Center also draw expertise and classes from more than just the Coggin School of Business.

“You never know where a good idea will come from, so we wanted to make sure all the colleges were involved and all the alumni from the colleges were involved,” Dawkins said.

David Bauerlein: (904) 359-4581