By CRISTINA JANNEY
Hays Post
Grow Hays has announced it has two new tenants for the Microfactory.
The $4.5 million, 30,000-square-foot facility opened in March 2024, but has not had any manufacturing tenants until now.
The Microfactory is designed to be a space that manufacturers can rent at lower than the market rate as they launch new businesses or product lines.
The two new tenants were set to start their leases in July, but the names of those businesses have not yet been released.
One of the tenants is a regional engineering firm that will set up a lab to test soil compaction and concrete, Doug Williams, executive director of Grow Hays, said.
The engineering firm will occupy about 2,500 square feet.
A Canadian manufacturer will be signing a lease in mid-July for 5,000 to 10,000 square feet of the facility.
The facility has about 28,000 square feet of shop space and 2,000 square feet dedicated to offices.
Williams said the facility will not be quite half full once the two new companies are in place.
"We are still working with some others," Williams said. "We had one that did not work out because of insurance. That is one of the challenges in an incubator space like this. You have to have some level of compatibility between your tenants because they are occupying, in essence, the same building."
The facility was partially funded by a $2.6 million base grant from the Kansas Department of Commerce. The Patterson Family Foundation and Robert E. and Patrica Schmidt Foundation each contributed $500,000 to the project. The Innovation Center in Norton bridged the gap with a $750,000 interest-free loan.
Williams emphasized that the city or county did not fund the Microfactory and is not owned by either.
"The city and county haven't invested a dime," Williams said. "They won't invest a dime in this structure. ... There have been no local tax dollars invested in this project.
"The purpose of it is to, in the long term, develop a space where we can generate and build small manufacturers and have them grow," he said. "I struggle because I see negative comments on social media. I struggle to see that this is ever a bad thing. We are a not-for-profit organization.
"We own this space to provide space for prospective tenants who are ultimately employing people and growing their businesses. It costs the local taxpayers nothing, and it's going to pay dividends to this community for the next 50 to 100 years."
Williams said he did not see anything negative about the project, but he has seen some misunderstandings about the project among community members.
Grow Hays is paying property taxes on the building, which will be allocated to the local school capital outlay fund.
"We are offering the space at a small fraction of what it would cost a small manufacturer to build a building or locate elsewhere," Williams said.
He said the idea is that a manufacturer starts in the Microfactory. Then, after three to five years, it grows large enough to move into its own facility.
"It's an annuity that will continue to pay dividends to this community for a long, long time," Williams said.
With an unemployment rate of about 2.7%, Hays lacks the workforce to recruit a large manufacturer.
"We have to take this approach of starting small and building new organizations through entrepreneurship and growth and organic growth as opposed to the smoke-stack business moving in and operating here," Williams said.
Business owners interested in renting space in the Microfactory can contact Grow Hays at 785-628-3102 to speak with David Clingan, director of recruitment and retention.