After more than a decade in planning and development, and nearly a year of construction, the Distillery Labs Innovation Hub is close to opening in downtown Peoria.
The 30,000 square-foot co-working space offers a variety of opportunities for startup entrepreneurs to pursue their ideas and network with other creators.
Distillery Labs executive director Doug Cruitt sees the Innovation Hub as a multi-purpose, centralized location where people can pitch, refine, develop, launch and grow new business concepts.
“Simply put, it's going to be meant to serve and support founders and small businesses, and we do that in a lot of different ways,” Cruitt said after giving WCBU a tour of the innovation hub space that’s expected to open at the end of the month.
“But when we zoom out look at it ‘big picture,’ it's really to drive innovation, technology, economic development, retention in population, attraction with population – really to set Peoria apart as a place for innovators and startup founders to come and thrive.”
Construction on the $12 million project started last August, less than a month after Cruitt replaced Paul Leamon as executive director. But he says the interest in this kind of co-working location has been around a lot longer.
“Depending on who you ask in the community, it could be 15 or 16 years where the seed of this idea started – and that idea was that Peoria could and should become an innovation hub.”
Distillery Labs was established in 2020 as a part of the Illinois Innovation Network, with the unique distinction of being the only one not tied to the state university system.
The project to build the innovation hub received $10 million in funding from the Illinois Capital Development Board and another $2 million in a CARES Act Recovery Assistance grant from the U.S. Commerce Department’s Economic Development Administration.
“That purchased the building and construction, and really it's thanks to a lot of people who came to the table to make that happen before my time, that had the vision and saw it through to make sure that it could be funded and become a reality,” Cruitt said.
He said the renovation of the former Thomas Building on the southwest corner of Adams and Fulton faced some hurdles and setbacks along the way.
“Our biggest ones were some unforeseen construction, as you start to tear things down,” he said. “This was a demo that started out great, and then all the sudden things were exposed: ‘Oh, we didn't know there was Terrazzo under the floor.’
“OK, so what does that mean for our original plan of just polishing the concrete that we assumed is under there?”
Cruitt says they also encountered an unexpected six-figure expense when it was discovered electrical components for the air conditioning system were overlooked.
“When those things start to happen you start to reassess what your wants or needs are,” Cruitt said. “Do we really need to repaint the outside? Do we really need to replace the windows, or can we get by without that? Do we really need to upgrade the elevator?
“So, you start to take things out and it just really helps you reprioritize things. And through that process, then the pendulum kind of swung back to other way. We're able to manage the project in a way that we're adding things back in.”
A month-to-month co-working membership at the Distillery Labs hub will cost $175, and the site has capacity for approximately 125 members. The members area will feature various types of workspaces, ranging from offices, conference rooms, open space seating and desk areas to a podcasting booth and a ghost kitchen.
Cruitt says some of the rooms will be equipped with overhead cameras that can be used for live-streaming video, and they'll have additional equipment available for product development.
“So, say a 3D printer – you want to come in and build something using that, you don't have to go out and buy your own 3D printer,” he said. “You can come here and get a day pass, or you can come here and you want to sign up as a co-worker month-to-month. Build it, see how you can improve upon that prototype.”
Cruitt says they want the innovation hub to be like a one-stop shop for people launching startups.
“If you're looking for funding, for licensing, for mentors, investors, whatever you're looking for, we want that to be housed within here,” he said. “So the GPEDC (Greater Peoria Economic Development Council), they'll be housed in here – their entire team. The Peoria Chamber of Commerce, they're going to be housed in here – their entire team.
“We have the Women's Business Development Center that's coming to town; they're going to be housed in here. Then we have others that haven't committed to being here full-time; however, we want to be able to provide them the space to have that option.”
Cruitt says that while most of the innovation hub space will be for members, a 3,000 square-foot community area in the front will be key to making the space a success.
“We have a coffee shop here where anybody can come in during normal business hours. You buy your coffee, your latte, your tea, pastries – just like you would any other coffee shop,” he said. “It just so happens that on the other side of these glass windows that you see here, there's innovators, there's thinkers, tinkerers, doers that are building the next great innovative idea.”
Cruitt says he believes Peoria has all the ingredients needed to become one of the top startup communities in the world.
“We're starting to get noticed, and I'm confident that if we do this right – we remove the ego, we focus on the founder – that we will create a community where people from not just across the country, but across the globe, want to move here,” he said. “They want to be a part of this environment, because they hear about how the community, the entire community, supports founders. They support innovation; they have the resources in place.
“That's the goal, and that's going to take 20 to 25 years, I think, to get to that point – and in the meantime, it's one founder at a time, one step at a time.”
A ribbon cutting to mark the grand opening of the Distillery Labs Innovation Hub is scheduled for July 30 from 4:30-6:30 p.m. Admission is free but space is limited, so interested guests are asked to register online.
