Northern Kentucky’s entrepreneurial community is getting a new headquarters where founders, investors and support organizations can collaborate under one roof.
Going forward, the new name of the shuttered Sims Furniture building, located in Covington’s Central Business District at 727 Madison Ave., will be SparkHaus. The building’s windows are currently wrapped with colorful displays touting a number of Northern Kentucky-based startups like Down the Road Spice Co. and The Empanadas Box.
SparkHaus aims to bring together Northern Kentucky-based startups, investment firms and entrepreneurial support organizations in one centrally located office hub. Covington, the largest city in Northern Kentucky in terms of population, is already home to multiple startups.
“A thriving business environment, alongside education and public safety, is the bedrock of any successful community,” Kenton County Judge/Executive Kris Knochelmann said in a press release. “And with SparkHaus, we have the opportunity to create a welcoming, community-oriented space for entrepreneurs at each stage of their journey.”
SparkHaus hopes to offer flexible office space for startups looking to scale their business. The space is looking to serve startups with anywhere from one employee to ten or more.
Additionally, SparkHaus will establish a space for investors, from seed-stage venture capitalists to Northern Kentucky’s largest firms, to interact with growing startups.
SparkHaus’ amenities include meeting spaces, classrooms and presentation rooms. The building is 47,000 square feet – 39,000, which can accommodate rent-paying office space.
Blue North, Northern Kentucky’s primary entrepreneurship advocacy and resource organization, will move from its current headquarters at 112. W. Pike St. into SparkHaus.
“In 2023, nearly 30 startups raised more than $10 million in grants and venture capital in Northern Kentucky, attracting investment from firms in California, New York City, and Chicago,” said Dave Knox, Blue North’s executive director. “With SparkHaus bringing together capital, startups and growth companies, the potential in the years to come is limitless.”
Knox spoke at a Northern Kentucky Port Authority meeting on Nov. 21, updating their board on the project’s details. The Port Authority is the owner of the former Sims building.
During his presentation, Knox informed the board that the name SparkHaus was fashioned by Covington Creates, a collective of Northern Kentucky design and branding agencies.
“I want to have the entire community come together because that’s what this building is supposed to be about, so we wrangled a few of the creative directors of those top agencies to come together and work on the branding together,” Knox said at the meeting.
Knox also mentioned that Covington-based venture capital firms eGateway Capital and Connetic Ventures had agreed to move into SparkHaus upon its opening.
In May 2023, the Kenton County Fiscal Court activated $3 million worth of site development funds to help the Port Authority purchase the building from local real estate developer Tony Milburn. The site development fund is a $13 million pool of money overseen by the Port Authority.
According to Kenton County property records, Milburn purchased the Sims building in 2017 for $815,000.
Other funding sources for the project are anticipated to come from the Catalytic Fund of Northern Kentucky, Kenton County and state and federal tax credits.
As of now, total project costs and a renovation timeline have not been finalized. A presentation from a Kenton County Fiscal Court meeting last May estimated that the project would cost between $9 to $10 million.
The presentation outlined several renovations to the building’s exterior, including new windows, tuckpointing and removing architecturally detracting features.
Originally constructed in 1929, the building housed a Montgomery Ward department store until the early 1960s, according to the Kenton County Historical Society. After that, Sims Furniture — a furniture, appliance, and mattress outlet — opened at the location in the mid-1970s. In March 2022, Sims Furniture announced its intention to close its Madison Avenue store, opting to relocate the business to Norwood. Since then, the building has sat vacant.