SparkHaus opens in Covington as NKY’s new hub for entrepreneurs

It’s not about the building itself, but the people inside that make it special.

That’s the message Blue North Executive Director Dave Knox wanted to resonate with people during the grand opening of SparkHaus, the new capital building of Northern Kentucky’s entrepreneurial community.

“It’s about the people inside, because those people inside are what make a community,” Knox said. “They’re what makes a civilization that is dreaming to be better than they are dreaming to do things that have never been done before, and that’s what we’re working on.”

Located at 727 Madison Ave. in the heart of Covington, SparkHaus is the culmination of years of collaboration among the region’s entrepreneurial, economic, political and philanthropic communities. On Monday, those communities gathered again at a ribbon-cutting ceremony to celebrate the opening of a project that they promise will strengthen the reputation and capabilities of the region’s entrepreneurial ecosystem.

Joining Knox were Covington Mayor Ron Washington, Kenton County Judge/Executive Kris Knochelmann, Sen. Chris McDaniel, and Christine Russell, executive director of the Northern Kentucky Port Authority, among many others.

Three years ago, the building that would become SparkHaus was vacant, as Simms Furniture, the longtime tenant of 727 Madison, had shut down. The closure left Covington with a prominent hole in its city center. Historically, the building was used as a Montgomery Ward department store until the early 1960s, before Simms Furniture opened in the 1970s.

Despite this, many Northern Kentucky community stakeholders sensed an opportunity to transform the space into something more. Enter SparkHaus – a place for Northern Kentucky-based founders, investors and support organizations to collaborate inside one central office hub.

Today, SparkHaus is the latest addition to the urban core of a revitalizing Covington. Washington called the development a catalyst for a city that has continually attracted investment to reinvigorate its downtown and urban neighborhoods over the past decade.

“Standing here in front of this historic Simms Furniture building on Madison Avenue, you can feel both the weight of our past and the spark of what’s next,” Washington said. “Today, this landmark begins a new chapter at SparkHaus, a front door for entrepreneurship in Northern Kentucky and a catalyst for Covington’s downtown.”

727 Madison Ave. underwent extensive renovations to create SparkHaus. The 51,000-square-foot building’s project cost around $16 million. Urban Sites, a Cincinnati-based developer, was the contractor for the project, while CityStudios Architecture handled the design work. Construction kicked off in September 2024, taking approximately a year to complete.

Financing for SparkHaus came from $2 million in Kentucky Historic Rehabilitation Tax Credits, donations from private donors and organizations, $2.5 million from the Catalytic Fund, and a $6 million allocation from the Kentucky General Assembly, along with other sources. The Kenton County Fiscal Court activated $3 million in site development funds to assist the NKY Port Authority in purchasing the building from local real estate developer Tony Milburn.

“Even if one of those had not said yes, we would not be here this morning,” Knochelmann said of the project’s financial partners. “But because you believed we have SparkHaus, because you believed entrepreneurs across this region now will have a place to start to grow and to soar. There have been places before where they’ve gathered, and they should always be respected, but never a place like SparkHaus.”

Inside, SparkHaus offers a mixture of public, shared and private office spaces across three levels. The first floor and mezzanine feature public amenities, including a café, open lounges, casual co-working areas, phone booths and the Haile Living Room gathering space, as well as an event hall that accommodates 70 to 80 people.

The second floor features dozens of private offices of various sizes, dedicated desks and a boardroom area called the Covington Industrial Club. Overall, the hub offers over 170 desks, more than 30 private offices, and versatile event and meeting spaces to meet diverse needs.

SparkHaus already boasts a laundry list of tenants, ranging from venture capital firms like eGateway Capital and Keyhorse Capital to AI businesses like Flamel.ai and SYRV.

Each of the building’s features is tailored to create what Knox calls “collision” between entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, and entrepreneurial resource organizations, such as Blue North, which is now headquartered in SparkHaus’ mezzanine area.

“Everybody can think about their own life, their own business, journey, and those serendipitous moments that brought things to life, that thing that turned it on a dime, that if you hadn’t run into that person, you hadn’t been introduced to that opportunity,” Knox said, “you will never reach the potential of what you are.”