The long-awaited floor plans for SparkHaus — a hub for Northern Kentucky’s entrepreneurial community — have been revealed to the public.
SparkHaus is being built inside the vacant 47,000-square-foot Simms Furniture building at 727 Madison Ave. in Covington’s Central Business District. The building has sat vacant since Simms Furniture closed in the spring of 2022.
Now, construction crews are set to begin transforming the vacant building into a space where Northern Kentucky-based founders, investors and support organizations can collaborate in one central office hub.
On Monday, Sept. 16, the Northern Kentucky Port Authority, the owner of 727 Madison Ave., Kenton County, and The Catalytic Fund of Northern Kentucky, two of the project’s leading financiers, hosted a construction kickoff celebration inside the building set to become SparkHaus.
Among SparkHaus’ first tenants will be Blue North, Northern Kentucky’s primary entrepreneurship advocacy and resource organization, which will relocate from its current headquarters at 112. W. Pike St. in Covington. Blue North will hold the master lease of SparkHaus.
A master lease refers to a person or organization renting a property that manages and often sublets portions to third parties.
“We’re going to have a building that’s filled with entrepreneurs, a building that’s built with capital providers, and a building filled with folks that are helping them to get to that next level,” Knox said. “What this whole place is about is how do we get entrepreneurs an unfair advantage?”
SparkHaus aims to offer flexible office space for startups looking to scale their businesses. The space is available for startups with one employee to ten or more. Upon completion, SparkHaus will serve 200 to 300 people daily, according to a Kenton County press release.
The three-story floor plan for SparkHaus showcases a variety of amenity spaces, including 31 dedicated office spaces for teams of two to 12, over 170 individual desks, multiple meeting rooms, classrooms, presentation rooms, a fitness room, an indoor and outdoor lounge space and a cafe.
Cincinnati-based developer Urban Sites is in charge of construction, and CityStudios Architecture is responsible for the project’s design work.
Covington-based venture capital firm eGateway Capital will join Blue North inside SparkHaus and commit to moving into the entrepreneurial hub upon completion.
“The vision here is to have SparkHaus be a house of capital, not just for founder entrepreneurs, a space where we can cultivate, welcome, and attract more capital to the region because we believe that capital is the flywheel for the metric that matters, that we’re all going after, is more jobs in Northern Kentucky and the Greater Cincinnati region,” eGateway Capital Managing Partner Chad Summe said.
Financing for the project comes from both public and private sources. In total, the project is expected to cost $16.4 million, according to the Kenton County press release.
Earlier this year, the Kentucky General Assembly activated $6 million worth of funding for the project. Last May, 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.
“You look down the road at the OneNKY Center which will be a great vision and great sign of what Northern Kentucky can do,” Kenton County Judge/Executive Kris Knochelmann said. “This is another piece of in helping the entrepreneurship model and what we all know can be so successful for Northern Kentucky.”
Private donors include the Carol Ann & Ralph V. Haile Jr. Foundation and Drees Homes Foundation, Ried Schott, Corporex, the St. Elizabeth Foundation, the Milburn Family Foundation, the Duke Energy Urban Revitalization Initiative, Fischer Homes and John Cain.
In addition, the Kentucky Heritage Council approved approximately $2 million in Kentucky Historic Rehabilitation Tax Credits for the renovation of the building. The Catalytic Fund is also provided around $2.5 million to the project.
According to the Kenton County Historical Society, the building was constructed in 1929 and was a Montgomery Ward department store until its closure in the early 1970s. Simms Furniture moved into the space in the mid-1970s.
Christine Russell, executive director of the NKY Port Authority, said she expects to host a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the completed project “at about this time next year.”
