MAJOR expansion in downtown Statesboro will bring new energy and opportunity to our community.
As you enter downtown Statesboro, Georgia on Highway 24, things look quite different. The Business Innovation Group (BIG) in the Innovation Incubator (I2) is preparing to open its new conference center. The new building adds office suites and more than 15,000 square feet of new space to BIG.
“Our first tenants will move in on August 1, 2024, and our first conference is booked for a regional event in partnership with Georgia Power to be held in September,” said Dominique HallabyDPA, Founder of BIG and Associate Provost for Innovation and Commercialization.
With the opening of the new incubator, BIG remains on the growth path it has been on for almost 10 years. Last year alone, BIG was responsible for the founding of 57 new companies across all locations and supported almost 500 companies.
BIG was also responsible for providing over $100 million in capital to help these companies grow and accelerate their operations. Even more impressive, BIG was responsible for creating 2,242 jobs.
“BIG was instrumental in Georgia Southern University’s efforts to join the group of fewer than 100 universities that have received the Innovation and Economic Prosperity designation from the Association of Public Land-grant Universities,” Halaby said. “It was a great achievement.”
BIG also has a person in charge of the city’s retail recruitment, making Statesboro one of the few cities in the U.S. that actually allocates its economic development retail spending to the university.
“So if you’ve ever wondered why there’s no Target in town, well, the responsibility to bring those businesses here now falls to our department,” Halaby said.
“We’ve had a lot of conversations with businesses that the town just hasn’t had before. We’ve brought people here under the cover of night so they could explore Statesboro,” Hallaby added. “We’re committed to helping Statesboro grow and making sure people are aware of all the exciting things happening in town. We do things like this to make sure people are thinking about Statesboro and that it’s changing quickly.”
So next time you drive into downtown Statesboro, take a look at BIG and the new conference center. You can see that Statesboro is thinking BIG… again.
