Garner Economic Development 2018-19 Annual Report 1 | Page 11

BUSINESS ACCELERATION
GEARWORKS
Downtown Garner worked with Garner Economic Development to launch
Gearworks, an innovative new concept in business acceleration, in August 2018.
Mari Howe, the Downtown Development Manager for
the town, transformed a town-owned storefront on Main
Street into a time-limited “bridge space” for small, scalable
companies that previously may have been in a co-working
space or a home office but are not quite ready for market-
rate office space. Operation 36 —a fast-growing company
that uses tech platforms and innovative instructional
methods to teach golf to children and adults—leases the
space as the first tenant. The company signed a lease in
September and has grown from five employees working
remotely to ten employees working out of the building.
“We’ve heard from several businesses who were growing
out of Raleigh’s co-working spaces, but weren’t quite ready
for the regular office park gig,” says Mari Howe. “Many
had their eye on historic buildings in Downtown Garner
that offer creative, affordable workspaces while still being
close to the region’s bustling entrepreneurial ecosystem.”
The Gearworks initiative is part of a larger strategy by
DGA and Garner Economic Development to grow the
creative-class and tech cluster in the historic downtown
by adding other businesses of a similar type to the mix.
“Downtown Garner is
uniquely positioned to
help creative and tech
businesses bridge the gap
from small-scale startups
to growing companies with
a growing workforce.”
MARI HOWE, MANAGER
DOWNTOWN GARNER ASSOCIATION
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