Accelerate Augusta, the upcoming microenterprise center downtown, unveiled its new logo, Tuesday morning at the 600 Building.
Augusta Technical College president Jermaine Whirl and Downtown Development Authority director Margaret Woodard welcomed partners and media to unveil the new design, amid further progress of the building’s renovation.
“This is a mark that is going to be attached to a huge impact on this community,” said project partner Tony Robinson about the new logo, developed through what he described as a collaborative process, between the Accelerate Augusta’s board of directors and local marketing businesses that responded to requests for proposal, to make sure the logo symbolized inclusivity.
“We wanted to make sure that this logo not only fared well in the Augusta area, but it fared well at the state level and regionally and nationally and even internationally. That’s the kind of impact that we expect to have with Accelerate Augusta,” he said.
The reconstruction of the 600 Building into an incubator and small business enterprise facility, which began last year, is on schedule and within budget, said Woodard. Plumbing has been installed—complete with new restrooms—as have new tile and light fixtures, and HVAC has been completed, and the shaft for a new elevator has been poured. New office space is also well underway.
The circular central area of the first floor of the building may be the site of one of Accelerate Augusta’s entrepreneurship programs: a pitch competition, much like the television show “Shark Tank,” in which prospective business owners offer ideas to a literal circle of potential investors—with an audience of community members and supporters watching from above, said Whirl.
“We’ve talked about is a night with an entrepreneur,” said Whirl, surveying other potential ideas for the facility. “How can we get Warren Buffet down here, or Mark Cuban… Just for a select group individuals, they come here, they talk about how to grow the vision, how to do entrepreneurship, and have the same type of small, intimate convening. So just some unique programming, things like that that don’t exist right now.”
For Sheffie Robinson, Accelerated Augusta’s newly appointed executive director, the center’s initiatives are not only about aiding budding entrepreneurs, but building a collaborative economic development hub for the city.
“I think with the inclusion of the cyber center and a lot of other assets in the area, innovation is going to be very important,” she said. “This isn’t just an Augusta project, this is a CSRA project. So it’s going to be a whole lot of collaboration, a lot of reaching out.”
Accelerated Augusta is projected to be complete by March.
Skyler Andrews is a reporter covering business for The Augusta Press. Reach him at skyler@theaugustapress.com.
