A flexible, open, and welcoming new space is coming to downtown Galesburg.
There will be meeting rooms, private offices, a recording studio, and a test kitchen – all with an eye toward what agriculture-focused, technological innovations can be created in west central Illinois.
The 518 Collective, so named after Sandburg District 518, will be located in Sandburg’s Annex, 209 E. Main St., in Galesburg. But it’s meant to inspire entrepreneurship and collaboration across the community college’s largely rural district.
It will be a place that students, small business owners, investors, entrepreneurs, industry partners, community leaders, and farmers can use as a launchpad for the ideas and the technology that could shape the future of agriculture.
“If people have an idea and people want to grow that idea, we'll be able to provide the networking and the mentorship to help somebody make it through an entrepreneurial or startup type of ecosystem,” said Eric Johnson, Vice President for Advancement at Sandburg and a Knox County cattle farmer.
Johnson sees the 518 Collective as an “innovative pipeline” for agriculture, a space where local ag problems generate discussions and ideas that become not just solutions to those problems but new businesses that grow the local economy.
“I look at it as conversations that I may have had with friends in the agricultural community,” Johnson said. “Many times in those conversations, you might be looking at something where there's a way to improve.”
Key growth industries
Carl Sandburg College was awarded a $1.8 million grant from the Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity for the 518 Collective. The funding is through the Tech Incubator Enhancement Grant program, which supports entrepreneurship and innovation in key growth industries around the state.
Sandburg is one of four recipients of the grant this year, and the only community college on that short list. Sandburg President Seamus Reilly said it’s very exciting for the college to be in the “same breath” as the University of Illinois Research Park and Chicago entrepreneurial spaces.
“It demonstrates an investment and commitment to western Illinois and to the region,” Reilly said.
The 518 Collective will target high-growth areas for western Illinois, such as ag tech, food processing, next generation ag processing, and sustainability.
Reilly said Sandburg has been working to expand its entrepreneurial spaces. The 518 Collective will be a hub to bring together like-minded people and for Sandburg to work with local educational and industry partners.
“One of the things we know about in our very creative entrepreneurial region, a lot of those folks are operating on an island. They don't know each other. They're not aware of other entrepreneurs and what they're doing. We're hoping that this will also be an informal meeting space where people can come together, to learn new concepts, to learn ideas, and then learn about each other,” Reilly said.
By fostering connections and collaboration within the district, the new space is also meant to remove barriers to entrepreneurship, a field that might feel intimidating to some people.
“We want to be inclusive. Anyone with an idea, regardless of your background, income, connections, come on in. We want to help,” Johnson said.
From workforce development to incubator space
Renovations of the space that will house the 518 Collective will begin later this year.
The incubator is expected to open by the middle of next year, with the goal of starting conversations, helping individuals and early-stage companies succeed, and answering questions like — how will western Illinois be part of the ecosystems of agriculture and food production as they continue to evolve?
“I always remind people, 80 years ago, people in America weren't growing soybeans. They weren't growing soybeans in Illinois,” Reilly said. “So what's the next crop? What's the next production opportunity for agriculture?”
The incubator comes as one of the largest employers in the region is the Smithfield Foods pork processing plant in Monmouth, as there’s an ethanol plant in Galva, and as Galesburg is using a $25 million federal grant toward the construction of a containerized agricultural terminal at its business park.
It comes as the old Maytag factory in Galesburg is being used not to make appliances, but meat sticks, as another factory in Galesburg is manufacturing plant-based protein from yellow field peas, and as the region remains a center of soybean and corn production.
Reilly said precision agriculture has transformed the landscape and it’s important to understand the importance of mechanization. But he said it’s also important to use science and technology to solve theoretical issues, which is something Sandburg focuses on and what the ag-tech incubator can also do.
“We're learning a lot more about disease and airborne disease and what's happening with our water system and how do we preserve it? And how do we make sure it's safe? And what are other things that we can do in terms of scientific partnering of row crops with other native plants, which might preclude pest invasion,” Reilly said.
Community colleges are important workforce development engines, Reilly said, because they can quickly start up new programs and industry partner certificates in response to workforce needs.
They’re also important in the incubator space in part because they’re accessible to all ages.
“People can come back in and out of our community college system, and they often do. Then it's an easy access point for our industry partners who are looking to sort of learn more about concepts and ideas and new theories,” Reilly said.
The 518 Collective will be housed in the same building as Sandburg’s Workforce Development & Community Education department.
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