IDAHO FALLS, Idaho (KIFI) – The Idaho Innovation Center is moving to a brand-new location.
The center’s business incubator has a remarkable track record of success – helping Grease Monkey triple its total storefronts, launching Eagle Rock Dance and assisting a new freeze-dried snack company, Hapinest, which is on track to achieve a million dollars of sales in its first year.
The center will now be located in the former Melaleuca headquarters next to the Scouting America office on South Yellowstone Highway.
Its current campus of multiple buildings has been a staple on North Yellowstone Highway for 40 years, and leadership says they are excited to move into the new space.
“We bought one of the old Melaleuca offices that the Boy Scouts have been into for the last ten years,” said Idaho Innovation Center Executive Director Bryan Magleby. “Then we’ll be managing the other building, and we’ve got some big things that’ll be happening over the next coming years that we’ll eventually, hopefully, own both buildings.”
The Idaho Innovation Center is laser-focused on helping small businesses succeed, scale and expand far faster than they could on their own.
“The average for the country is less than 50 percent of businesses after five years are still in business. If they come in our business, go to our business incubation program, we have a success ratio of 86 percent,” Magleby said. “So if you want to have a higher likely chance of being in business after five years, you need to come be in our business incubator, the Idaho Innovation Center.”
Magleby has applied for a grant to transfer the center’s commercial kitchen and hopes it will come through.
Most of the food trucks in the associated Yellowstone Food Village have transferred to new locations, though a couple will remain for September.
The center will also announce a major rebrand in October once it moves into its new space.
