PROVIDENCE – Brown University’s Jonathan M. Nelson Center for Entrepreneurship is looking ahead to having a new home all its own, on Thayer Street in the city.
The university – which opened the center in 2016 as a hub for entrepreneurial activity, including technological innovation – is now using space in the Brown-Rhode Island School of Design Hillel building. Next year it will lease three floors in a newly constructed building near the College Hill campus.
The Benefits and Risks of Implementing AI in Employee Benefit Plans
Artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming how technology is integrated into retirement plans and is helping…
Learn More
A small retail building on the site at 249 Thayer St. will be demolished, and a four-story, mixed-use structure built in its place, according to the Brown University website. It’s expected that entrepreneurial center operations can move in the spring of 2019, according to Brown. The center’s new location is part of a larger strategy, say school officials.
“It’s … immersed in a commercial district where there is a great deal of exposure to ideas beyond the classroom. This will encourage the kind of accidental collisions between experts and disciplines that are central to entrepreneurship,” said Danny Warshay, center executive director.
“You might have one team launching a music-related startup working immediately next to another group developing a new biomedical technology,” he said. “Physically centralizing the work of the center … will inevitably lead to more and richer innovation.”
The design of the new space, which will include a modular interior with movable panels, according to Brown, can be used interchangeably for offices, collaborative spaces or for larger gatherings. The project architect was 3six0 Architecture of Providence. Funding for the entrepreneurial center was made possible with a $25 million gift from alumnus Jonathan M. Nelson, founder and CEO of Providence Equity Partners.
The new site will be another milestone for the center.
During its first year, the center has hired on faculty and held courses on entrepreneurship. A Peer Entrepreneurs-In-Residence program was started, as a well as a summer venture program. Speakers have included Brown grads Neil Parikh and Luke Sherwin, co-founders of Casper, an online mattress company.
Chuck Davis, chairman and CEO of the internet and media company Prodege, parent company of rewards site Swagbucks, is another center supporter and Brown alumnus.
“The new Nelson Center building offers a unique opportunity … for the creation of innovative, solution-oriented and – ultimately – successful ventures,” he said.
Susan Shalhoub is a PBN contributor.
