Following a presentation from Innovation Depot, the Jefferson County Commission Tuesday moved to its Thursday meeting agenda a package of more than $1.6 million supporting the business accelerator.

Brooke Gillis, CEO of Innovation Depot, told commissioners about the depot’s aim to nurture the efforts of entrepreneurs so that their businesses can grow beyond the walls of the business center in downtown Birmingham.

“I’m excited that Jefferson County can possibly play more of a big role here in the coming decades as we see the growth,” she said. “We want to be the front door for every single entrepreneur, whether they’re a small business, whether they’re a tech company, whether they’re going to an accelerator, we want them to start at Innovation Depot.”

Steve Ammons, chair of the commission’s economic development committee, presented a resolution for the county to support Innovation Depot with $400,000 in economic development funds in each of the next four years.

Ammons said the depot’s programs “help young folks prove out their ideas and whether or not they can carry those forward and validate them before they just step off in business. It gives them an opportunity to really validate their ideas.

“That’s just one of those steps, along with other programming that they’re able to do at the depot,” he said, “to expand their new strategic plan that they have come up with.”

Ammons cited Shegun Otulana and his company, Therapy Brands, that had been part of Techstars Alabama EnergyTech Accelerator, of which Gillis had been program manager. Otulana sold Therapy Brands for $1.2 billion in May.

“That company is still here but there are hundreds and hundreds of employees that he’s brought in,” Ammons said. “Now he’s (Otulana is) back in the depot, helping support Innovation Depot in the companies that are there, being a mentor for some of these companies but also investing in some of those along with other founders that have come up through the depot.”

The commissioner said the successes of Innovation Depot have more than paid off the investments made in the business center.

“It’s paying it back and those founders see that and know that the more they build that ecosystem, the more they’re going to be successful,” he said, “because there’ll be more and more people around them that will be like minded and entrepreneur minded. It does, long term, pay for itself.”

In another economic development matter, the commission moved to Thursday’s agenda an incentive package for Fives, a company moving from the Birmingham/Irondale area to Pinson. Before doing so, Ammons said he communicated with the Irondale mayor and Cornell Wesley, the director of innovation and economic opportunity for the city of Birmingham, regarding the Good Neighbor Pledge.

“I wanted to make sure that, even though we’re not a signer to the Good Neighbor Pledge, that we did what was in the spirit of the Good Neighbor Pledge and notify them, saying, ‘Hey, they’re wanting to, they need to move. They’re out of space,’” Ammons said. “They found another place … a very, very specific place. This was the only place that they could find to go within Jefferson County.”

The incentives are abatements of property taxes and sales and use taxes.

Earlier, commissioners heard from Walter Gonsoulin, superintendent of Jefferson County Schools. He talked about how the school system is connecting its career tech programs to the job market and to the workforce that’s in Jefferson County.

The superintendent told of academies that have been established at county high schools to give students a boost toward getting into a career. He thanks the commission for “sowing into our schools.”

“You support our schools in many ways. You attend events and give money as well and we appreciate that,” Gonsoulin said. “So that extra line item that you’re going to put into your budget this year, we ask that you give continued financial support.”

ARPA for Nonprofits

During the committee meeting, the commission moved to Thursday’s agenda a resolution to authorize the county manager to execute the first batch of beneficiary agreements for the ARPA NonProfit Loss Program. If the measure passes Thursday, funds ranging from $5,000 to $30,000 will be distributed to eligible nonprofits in housing, homelessness, senior services, zoos, economic development, historical preservation, libraries and child care.

Entities that seek the American Rescue Plan money must demonstrate actual revenue loss from 2019 to 2020.

Also, County Attorney Theo Lawson praised the work of county staffers to enforce zoning violations. He cited a successful injunction against a man who was illegally operating a body shop and three other cases in which violators came into compliance to avoid litigation.

“The commission spends a lot of time on zoning cases when it comes to allowing the uses on properties or restrictions on properties,” Lawson said. “That has become one of the projects that our office has taken out to beef up enforcement.”