College@Elm aims to provide innovation hub for Southwest Ohio businesses

Since its opening, the Lee and Rosemary Fisher Innovation College@Elm building has served as a hub for new ideas and businesses. However, the goal is that one day, every floor of the building will be filled, including the currently empty space.

Lee Fisher, a 1968 Miami University graduate who the space is named after, first became interested in innovation while he was involved with the founding board of TechConnect West Virginia. While involved with this group, his goal was to help jumpstart the West Virginia economy.

Fisher and his wife made the move back to Oxford in 2014. He said that around 2017 or 2018, he and his wife were approached by Miami University President Greg Crawford, who he referred to as “the big driving force behind the Fisher College to begin with,” about the possibility of their participation in an innovation venture. The building that houses the College@Elm at 20 S. Elm St. is owned by the university.

“[Crawford] was in business before he went to higher education, and, in fact, he founded a few of his own companies,” Fisher said. “So he knew the challenges and he knew the rewards, and he was determined that Miami somehow was going to get in on innovation and giving students the opportunity to practice innovation.”

Fisher said that the purpose of the College@Elm project is to provide the community with an opportunity to innovate, explore ideas and network all within one building. As the ribbon cutting was in February of 2023 and “entrepreneurship doesn’t blossom in a short period of time,” Fisher said it is hard to say whether it has been a successful endeavor or if its goals have changed at all over time.

According to reporting by The Miami Student in 2023, Randi Thomas, Miami vice president of ASPIRE, said he hoped the building would add 52 jobs and a payroll of about $3 million to Oxford’s economy in its first five years.

While it is difficult to predict what the future of College@Elm may look like, Fisher said he hopes that the building will end up being an innovation hub not only for Oxford, but for Southwest Ohio as a whole. He said he wants the open space to one day be filled with offices and companies. He would also like to see more students get involved.

“I’d like to see the Fisher College become a model for students who have a great idea that originates either in their classroom or in their garage, but they bring that idea to fruition and bring it to the Fisher College,” Fisher said. “Ultimately, I’m passionate about students being able to follow through with that whole process, with the Fisher College being a guide and help.”

Through ideas like this, Fisher hopes to see Oxford develop a 12-month economy. Fisher said being approached for this project and being recognized with his name on the building was an honor.

State Senator George Lang was also involved in this process from a political perspective since very early on in the project. Fisher said that Lang provided a business perspective to an elected official’s job, which he said he believes is very important.

Lang said the project was first introduced to him at a conceptual level. He referred to himself as a cheerleader for the project from early on.

“I fully, fully support what the goal of the College@Elm is and what they hope to create there,” Lang said. “It’s something very special and very unique, and I was very proud to use whatever political capital I had to get some dollars at the state level to help get the program started and get it up and running.”

When it comes to his political position, Lang said he likes to focus more on business issues than social issues. One of his goals is to make Ohio more business-friendly.

“I think it’s very clear that the College@Elm is to create entrepreneurs,” Lang said. “It’s the only place, literally the only incubator in Ohio, that I know of in the country, where you can go from concept to production all under one roof and have everything right there. I mean, you can do your prototypes there, they have marketing expertise there, they have funding there, they have everything that an entrepreneur would need to find out if his idea can be a success.”

Lang said Ohio is leading the country when it comes to new business startups, as a cheap and easy place to start a company. In the past five years, Lang said hundreds of thousands of new businesses have started up in Ohio, a much higher rate than previous decades.

One of the businesses housed in the College@Elm building is Coarse Culture, a personal care brand known for its whipped body butter products. VaLanDria Smith-Lash, CEO and owner of the business, said her business is the first student-run manufacturing company to be headquartered in a university-owned building.

The business is composed of different teams such as supply chain management, marketing, an ambassador team and a production team that work t0 make Coarse Culture run successfully.

“The space has helped the business grow by being a more direct vessel to the Miami community,” Smith-Lash said. “Because we’re local we can take more advantage of having the opportunity to work very closely with students.”

Smith-Lash said that being located in Oxford has helped the business access thousands of potential customers, giving them a competitive advantage in the body care industry.

For Smith-Lash, the thing she is most passionate about in regards to this project is being able to connect with students and help them build their resumes having worked for a legitimate company.

In the future, Smith-Lash hopes to see more businesses come out of Miami and utilize the College@Elm building as a hub.

“It would be really good to have the whole building be full of Miami-made businesses. That would be awesome if people could transfer their bright ideas and make them into functional business realities,” Smith-Lash said. “That would be my vision ... I want the artists and the creatives to be able to come in.”

Seth Cropenbaker, the economic development specialist for the City of Oxford, said that the city has been a financial partner for the renovations of the College@Elm building. The city helped with grant proposals, invested $1.18 million into the building and helped resurface the parking lot behind the building, Cropenbaker said.

Prior to the renovations, the building served as a food service operation for Miami for 68 years. Cropenbaker said the building sat empty for 30 years before becoming College@Elm like it is today.

In addition to his involvement with the city in helping make the College@Elm project a reality, Cropenbaker’s office is inside of the building as well. He said that due to his proximity, he can serve as a resource to meet with people interested in Oxford’s economy and entrepreneurs.

“It’s something that’s going to continue to evolve,” Cropenbaker said. “I think one of the key elements in the original planning for the building was identifying a cornerstone tenant who would have jobs in the facility to be an active job site. That’s not something we’ve been able to execute to this point. I think that opportunity still exists.”