HANCOCK -- The recent renovation of two floors in Hancock’s old hospital -- now home to Finlandia University’s Jutila Center for Global Design and Business -- has turned the building into a prime site for new business ventures in the Copper Country.
Completed last December, the major remodeling of the building’s sixth and seventh floors added as many as twenty new office suites to the Jutila Center, says Bonnie Holland, the Center’s director. Just months after its opening, a significant percentage of that new space has already been filled.
One recent arrival to the seventh floor, Ladybug Digital, provides large format printing and can produce backdrops and banners for trade shows.
Ladybug Digital owner Jon Chynoweth, center, and graphic designer Kevin Schuldt show Jutila Center Director Bonnie Holland a large polyester banner they recently made for a Smart Zone company. Chynoweth said the banner is durable and suitable for outside or trade show display. (Photos by Keweenaw Now) "That’s a really important specialty market," says Holland.
The service has already been used by other companies in the building.
Ladybug Digital owner Jon Chynoweth said the business provides printing, photography and graphics. He uses a 21-megapixel Canon 5D Mark 2 digital camera for high quality photos, including panoramas composed of several images put together. He also makes high-definition video clips for businesses.
Panorama photos on display at Ladybug Digital. Owner Jon Chynoweth would not reveal his secret method of combining the photos so that the effect is one single image.The company has a connection to Finlandia University's International School of Art and Design, also located in the Jutila Center, and to Finlandia's Business Department.
Kevin Schuldt of Lake Linden, a 2008 Finlandia Art and Design graduate, works as a graphic designer and consultant for Ladybug.
"I started working for Jon the day after graduation," Schuldt said.
Keith Kelley, a senior at Hancock High School, receives art credit for working at Ladybug. Kelley hopes to go to college and study graphic design.
The Jutila Center's growth comes despite the fact that it does not rent space to just anyone. As a business incubator, the Center looks for start-ups and young businesses in transition and requires submission of an application and a business plan.
Businesses who do qualify move in to "incubate" with Center support: reasonable rent, phone service, high speed Internet and use of a copy machine, fax, and computers, as well as discounted business consulting. This aid is designed to help young businesses develop to a point where they can move out and operate independently, which usually takes a few years.
For instance, the computer support division of the business Up and Running, which got its start at the Jutila Center, is now based in an independent office in downtown Houghton. Andrea Puzakulich‘s clothing design business, Distant Drum, also incubated at the Jutila Center for several years before moving recently to a space in Hancock’s Lincoln Building (former E. L. Wright School); and AFLAC Insurance grew to four independent agents before relocating to the Quincy Center.
Andrea Puzakulich with some of her original Distant Drum creations. Her studio moved from the Jutila Center to the Lincoln Building (former E.L. Wright School) in Hancock last December.The Jutila Center is not the only business incubator in the building. Michigan Tech’s Smart Zone owns and occupies the building’s fourth floor -- formerly home to incubators of a different kind, since it housed the old hospital’s maternity ward.
"I think the Smart Zone picked that floor specially," says Holland. "They’re up there birthing companies."
Holland notes each of the two incubators has a distinct character and focus determining the types of businesses to accept.
"If you look at the SmartZone, it’s very distinct. They’re looking for technology companies -- software and engineering, for example," she explains. "That’s what they limit it to."
In contrast, she says, the Jutila Center attracts a wider range of business ventures. It contains retail space; a uniform shop; a restaurant; health and wellness services; educational consulting; and private instructors of music, yoga and meditation. There are also engineering consulting firms, commercial photography, digital cataloging and what Holland calls business-to-business services.
One example of this is the accounting and bookkeeping service Delta Business, which recently moved into an office on the remodeled seventh floor. The owner contacted current Jutila Center businesses and set up appointments with them before even moving in, Holland reports.
The combination of business people, customers and visitors -- as well as students and faculty from Finlandia University's International School of Art and Design -- makes the Jutila Center a busy place, especially on the higher-traffic main floor -- the third floor.
One popular new business on the main floor is Kathy's Originals and Alterations, owned by Kathy Chynoweth, who happens to be the spouse of Jon Chynoweth of Ladybug Digital.
Located on the third (main) floor, Kathy's Originals and Alterations moved to the Jutila Center from another Hancock location. Here owner Kathy Chynoweth, right, chats with Carol Bird of Hancock, who is tapering a pair of jeans. Kathy moved her business from a location on Elevation Street in Hancock.
"We like it better here," Kathy said. "It's more conducive to business."
Kathy Chynoweth assists U.S. Army Sgt. Frank Phillips, in shortening a uniform. Phillips is the Army Instructor for Calumet High School's ROTC program. Kathy noted she also does uniform patches and coats.Holland also thinks the main floor could use a gift shop selling items such as greeting cards or Finlandia student artwork.
"We have more than a hundred people that are working in the building every day, so we already have a set of customers that are here, plus the visitors that just come in all day," Holland says. "We have a lot of people that sit in the lobby and wait for somebody else at appointments."
The building does draw regular traffic, with diners meeting for breakfast and lunch at Kangas Café, and daily foot traffic coming to businesses like Kathy’s Alterations. A gift shop could give people waiting in the lobby a place to browse. Workers in the building might also use such a shop, Holland believes, especially if it sold flowers and sundries like aspirin or post-it notes.
Dolores Kangas, owner of Kangas Café, located on the third (main) floor of the Jutila Center, is pictured here at the end of a busy day with her son, Kevin Kangas, executive chef, who recently joined his mother's business.When it comes right down to it, the Jutila Center exists to create new jobs; and it has in fact done that, Holland reports. When she took her job there in 2006, the Jutila Center had been open for about a year and contained five or six businesses. By Feb. 1 of this year, it had grown to 24 businesses creating 44 jobs. That’s important to the U.S. Economic Development Administration, one of the Center’s important investors.
"What the EDA wants to see is job creation in our community," Holland says.
Holland also feels that having the creativity of Finlandia’s School of Art and Design in the building enhances the technology and consulting businesses located there.
"The Art and Design School is a huge asset to the Jutila Center," she explains, "because they work with businesses in the community to help build company identity, their branding, sales materials, and other product design."
The eighth and ninth floors of the old hospital are the next up for renovation. Holland expects to spend the next few years in the planning stages, as she continues to fill offices on the sixth and seventh floors.
In addition to designing for the future, all the renovations have taken the building’s past into consideration.
"We preserved the marble in the lobby and the basic structure, and in these two new floors we’ve preserved the stainless steel sinks that were in the break rooms," Holland says, noting that new cabinets were built underneath the sinks.
That’s important to the community, she believes, because the building is an important landmark. Often people who have family stories about experiences in the old hospital are happy to see that the building has been improved in a way that recognizes its past.
"Visitors feel this building is significant to them," she says. "We’ve done what we could to keep the old; but on the other hand we have high-speed Internet and an atmosphere that makes it comfortable to transact business here -- to be dynamic, innovative and professional."
Holland is happy with the result.
"It’s a perfect blend of the past and our future," she says.
*The text of this article is © Copyright 2010 by Katharine T. Alvord. First North American Serial Rights. Katie Alvord is a Keweenaw Now contributing author. See also her recent article, "Wind farms -- coming to the Keweenaw?"
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