Pueblo on Thursday formally launched the Southern Colorado Innovation Link program.

The program will serve as an umbrella organization to coordinate and expand Pueblo's efforts to attract and support entrepreneurs and startup businesses, aiding ongoing efforts by Pueblo Community College, Colorado State University-Pueblo, the Southern Colorado Small Business Development Center, the private sector and others.

It also will work with the owners of the Watertower Place building at 303 S. Santa Fe Ave. to use portions of the sprawling building as an innovation center, to include maker and business incubator spaces. Similar innovation centers operate in Colorado Springs, Fort Collins and other communities.

The program also will support activities for business startups ongoing in Fremont, Huerfano and Custer counties.

A three-year $500,000 grant from the federal Economic Development Administration, also announced Thursday, will help fund the estimated $1.7 million project. The rest of the money will come from cash and in-kind spending pledged by the project's many local community co-sponsors.

The EDA grant will go toward hiring a program manager and a program coordinator.

It also will provide funding support for existing and new entrepreneurial support activities in the areas of advanced manufacturing and infrastructure engineering.

Pueblo was one of 24 communities in the U.S. selected for a grant out of about 160 applications, said Colorado regional EDA director Angie Martinez, who traveled to Pueblo from Denver to announce the award on Thursday.

"We're so proud" that a Colorado community was among the winners of the highly competitive process, said Martinez, who is based in Denver. "It's a testament to your vision and collaboration."

The announcement took place at the Watertower Place building.

The former meatpacking plant is being redeveloped into a multiuse building. T he new innovation program -- to go by the acronym SCIL -- will use parts of the building for maker spaces, workshops and meetings. Already, the building is home to several innovation and startup companies, including Pueblo-based Vapor Source.

One of the first workshops the building will host is this weekend's SoCo-Innovate Startup Bootcamp. The free two-day information and mentoring workshop is open to students, entrepreneurs and startup companies, including prospective entrants for this spring's SoCo Entrepreneurial Competition. For information, call the SBDC at 549-3223.

PCC and its Pueblo Corporate College division will manage the grant and oversee the the SCIL program, including the hiring of a manager. The selection of a manager is expected to take place within the next few weeks, Corporate College director Amanda Corum said Thursday.

Other major partners on the project include the Southern Colorado SBDC, the Pueblo Startup local networking group, CSU-Pueblo, EVRAZ, the Pueblo Economic Development Corp., PuebloPlex and Watertower Place.

The project also draws support from a large number of individuals in the community who want to see Pueblo become better known for its entrepreneurs and startup offerings. They made up a large portion of the more than 125 people who attended Thursday's press conference.

The local partners have pledged a combined $1.2 million in cash an in-kind contributions toward the program.

The launch of the SCIL project builds on a push Pueblo began about five years ago with the introduction of activities such as the Shark Tank-style SoCO entrepreneur contest, the networking group and the addition of Accelerator entrepreneur classes to SBDC lineup of small business support programs.

One of the missing pieces has been the creation of a more comprehensive organization to include an innovation center, including incubator space for manufacturing and technology startups, community leaders say.

The SCIL project is viewed as a major step in establishing such a center in Pueblo to be based largely in portions of the Watertower Place building, supporters say.

Watertower Place developer Ryan McWilliams said at the press conference that his company and other project organizers have studied entrepreneur support programs and innovation centers in many communities as part of planning for the SCIL project.

"We're not reinventing the wheel but we're trying to do it better," McWilliams said.

ddarrow@chieftain.com

Twitter: @PuebloBusiness