HOLLAND, Mich. (WOOD) — Lakeshore Advantage has officially opened its new facility in downtown Holland.

The team of Lakeshore Advantage, a regional economic development agency, hosted a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Nov. 13 at the Next Center, a 20,000-square-foot, three-story building at the corner of 7th Street and College Avenue.

The first floor of the facility serves as the new home of The SURGE Center, a hub for local startups that had been operating above Butch’s on 8th Street. 

“SURGE is the startup incubator for the Lakeshore region,” Nora VandenBrink, director of SURGE partnerships for Lakeshore Advantage, told News 8. “It is a space where early-stage founders can come with the concept on the back of a napkin and have access to resources to support them as they launch and grow their business.”

Along with offering space where entrepreneurs can work on their startup, Next Center also offers several resources to help them get started and a community of other entrepreneurs. There’s also a Learning Lab for workshops and events and programming aimed at startups.

Right now, The SURGE Center has about 30 startup members, ranging from businesses that are still in the concept phase to those who have already launched and are selling their products.

There’s a natural deodorant brand, a high performance pickleball paddle startup and a solar-powered, semi-autonomous boat company, VandenBrink said.

One of the businesses is Swaddelini, which offers swaddles for infants. It also just released a swaddle product for adults, a body compression sock that helps calm the nervous system and can help with somatic movement therapy and trauma therapy. It can also help those with ADHD, autism or a sensory integration disorder, founder Liz Hilton said.

Hilton got the idea for the business about seven years ago after giving birth to her firstborn.

“He was one of those babies who escaped every swaddle,” she said. “I thought, well, if I could make a swaddle that hugged him, but also comforted him and allowed him freedom of movement, but he couldn’t escape — that would be perfect.”

She used technology from KNITit, a manufacturing company she started 10 years ago that had been working on office furniture and healthcare products. Hilton worked on the company with Start Garden in Grand Rapids before she moved to Holland.

“When I moved from Grand Rapids to Holland, I knew I needed an entrepreneurial community to help me grow my business, and SURGE was there for me with open arms,” she said. “SURGE (has) been such a welcoming community and I have felt nothing but love and inclusivity. … I can’t relate to someone who’s just moved to Holland and says, ‘I don’t know how to find my community,’ because I’ve just had SURGE this whole time.”

She said the SURGE community helped her through a difficult time when her business “hit an all-time low.”

“I wanted to give up,” she said. “They were still there to hear me talk about how, ‘I’m going to give up, I don’t know why I’m doing this and nobody cares that I’m making these swaddles.’ … They were there to hear that and listen and also give the very good advice of, maybe don’t just shut everything down.”

On the second floor of the Next Center is the Lakeshore Advantage offices, along with desks and offices that local companies and entrepreneurs can rent out.

Entrepreneur Jack Ogilvie has rented out one of those offices to work on a few business he’s involved in. He said those at Next Center are “remarkably helpful” and are invested in their tenants’ success.

“It’s located in this perfect location where people will come to you — not to be too selfish with that,” he joked. “But it’s nice to be able to say, ‘Hey, let’s meet at this location,’ and they’re excited to do it. And you can have lunch downtown and you can come back to this really nice place.”

He encouraged those working on a new business to check the space out.

“Having an awesome place where potential employees can come and be like, ‘Whoa, this is awesome. You’re for real, I want to be a part of what you’re doing’ — setting that foundation to your company is invaluable. That can make or break your trajectory,” he said. “We’re fortunate in Holland to have this here.”

The third floor of the Next Center is currently open and is available to be built out for a future tenant.

VandenBrink said the goal is for Next Center to become “the place where innovation happens in our region.”

“If you’re a founder who’s looking to launch a company, if you’re an ideator who is looking to connect with fellow creators, or businesses who are looking to expand their innovation practices — we would love for the conversations, those developments and those new creations to start here,” she said.