A decade ago, out of the rubble of the Christchurch earthquakes, rose a building in Christchurch that was labelled by The Press as “our own Silicon Valley”. It was called EPIC (Enterprise Precinct and Innovation Campus) a greatly needed resource and it was designed to have “office space for small and medium-sized businesses, start-ups and several larger anchor tenants” and it definitely felt like it achieved that at first but it feels like the dynamics of the building has changed over the years. There is no doubt there are some great companies that have been associated with EPIC over the years but are we still seeing any newcomers spawn from there and is EPIC a hub for new start-ups at all?
Recently the Christchurch City Council has extended the lease on the building for an additional 15 years meaning its presence on Manchester Street is safe until at least 2040.
This is great news to have certainty if you are a tenant inside the building and also for future tenants but just how many new tenants are we seeing pass through this “innovation hub”? It was once hailed as “an excellent example of a public-private partnership where local government, businesses and the Government have worked together to get things done” and I’m keen to see innovation but are we just subsidising long term tenants as ratepayers?
This could just be my unpopular opinion, so feel free to comment your feelings below on the matter, but I feel the EPIC building is not accessible to startups or small businesses any more. From an outsider looking in, the beginnings of the project looked promising, having a place for startups to form with a few major anchor tenants covering the majority of the rent ensured the ongoing viability of the building. One big draw card was the housing of like minded businesses in the hub to “share costs efficiently with shared facilities” that is exactly what small businesses need because they can’t afford to do a full office fit out or lease a building with a boardroom they may use only once a week. To me the project started with all the great intentions but over time took the easy path of giving larger tenants what they wanted. What I believe has happened over the years is as small companies and startups failed or moved on it made room for the other existing tenants to expand to fill the spot. As a landlord it makes perfect financial sense to accommodate your long term tenants but on the flip side it seems that the original spirit of the project has slowly been eroded away and any resources for startups seems to have evaporated. What once was promoted as a startup mecca has now become just a building for rent for 16 tech businesses, with the bulk of these companies having lived in the building for the majority or the buildings existence.
EPIC has even removed their old vision statement off their website that use to read:
It could be because the majority of their tenants are long term tenants and other than a single room for booking an event space they don’t seem too focused on their old vision.
Don’t get me wrong there are 16 awesome companies in this building, all of them are epic or innovative in their own right but it looks like an old boys club now that is just catering to its current clientele and closed the door on accepting new members until others retire. I can also imagine the enormity of the task they originally set out would take a lot of effort requiring dedicated staffing to truly have cross collaboration with different sectors so the want to change the direction is somewhat understandable but when rate payers and tax payers have funded a portion of a project should they not still be standing for what they originally set out to achieve? In next week’s blog I’ll cover what I think the next iteration of a tech innovation hub in Christchurch could look like and how it could be self-sufficient and sustainable.
