Who is getting help
* Unidentified California company is looking to locate in Chattanooga with 60 employees * Bellhops is adding 19 jobs for its tech-based moving assistance business * Wafflez Factory is adding 14 for its ML King Boulevard restaurant
Chattanooga Mayor Andy Berke
New downtown waffle restaurant WaffleZ Factory is opening on M.L. King Boulevard.Wafflez Factory, budding startup Bellhops and an unnamed company currently based in California are getting a total of about $22,500 in city money through Chattanooga's Growing Small Business incentive program.
Mayor Andy Berke, who announced the program earlier this year, on Wednesday stopped at Bellhops' downtown office to announce the first three recipients.
"It's a vibrant, growing company," Berke said.
The program offers a total of $100,000 through the current fiscal year that ends June 30, 2105. That means there is more money left than has been doled out.
But the program works on a first-come first-served basis, so it could very well get distributed before next summer, said Nick Wilkinson, the mayor's deputy administrator for economic development. "This incentive is to create some urgency."
The program is open to businesses with 100 or fewer employees. All newly hired employees, and there must be at least five, have to be located inside the city and work at least 30 hours per week. Each employee qualifies the company for $500, with a cap of $10,000 per business. The grants are made on a reimbursable basis.
The city wants to support a wide range of industries, Wilkinson said. "A job is a job."
Bellhops is adding 19 new jobs. Several employees, in fact, started this week.
Wafflez Factory Inc. will add 14 new jobs, according to the city. Owners of the 3-month old downtown Chattanooga eatery were not available for comment on Wednesday.
Small business grants
* Up to $500 awarded per worker for small businesses that expand or locate in the city * Businesses must have fewer than 100 employees and hire at least five new employees to qualify * Businesses may receive up to $10,000 each and the overall program is capped at $100,000
Almost all of Bellhops' roughly 40 full-time employees relocated from outside of the Chattanooga area, the company has said. The 3-year-old company, which uses a tech-enabled platform to offer moving services, recently secured more than $6 million in venture-capital funding from the east and west coasts of the country.
The city money is small in comparison. But Bellhops believes in the city, said Allie O'Connell, the company's head of talent. "The city investing back in us means a lot," she said. "We're part of the initiative to bring talent to the city."
Chattanooga already has incentives in place to attract and retain large companies, so the new program adds the dimension of smaller businesses, Berke said.
Also, it's not just about jobs themselves adding to the economy, he said. Workers in firms big and small spend money in the city on food and housing, to name just two, and that boosts local growth.
Small businesses can apply for the Growing Small Business incentive program at business.chattanooga.gov.
Contact staff writer Mitra Malek at mmalek@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6406.