A shot in the dark suggestion turned out to be the perfect solution for the Maple Valley-Black Diamond Chamber of Commerce.

When the chamber was in search of new office space to call home, board member Jim Flynn suggested the organization move to some space in a building he manages then make the most of it by developing a business incubator.

Last fall, the chamber offices were in Haagen Plaza next to Maple Valley City Hall, but Maple Valley city officials decided to move City Hall to the Windermere building a couple blocks away.

There wasn’t really a space there for the chamber, so, Flynn offered his idea.

“I threw this idea out there (to the chamber board) … and their eyes lit up,” he said. “At the chamber board level, there’s a lot of excitement.”

The business incubator concept is not a new one, Flynn said.

“It’s something I had been curious about for a while,” he said. “I just couldn’t find the right entity to staff it. We needed someone to be here to be the onsite manager of the space.”

When the city moved, “the stars all aligned,” Flynn explained.

“There has been demand for this space for quite a while,” he said. “I get calls for small offices often but it’s hard to provide that at a reasonable rate because of the infrastructure cost.”

What Flynn built, using recycled materials, is a suite with a reception area, an office for chamber Executive Director Sue VanRuff and a trio of business offices located at 23745 225th Way S.E., just south of Wilderness Village on Maple Valley Highway.

The empty office spaces will become home to growing businesses, VanRuff said, for entrepreneurs “transitioning out of their home business or garage.”

“We want that company that is ready to grow,” VanRuff said. “It goes to the core of what the chamber does, or, should be doing — business development.”

During the coming weeks the chamber will form a mentor board that will work in partnership with Green River Community College’s Small Business Development center to provide coaching, advice, seminars and guidance for the growing businesses.

The idea is to help those ventures to transition from small but growing business to big and booming enterprise, so, they won’t let the companies that move in stay too long.

“It’s going to be really good for economic development,” Flynn said, because after a business transitions from the incubator because it has outgrown the space, it will be required to stay in the Maple Valley-Black Diamond area for a period of time that has yet to be determined.

Work on the space, which is about 1,100 square feet, was complete in mid-February and now that the chamber is settled on, “we’re moving on to the next step, putting together the mentor board, setting up the ground rules for incubators businesses.”

VanRuff said the goal is to get the mentor board set up by the end of April.

But, if the right business comes along tomorrow, Flynn said that company could move in tomorrow if qualified because “we have a pretty good idea what we’re looking for.”

A business located in the incubator would have everything it would need to move in and get started, including phone and Internet network access, a conference room, all for a flat fee that will go to the chamber.

For a little more, a business owner could use the reception services of the chamber as well as the copy machine.

That conference room, will be a community meeting space, something Green River SBDC staff can use once a month for its work with businesses, any chamber member could use or really anyone from the community could make use of, “because of the grant money from the city,” Flynn added.

“It is exciting, it is energizing,” VanRuff said. “It’s going to be a really good thing for this community.”