Moses Lake incubator space nurtures small businesses

MOSES LAKE — It was a busy day April 2 in the little storefront at 205 S. Division St. as the Downtown Moses Lake Association formally opened its small business incubator, the Obra Project.

“It turned out even better than I hoped,” said DMLA Executive Director Lexi Smith. “And honestly, that’s because of the way that tenants were able to make use of the little slivers of spaces that they have.”

“They made their spaces beautiful, and you can clearly see where one business starts and when one stops,” Smith added.

The new Moses Lake business incubator is one of more than 50 small business incubators in Washington state, and of hundreds in the Pacific Northwest.

Five tenants now occupy the space — in front, it’s landscape artist Hannah Fountain and Evalee Rae’s Plant Shop, while in the back are Liberate & Lather fine homemade soap and candles, the Tree Fort Children’s Museum and woodworker and table maker Goathead Sawmill — all small businesses looking for a leg up to help get going and eventually move out into the bigger world — hopefully into spaces elsewhere downtown.

“Ideally, the tenants are spending a year to two years in here, no more than three,” Smith said. “The tenants that are here in the incubator, once they feel ready to take on their own space, that’s when they can apply for a beyond-the-incubator grant from the DMLA, and we would pay a portion of their rent for their first brick-and-mortar for the first year.”

Smith said the businesses were selected because most already knew their business and have been selling, typically online, for a while, but just needed a little help getting to the next step. The DMLA is helping all of these small businesses get off the ground with accounting and other support — including crafting an end-of-business plan for that day, hopefully far in the future for these business people,when they sell out and either go on to something else or retire.

“We want them to just really be set up for success and feel completely ready before making that big investment,” Smith said.

Brianna Verduzco started Evalee Rae’s Plant Shop with her husband Edgar in September 2021 to honor their late daughter, who died when she was only 2 1/2. Verduzco said they began selling their somewhat exotic plants, as well as fertilizer and plant humidifiers, in pop-up stores.

“They’re the plants that somebody would usually find online,” she said. “The good thing is you can come here and not have to worry about shipping or what it’s going to look like, (and ask) ‘Is it going to survive transit to us?’”

The shop is about being a bright spot for Moses Lake, Verduzco said.

“We wanted to provide a fun, uplifting, positive environment for not only us but for Moses Lake. Something we loved to do as a family with (Evalee Rae) and she loved just as much,” Verduzco said.

Jon Walker of Goathead Sawmill stood in back with his chocolate lab Kate next to large slabs of wood. He has a tree service, and a lot of these slabs he’s cut down on calls to deal with downed trees or trees in need of serious trimming. Walnut, mostly, but also Russian olive — a common and invasive species in the Columbia Basin that makes for some very interesting slabs of wood.

“I just felt bad cutting down trees for firewood,” he said. “I just wanted to put these to a little more use. There’s a lot of potential.”

He turns his slabs into tables, benches and bookshelves. A lot of it is custom work, he said, and he was doing a pretty good business before, mostly by word of mouth.

Still, he’s glad to finally have a real storefront, so that more people can see what he does. Because his kind of artisanal work is not well known on this side of the Cascades.

“One of my biggest problems is getting out there. People don’t know stuff like this is available in this area,” he said. “I feel like there’s kind of a void once you get, you know, east of Seattle.”