THE PAVILION PRESENTS Lead-Lok promises to add at least 20 new local jobs to Sandpoint. site in order to accommodate many of the small businesses. Mary Miller, co-owner of Gem Berry Products, has found one possibility: She invited the other evicted commercial kitchen users to meet with the Bonner County Fair Board to discuss upgrading the fairgrounds’ commercial kitchen and leasing it to the displaced tenants. Yet that doesn’t solve her immediate needs. The timing couldn’t have been worse. “I have to get our Christmas orders done in a month,” Miller says. “We’re panicked now.” But to Grimm, the choice was between win/lose or lose/lose. Lead-Lok’s rent was subsidizing the smaller businesses; the commercial kitchen alone was costing the city about $20,000 annually. “If I lost that anchor tenant in the facility, I don’t know if the city’s general fund could have run the incubator,” he says. If LeadLok left, the incubator might have been shut down anyway. Instead, Grimm says that Lead-Lok will generate enough revenue for the city that if the company does leave someday, Sandpoint would have enough money to turn the facility back into a startup incubator, and start the whole cycle over again. “We are writing a new chapter, post-Coldwater Creek,” Grimm says. danielw@inlander.com
GEORGE THOROGOOD Sunday, Sep 21 / 7:30pm
TERRY FATOR Saturday, Oct 4 / 7:30pm
RANDY HOUSER Thursday, Oct 9 / 7:30pm
UPCOMING SHOWS: LAST COMIC STANDING LIVE TOUR OCTOBER 17 KENNY ROGERS OCTOBER 19
SEPTEMBER 4, 2014 INLANDER 15