BOERNE– Despite an uphill battle in municipal funding, a local nonprofit aimed at fostering burgeoning businesses opened its doors last week, marking the end of a years-long effort.
However, the work isn’t over yet as nonprofit founders are going back before the Kendall County Commissioners Court Monday for a second attempt at gaining county contribution.
While the doors have opened, Boerne Kendall County Economic Development Corp. CEO Amy Story said the business bloomer still needs funding for tech, furniture, programming and a full-time, boots-on-the-ground staffer to keep the place running.
“We’re encouraged by the prospect of the court renewing their commitment to Das Greenhaus as a vehicle for quality-controlled economic development,” Story said of the impending presentation.
Last year, a former cohort of commissioners approved $500,000 in funding for the nonprofit in its early days. However, the cash was contingent on improving the former City Hall building on Blanco Road.
When the incubator moved to a turn-key property on Upper Balcones Road, the deal was null and void, and the check was delivered back to the commissioners' coffers. The nonprofit founders have been hoping for county support ever since.
According to the commissioners court agenda, Das Greenahaus leaders are now seeking $290,000 from the county, and Story said they continue to work with city officials for support.
Das Greenhaus is a business incubator born from the minds of Boerne Kendall County Economic Development Corp. members, but a board has been formed with former EDC staffer Kathy Estes at the helm.
The nonprofit is aimed at temporarily housing and nurturing startups with an endgame of bringing strategic businesses into the city and Kendall County.
“It has been about a fouryear journey getting to this point, and we’re extremely proud of opening the doors and seeing the logos and seeing everybody’s names that has contributed to making this possible,” Boerne Kendall County Angel Network President Justin McKenzie said. “We’re launching businesses here for Boerne.”
Even though it’s still early days for the incubator, there’s already a tenant in the newly updated space at 7 Upper Balcones Road: LOCOAL Charcoal Company.
LOCOAL is an agri-tech startup “focused on innovating circular technologies for the human world while producing sustainable benefits for the natural world,” according to the company’s website.
The corporation’s co-founder Miles Murray is a local to the Hill Country, mirroring the motto set forth by Das Greenhaus founders to retain local graduates and talent.
“I grew up in this area. I grew up fishing and running around the rivers and all the whitetail deer, and I left for the service,” Murray said, “What I saw overseas and what I learned in my time after the academy is that you must invest locally where you are in order for your own community to prosper.”
Murray said his team is excited to move operations out of his home and have a space to work and grow.
“Miles is working out of his home and running a national, if not international, company and making a difference,” McKenzie said. “When he saw the vision for Das Greenhaus, he said ‘That’s what I want to be a part of.’” The nonprofit even has a second business lined up to call the new space its home.
Story said Hera Biotech, a corporation founded in 2020 which uses biotechnology to help definitively diagnose endometriosis non-surgically, is next in line to move in.
The business is operating in San Antonio, but Story said co-founder Somer Baburek is a Boerne High School graduate – again, showing the Das Greenhaus effort to support local talent.
“Miles (Murray) is a story that we’ve wanted to see for a long time,” Estes said at a special event at the new location Thursday. “That’s exactly what we want to see is children who grow up here to know that this is a place they can come back to and have their business and raise their families here. That’s really what we’re wanting to do: Growing our own and them knowing they’ve got a
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