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W. Marc Bernsau
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The local green-building and clean-technology sector will be getting a taste of the Persian bazaar, as a group of entrepreneurs is launching permanent trade-show space for green technology in Woburn.
The center, called the International Green Technology Trade Center, intends to be a one-stop shopping center for architects, contractors, building owners and other greentech buyers — and an easy way for cleantech companies, particularly foreign ones, to get in front of customers.
For a monthly fee, companies can rent space inside the 60,000-square-foot center inside Cummings Properties’ TradeCenter 128, which opened in March 2008, to showcase their products, technology or services on twice-weekly market days, as well as rent inexpensive office space on days without trade shows.
The center’s founders say the vastness of the green-technology industry makes it an ideal fit for the permanent trade-show concept, and an opportunity to build a business by providing marketing and advisory support to the often small companies.
“This is a fragmented industry. It’s an industry where there’s a lot of excitement and people are interested in learning about what’s new,” said Joshua Levitt, chief executive of the trade center. “The idea of the market days is that these sales guys are traveling all the time, and it’s a way to guarantee when customers are in the area, they’re there.”
Levitt, 33, spent most of his professional career in Europe as a correspondent for the Financial Times and as a communication director at hedge fund Everest Capital. He gained an interest in energy issues while in Europe, and when he came back to the Boston area he knew he wanted to do business advisory and marketing work for energy companies. A chance meeting with Fred Altman, who started the Northeast Trade Center — a permanent trade center space for apparel companies — decades ago, birthed the idea of a green trade center.
For about $1,800 a month, a company can get a roughly 150-square-foot individual glass-walled showroom where sales representatives can meet with prospective customers on Tuesdays and Thursdays. In addition to green companies themselves, the trade center has developed partnerships with industry trade groups.
Foreign companies looking to get into the U.S. market also are expected to play a large role in the center, Levitt said. Early conversations with business development officials in Boston-area foreign consulates have been positive so far.
“We look at a center like Green Trade and other incubators as providing a really strong platform to explore all sorts of strategic partnerships with companies, customers and investors, and in line with the Canadian integrated trade model,” said Christine Carr, business development director at the Consulate General of Canada.
Levitt had expected to open the doors and host an initial conference this month but has postponed opening the center until it finalizes an outside funding round that will be used to build out the trade-show space. TradeCenter128 was 88 percent leased as of February.
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