By Philip Joens, Des Moines Register
Watch as Center at Sixth founder chokes up during the business incubator open house
During the Center at Sixth open house, founder Marquas Ashworth reflects on years of work in developing the project.
- Founder Marquas Ashworth hosted an open house for the Center at Sixth, an incubator for Black and Brown businesses in Des Moines.
- The center, located near the former Center Street neighborhood, will house more than 25 businesses and offer live-work studio apartments.
- Funded by grants and donations, the project aims to revitalize the area and provide opportunities for entrepreneurs.
With smooth jazz music playing in the background, Marquas Ashworth marveled in disbelief at his handiwork.
After four years of fundraising and working to make his vision a reality, he was hosting an open house April 24 at Center at Sixth.
Nearing completion at 1716 Sixth Ave. in Des Moines, it will be home to his incubator program that is helping Black and Brown entrepreneurs build businesses near the site of the historically Black Center Street neighborhood, wiped out when Interstate 235 was built through the middle of it in the 1960s.
It will house more than 25 small businesses when it opens later this summer.
Ashworth, who moved to Des Moines from Kansas City during his senior year in high school, recalled that when he first visited the site, people in an encampment there threw human waste at him.
“When I first saw the land there were people sleeping on it. There was a tent city,” he said. “There were people shooting up heroin.”
Emotion welled as he realized he’s close to turning that negative into a positive that he hopes will give people opportunities he didn’t have while growing up.
“I’ve been crying all day,” he said. “It’s surreal.”
City, state leaders show up to lend support
Check out photos as Center at Sixth, a business incubator focused on fostering Black and Brown business owners, opens to the public for the first time.
Ashworth said he got the idea to open an incubator as a teenager after his father told him the 1921 story of the fate of Tulsa, Oklahoma’s Greenwood District, known as the “Black Wall Street” because of its residents’ wealth. After a Black man was accused of raping a White woman, attackers leveled Greenwood in a three-day wave of destruction, leaving hundreds dead.
Ashworth gained new determination to realize his dream after George Floyd’s murder in 2020 and the denial of a loan he sought to open a tasting room for the whiskey brand he had developed, Ziyad.
He’s since put his business on hold while focusing on opening the Center at Sixth, but plans to have a distillery in one corner of the building.
At his open house, he hobnobbed with leaders including Mayor Connie Boesen and Polk County Supervisor Matt McCoy.
“He’s a popular person,” U.S. Rep. Zach Nunn, R-Iowa, told a group after stopping by the open house.
What will the Center at Sixth do?
The groundbreaking for Center at Sixth was held in 2022. The open house showed off the space to guests and allowed its first class of entrepreneurs to sell items in its Makers Market.
The Wells Fargo Foundation announced it had purchased the initial batch of items for $50,000, with 100% of the proceeds going to the initial class of 23.
Work on the building is still progressing. There will be spaces for restaurants and a commissary for food businesses. Kitchen equipment and countertops still need to be installed.
Six “live-work” studio apartments will be on the second floor for entrepreneurs who will live at the center and operate their businesses in a dedicated office space. Upstairs, the hallway smelled of fresh paint.
“The idea is you can have your business in the front half, you can set your hours,” said Taena Fowler, a volunteer who showed off the apartments. “The idea is people would stay 18 months or so and get their business established.”
Outside the apartments is a foyer that can be used as an event space. Rents will be about $850 per month, Ashworth said.
“It gives them the commercial space and a residential space,” he said.
Gov. Kim Reynolds in 2022 awarded the project $3.5 million. That grant covered about 80% of the cost, and the Des Moines City Council approved $1.8 million in tax increment financing.
Principal Financial Group and EMC Insurance Cos., covered up-front costs for necessities vendor tents, cash registers, tables and signage, and the Wells Fargo Foundation donated $700,000 to the project in 2023.
Boesen told a crowd at the open house that the incubator is a great reuse of land in a mostly developed city.
“I’m so excited to see what will be coming in the future with what is going on here, and what can become of this whole Sixth Avenue corridor,” she said. “We’re seeing a transformation of a city block.”
Entrepreneur says being in Center at Sixth ‘feels good’
Among the first class of entrepreneurs is Tiffany Rohe, who worked as a youth librarian until she launched her businesses Nixon & Norman in 2020. The Makers Market will be Rohe’s first venue for offering her goods.
A table in her booth for the open house displayed colorful felt eggs and macaroons and other food for kids’ play kitchens.
“This space, to have a place not only for me, but also entrepreneurs, entrepreneurs of color being in the same space, is going to be super quaint,” Rohe said. “Being in this specific place, it feels good.”
The exact date of the grand opening will be determined later, Ashworth and other leaders of the project said. The open house marked one milestone, but it will be just the first of many, he told the crowd.
“This isn’t the end,” said the tearful Ashworth. “The fight is just now beginning.”
Philip Joens covers retail and real estate for the Des Moines Register. He can be reached at 515-284-8184 or [email protected].
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