FIND A FOREVER HOME

One thing about the studio housing Meagan Porter’s TacoCat Creations is for certain. 

It has a cat theme, and it’s no mistake.

Porter — the owner of eight cats — has been making cat toys for more than a decade. While working at a pet supply store, her boss suggested she try making a cat toy, she says. 

From there, she never stopped.

“I started looking around our product offerings at the store and thinking, here’s a gap in what we offer, nobody makes this,” Porter says. “I could make this. I can do it better, because I have good taste in fabrics, and I know cats.”

Porter initially sold her toys wholesale to one store, but after attending a craft fair decided there was an untapped market to fill, she says.

“I ended up not buying anything. I was like there’s no cat stuff here,” Porter says. “I looked at [my partner] Dave, and I was like, you know, we could do this, we could do craft fairs, we could figure out how to do this.”

By 2019, Porter took on almost 90 craft events and started making cat toys as her full-time job.

“Then the pandemic happened,” Porter says.

With craft events canceled, Porter had to lay off her employees and shift to working from home. The strain eventually became too much, she says.

“There was one of those days that I just got really mad and frustrated,” Porter says. “I was like, I can’t do this anymore. There’s too much stuff in this house.”

But with Madison rent prices skyrocketing, and commercial rents reaching as high as $50 per square foot, according to Tori Morgan-Nagel, owner of Tori’s Trinkets, businesses are struggling to find a home.

That’s where Common Wealth Development’s business incubation initiative comes in.

The nonprofit organization is focused on community development, affordable housing, workforce development — including both youth and adult workforce programs — and business incubation across the city, says business development manager Brendan Vandenburg-Carroll.

Spanning two warehouses, which opened in 1987 and 1996, and 40 studio spaces — 38 of which are currently occupied — Common Wealth Development’s goal is to fuel small businesses growth and foster community, a process which Morgan-Nagel says helped her “exponentially.”

It was finally time for Porter to send out an email to Common Wealth Development.

Find a home

For Ramsey Finger and Melita Mullen, co-owners of Hands of the Hills, the Madison Enterprise Center was a safe space to move their newly purchased business.

Finger has been in the bead business since 1988, shortly before he dropped out of school at 22 to manage a bead store full-time. But when one of his businesses closed in 2007, Finger worked for his friend and then-owner of Hands of the Hills, which sells beads and amulets to larger retailers.

With that same friend nearing retirement, Finger offered up a proposal to purchase the business. By April 2023, the couple officially owned Hands of the Hills. With a plan from the Small Business Development Center at UW–Madison, the couple was able to secure funding for their business, Mullen says. 

From there it was easy.

“We actually rented this [space] before we even officially had purchased the business,” Finger says.

But not every Madison business owner has such luck.

With studio space in high demand, not just anyone can get in, Vandenburg-Carroll says. Instead, businesses must present a plan and show three to five years of financial projections.

“Since these are incubators, we want to make sure people are thinking about how they’re going to grow within the space,” Vandenburg-Carroll says. “We want to make sure that the incubators in general are promoting local jobs for the community, and we do prioritize light manufacturing and production companies that will provide more entry-level type positions for the community that are accessible.”

Stephanie Barenz, owner of Stephanie Barenz Studio, says the process is less intimidating than it sounds.

“I think a lot of people should consider it as an option, because it’s a wonderful program in Madison,” Barenz says. “I think it’s a real gift to Madisonians, especially artists and entrepreneurs who are just coming into their business.”

And while Vandenburg-Carroll concedes cheap rent is a major draw to business owners, he also emphasizes Common Wealth Development’s commitment to fostering community.

“The biggest benefit is having affordable commercial space on the isthmus, and also the shared services that the buildings provide,” Vandenburg-Carroll says.

Common Wealth Development’s spaces offer business owners many benefits including a for-rent art gallery, shared loading docks and, of course, networking opportunities.

“Being in the same building really is a big benefit,” Vandenburg-Carroll says. “There’s a lot of collaboration that goes on, and opportunities to meet other entrepreneurs and get support.”

Finding community

Morgan-Nagel credits her Madison Enterprise Center space with helping improve her mental health.

Tori’s Trinkets — which started as a “COVID hobby” — quickly outgrew Morgan-Nagel’s apartment, spilling into her living and dining rooms.

“I knew it was time to move my business to a more permanent or professional environment,” Morgan-Nagel says. “I was also coming out of lockdown, so I needed to kind of get out of my house and have a commute and semblance of work-life separation.”

Since moving her business into a Madison Enterprise Center space, complete with industrial size windows, a flower mural that she painted and a wall of earrings, Morgan-Nagel has hosted a grand opening party and Halloween party to launch her collaboration with T.L. Luke, another artist in the building.

But community at Common Wealth Development goes beyond just artists, Barenz says, referencing a range of different businesses spanning urban mushroom farming, photography, soapmaking and spice production.

“Whether you’re an artist or a soap maker, at the end of the day, I think it’s really important to share information,” Barenz says. “Whatever it is you’re making. It’s important to know other entrepreneurs and develop community with them, because a lot of us are working alone.”

For Porter — who still works in tandem with her partner, David Van — making the choice to set up their new space led to a world of opportunity. TacoCat moved into the Madison Enterprise Center in October 2021 before graduating to a Main Street Industries studio two and a half years later.

Sitting inside the large brick building on the corner of East Main Street and South Brearly Street, not much different from any of the others sitting along the train tracks, is a secret world.

Deep inside Main Street Industries No. 15 is a windowless studio, filled to the brim with cat plushies, cat-patterned fabric and a sewing machine. Plants reach for the ceiling, as if calling for a sun that may never touch them again. 

But what hits you is the color. 

A mural of blue, orange and green grass lines a corner of the wall. A vibrant bright green shelf holds a second set of plants and a recreation corner sports a pink floor.

“I keep calling it our forever home,” Porter says. “We have found our forever home.”

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Launchpad for local business

Common Wealth Development’s incubators foster local business growth

By Tomer Ronen

At Common Wealth Development’s business incubators — Main Street Industries and Madison Enterprise Center — entrepreneurs get a chance to launch and maintain their livelihoods for an affordable price while taking part in a community of fellow business owners. Curb took a closer look inside the studios of TacoCat Creations, Tori’s Trinkets and Hands of the Hills.

Photo Credit going up to down, from left to right. All pictures taken by

1. Tori Morgan-Nagel, owner of Tori’s Trinkets, creates her signature earrings in her Madison Enterprise Center studio.
2. Tori Morgan-Nagel, owner of Tori’s Trinkets, creates her signature earrings in her Madison Enterprise Center studio.
3. Shelves of beads fill Finger’s studio. He imports brass, silver and glass.
4. Morgan-Nagel uses a laser cutter to carve out her earring designs in her Madison Enterprise Center studio.
5. Morgan-Nagel uses a laser cutter to carve out her earring designs in her Madison Enterprise Center studio.
6. Ramsey Finger, co-owner of Hands of the Hills, in his Madison Enterprise Center studio. He buys beads from sellers in Southeast Asia to sell to western vendors.
7. Finger handles beads and amulets in his Madison Enterprise Center studio. He travels to Southeas Asian countries multiple times a year to build bonds with local sellers.
8. Earrings line the walls of Morgan-Nagel’s studio. These disco strawberries are one of her most popular designs.
9. ?
10. Earrings line the walls of Morgan-Nagel’s studio. These disco strawberries are one of her most popular designs.
11. Meagan Porter, owner of TacoCat Creations, in her Main Street Industries studio where she creates cat toys. Porter “graduated” from Madison Enterprise Center to Common Wealth Development’s second-stage business incubator.
12. Porter’s studio is filled with plants. Her old studio had large windows, but now she uses special greenhouse lights to keep them growing.

4. 

Porter uses a sewing machine to create her Catnip filled Wisc’r toys in her Main Street Industries studio.

Porter’s studio is filled with plants. Her old studio had large windows, but now she uses special greenhouse lights to keep them growing.

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Common Wealth Developments is the home of Main Street Industries and Madison Enterprise Center. The two warehouses are home to almost 40 different businesses.