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GREENSBORO — The Nussbaum Center for Entrepreneurship helps small businesses get on their feet and grow.

But now the center is facing its own challenge of raising money to carry on its mission in a new home.

The nonprofit rents 80,000 square feet from Revolution Mill Studios and leases that space to about 66 small businesses.

But the owners of Revolution Mill want to take over Nussbaum’s space when the lease expires next year, and that has the center in a bind.

It must raise $4 million to help renovate and move to a donated building across the city from its Yanceyville Street location.

The center sees the solution partly in a request to the Greensboro City Council for a $1.2 million grant that would be matched by federal funding.

Added to other grants, that would give the center $3.8 million toward its goal.

Sam Funchess, Nussbaum’s president and CEO, and Jim Peeples, the developer and a partner in Revolution Mill Studios, hope to appear before the City Council on Tuesday to make the request.

While they plan to make a persuasive case that the money can assist a strong job-building engine — small business — it’s unclear whether the city has enough money to help.

Peeples and his investors have asked Funchess and the center to move from the mill building, which covers 580,000 square feet, so they can upgrade Nussbaum’s space and offer it to office and retail users that would pay higher rents.

Revolution Mill wants to complete the project soon to take advantage of historic renovation tax credits that would help it borrow the money. Those credits expire next year.

The center’s parking is also overloaded, but Peeples said investors can’t afford to build new parking until they can raise rents.

Rather than kick Nussbaum out in the cold, however, Revolution Mill used its entrepreneurial spirit to untie the knot: D.H. Griffin, an investor in development projects related to Revolution Mill, is also an owner of the vacant Carolina Steel property at 1451 S. Elm-Eugene St.

Griffin and his fellow investors have donated Carolina Steel’s 60,000-square-foot headquarters office building to Nussbaum.

For Funchess, it’s a tall order to help a substantial portion of the center’s businesses move without interrupting their work.

Council members said last week that they would be interested in providing some support to renovate the Carolina Steel building.

The city staff recommended that they might tap into a city savings account typically used for affordable housing programs.

That fund has about $500,000 in it.

Assistant City Manager Andy Scott said the renovation project “falls into the area of economic development and neighborhood renewal.”

“Really you could make a redevelopment case for it,” Scott said.

Scott said the Nussbaum Center could use money from the state Department of Commerce, but it would have to be matched, and the department would like the city to match some funding. 

Scott said the project would be considered eligible community development activity because the building is in an eligible neighborhood.

Funchess noted that the Nussbaum Center is self-sufficient; it hasn’t received a local government grant since the city and county each gave it $150,000 in 1988.

And Funchess said that not only do small businesses create jobs, they create higher-paying jobs than many other types of businesses.

He said a 2009 survey of 11 companies that graduated from the center showed they employed 115 people with an annual average salary of more than $66,000.

Funchess said the council should view the center’s request as it would that of any company that wants economic development incentives.

“I would view this exactly the same way,” Funchess said. “This is not a handout per se, it is a true economic development investment from the standpoint that we create jobs and we create high paying jobs at that.”

“It’s not that we’re creating manufacturing jobs like Dell did at $15 an hour,” Funchess added. “Our folks are creating high-wage, high-skill jobs.”

Staff Writer Amanda Lehmert contributed to this report.

Contact Richard M. Barron at 373-7371 or richard.barron@news-record.com