May 2015
| Business World
109
and a half ago they opened Flywheel in
downtown Winston-Salem, “in the heart of
Wake Forest Innovation Quarter.”
The recently renamed Innovation Quarter is
a 200-plus acre property that may well be the
largest urban research park in the country.
Flywheel, meanwhile, is the community’s
24/7 co-working space, where individuals
can rent anything from a tabletop to an office
as they develop ideas. Flywheel also aims to
provide training assistance and business de-
velopment assistance, and eventually Mayor
Joines hopes to put an “accelerator fund”
into place within that framework in order to
help finance some of those start-ups.
Another way Winston-Salem encourages
business is by being technologically ad-
vanced – which is something the city coun-
cil takes a lot of pride in.
“We use technology to make doing business
with local government easier for our citizens
and businesses,” he explained. “For exam-
ple, one thing we’re getting ready to put in
place – and this came as a suggestion from
our development community – is a platform
for developers and builders to submit their
plans electronically, and us to review them
electronically.”
“That’s a fairly expensive undertaking,” he
