If Eric Dahler's vision pans out, the technology business incubator he's launched on the top two floors of Brown's Arcade, a retail-office complex that anchors the North Charles Street business corridor, will help recast downtown Baltimore as a hub for high-technology start-ups.

Dahler also hopes his new enterprise, InfoAge Business Centers, will prove a successful model for a national chain of technology business incubators.

"We think there are a lot of innovative technology companies in the region that are hungry for professional office space that doesn't bust their budget," said Dahler.

Unlike traditional business incubators, which usually seek to cover operating costs and break even, Dahler, 35, and his partners are in it to make a profit.

The company's business plan might best be described as hybrid incubator for hire.

InfoAge will cater to a mix of small, established technology companies as well as one- and two-man start-up ventures that need flexible leases and business and financial support.

Income from established businesses and online clients will pay the costs of carrying incubator companies, said Dahler. The big payoff for InfoAge would come if an incubated company becomes a high-flying success and is purchased or goes public.

In exchange for its reasonable rents and services, InfoAge gets a 2 percent to 5 percent equity stake in each incubator company.

Dahler's partners are an engineer who is also working on a federal government project to build a second-generation Internet and two executives who run a custom software development company on the side.

InfoAge has leased the entire 8,000 square feet of the second and third floors of Brown's Arcade, in the 300 block of N. Charles St.

The brainchild of former Gov. Frank Brown (1892-1896), the arcade's shops and vendors have had their share of ups and downs since it opened in 1904.

The top two floors, which wrap around an atrium, have been vacant for about four years after an advertising agency pulled out.

The building -- a few blocks from the Washington Monument -- was bought last year by Boxer Properties of Houston. Boxer has moved aggressively to attract a mix of retail and service tenants to the building's street-level space, beset for years by high tenant turnover.

Michael Bradley, regional leasing director for Boxer, said the company expects InfoAge to be a hit with small, emerging technology companies.

Community atmosphere

"One of the great things is that the top floors are laid out in such a way that they provide a community-oriented atmosphere. The interior was originally designed for condominiums. Now small companies can easily interact with neighbors, rather than being walled off by themselves," said Bradley.

InfoAge plans to focus on providing what's known as Class B office space for small Internet, information technology and tele- communications companies, Dahler says.

To accomplish that, the partnership has outfitted the building with new equipment, including high-speed Internet lines, known as T-1 lines.

InfoAge also has invested in a bank of computers to lease to companies that wish to have only an online presence and mailing address.

InfoAge will offer tenants a conference and multimedia room for meetings and presentations, an answering service, and back-office support equipment, including fax and copier machines.

There's no shortage of technology incubators in Baltimore.

According to the Greater Baltimore Committee, there are five other technology business incubators in the area, three of which are operated and financed by the city's Baltimore Development Corp.

InfoAge is the first for-profit incubator in Baltimore, but not the first in Maryland.

Doug Humphrey, co-founder of Internet access provider Digex Inc., operates a for-profit technology incubator in Laurel called Phase I. And Gr8 Inc., a marketing and public relations firm that caters to Internet technology companies, is planning to open Incub8.com, a for-profit incubator for Web-based businesses, in the Baltimore-Washington area this year.

For-profit business incubator ventures are also springing up nationwide.

The National Business Incubation Association estimates that 8 percent, or almost 500, of the 6,000 business incubators in the United States and Canada, are for-profit operations. The lion's share of incubators remain nonprofit, however, and their goals are economic development and job creation in their communities, says the NAIB.

Competing technology business incubators in the Baltimore area include the biotechnology-oriented Bard Life Science Laboratories near the Inner Harbor and the High Tech Business Incubator on the University of Maryland, Baltimore County campus in Catonsville, which has a diverse array of start-ups.

Dahler, who's started two businesses in the past, including a New York litigation support company, and his partners hope to compete for promising young companies by offering well-equipped office space in a downtown hub that, he believes, will help start-up companies build credibility with potential customers and financial backers.

Since InfoAge leased its offices in Brown's Arcade in December, the group has leased about half its space.

Global Interactive Technologies, a start-up that provides wireless data communications services, was the center's first tenant -- and the first in the incubator program.

Two small, established businesses, a technology marketing company and a business software developer, have also set up roost at the site.

Hyperoffice.com, a venture capital-backed company that rents business software over the Internet to small- and medium-size businesses, is moving its Gaithersburg headquarters to the InfoAge center.

'Beautiful' office space

Shervin Pishevar, the 25-year-old co-founder and chief executive officer of Hyperoffice, said the company is looking forward to setting down roots in the incubator and Baltimore.

Pishevar was sold in part on the building's "interesting" central downtown space at a bargain price. It beat the high-priced "cookie cutter" space, the company fretted it would have to settle for in one of the suburban business parks.

"This is beautiful professional office space and we're still able to keep our [cash] burn rate low," said Pishevar. "It's a great open design that will provide a good working environment for our workers."

Pishevar looks forward to being in an environment in which he and his workers can easily interact and possibly do business with other emerging technology companies. The company has begun talks with fellow tenant Global Interactive about possible joint projects.

A recent graduate of the University of California at Berkeley, Pishevar said he is bullish about the prospects of finding employees and interns at the Johns Hopkins University.

"Hopkins has one of the top computer science programs in the country so we're hoping we can get interns out of that program and even new workers," said Pishevar. "Montgomery County doesn't have any major universities for computer talent. It was a drawback for us."

Bill Bawcombe, co-founder of 2-year-old Global Interactive, and business partner Jemel Hatcher are enthusiastic about the location.

The young entrepreneurs, former high school football buddies, operated the company out of Hatcher's living room until signing on with InfoAge.

"This location is tremendous," said Bawcombe. "We could never find anything like this working with a commercial leasing company. Most landlords want a three-year lease, and the rents can bust your budget."

"We love being in downtown Baltimore," added Bawcombe. "It's slowly changing from a buttoned-down banker town to an innovative high-technology city."

Bawcombe said Dahler and his partners have provided valuable start-up help, including introductions to venture capitalists and private investors, and in helping refine the company's business plan.

Dahler, he said, is conducting a search to help Global hire a seasoned information technology executive to serve as chief executive officer.

Start-ups 30% of business

Dahler envisions start-up companies like Global Interactive making up about 30 percent of InfoAge Business Center clients. He hopes to bring three other incubator companies into the Brown's Arcade project.

Aside from lower rents, incubator companies will have access to business guidance.

InfoAge has set up alliances with several professional services firms to provide incubator companies with counseling and guidance.

The firms include PricewaterhouseCoopers, a Big Five accounting and consulting firm; Silicon Valley Bank, a venture capital firm; and Potomac Communications Group Inc., a Washington public relations agency.

Incubator companies are expected to "graduate" to full company status within one to two years, said Dahler.

Half the time

That's about half the time given to companies accepted into incubator programs backed by universities or government economic development agencies.

Dahler said InfoAge has plans to expand the concept to three other sites in the region: downtown Washington, the high-technology corridor in Montgomery County and Northern Virginia.

His company is in negotiations for a building in Washington for its next site, he said. The group hopes to get that project off the ground this summer.

"If we can make it work in Baltimore, there's no reason it can't work in other cities where there are entrepreneurs in the high-tech sector," said Dahler. Cities on the long-term target list: New York; Philadelphia; Atlanta; Raleigh, N.C.; Austin, Texas; and Denver.

Economic development groups hope InfoAge has a spillover effect for the struggling Charles Street business district.

Dominic Wiker, business development manager for the Downtown Partnership, said the nonprofit business group believes that Dahler's approach will bring new vitality to the Charles Street corridor, which suffers from chronic office vacancies.

The area vacancy rate for offices above street level averages 15 percent, Wiker says.

"The incubator will bring a whole new layer of diversity to the street. With that we should see momentum," for local retail shops and restaurants, said Wiker, as InfoAge workers and clients shop, eat and conduct other business along the corridor.

The partnership also hopes the incubator will nurture downtown Baltimore as a hub for other high-technology business ventures.

"Other cities have had quite a lot of success with high-tech businesses moving into their downtowns. There's no reason it can't work in Baltimore," said Wiker.