For more than two decades, University of Iowa undergraduate entrepreneurs have had a place to turn their ideas into businesses through the Bedell Entrepreneurial Learning Laboratory, better known as the BELL.

This fall, the BELL has a new home, and it sits within a much bigger entrepreneurial community.

The University of Iowa John Pappajohn Entrepreneurial Center (Iowa JPEC) opened a new 5,000-square-foot entrepreneurial incubator on the third floor of Plaza Towers, overlooking the heart of downtown Iowa City and the Pedestrian Mall. Filled with natural light and designed for collaboration, the space is home to the BELL undergraduate incubator while also welcoming graduate students, faculty, staff, alumni, mentors and entrepreneurs from across Iowa.

The goal is simple: put people with ideas in the same place and create opportunities for connections that can move those ideas forward.

Entrepreneurship often grows through unexpected “collisions”: a conversation with another founder, an introduction to someone with the right expertise or a chance encounter that leads to a new customer, partner or idea. The new JPEC incubator was designed to create more opportunities for those connections.

Open gathering areas encourage people to work alongside one another. Flexible spaces provide room for workshops, coaching, meetings and events. Its downtown location creates a natural bridge between the university and the larger business and entrepreneurial community.

For BELL students, it’s a dramatic change from their longtime home, a former fraternity house that had plenty of history and plenty of character. Over the years, students and staff worked around an aging building and all of its quirks.

But while the building had seen better days, what happened inside it was something special.

Since the BELL was established in 2004 through the support of entrepreneur Tom Bedell, it has provided University of Iowa undergraduate students with a place to explore entrepreneurship, test ideas and build companies.

Undergraduate entrepreneurs will continue to be the primary users of the new JPEC incubator and the heart of the BELL. They don’t need to arrive with a polished business plan or even a business idea. Some come simply curious about entrepreneurship. Others are testing whether an idea solves a real problem. Still others are already running businesses and looking for ways to grow.

Now, they’ll do that work in a setting that more intentionally connects them to entrepreneurs at every stage.

A BELL student might work alongside a community entrepreneur, meet a graduate student with technical expertise, talk with a faculty member about research or connect with an experienced mentor who has built a company before. Entrepreneurs from around Iowa can come to the JPEC incubator for programs, meetings and events, adding their experiences and connections to the mix.

“Our new home for the BELL feels like the perfect backdrop for the next chapter of our undergraduate entrepreneurship program,” says Janice Baldes, Director of the Startup Incubator. “This space gives us new opportunities to bring alumni, mentors and industry experts closer to our students, connecting founders with people who have relevant experience and can help move their ideas and businesses forward.”

The location puts that activity in the middle of one of Iowa City’s most active areas. Situated steps from campus and directly on the Pedestrian Mall, the JPEC incubator is surrounded by businesses, restaurants, arts organizations and community spaces.

More than 20 years after Bedell helped establish the BELL, its original purpose remains intact: give undergraduate students a place to explore ideas, learn by doing and build something of their own.

Now the BELL has that home within something larger.

The new JPEC entrepreneurial incubator is a place where undergraduate students, university entrepreneurs and founders from communities across Iowa can come together, share what they know and perhaps make the connection that leads to what’s next.