Group raising funds for food service incubator.

Future restaurateurs may soon have a place to cook up their new creations.

A business incubator is being proposed for the South Park District of downtown by a group of property owners in cooperation with culinary education programs at USC, UCLA and L.A. Trade Technical College.

Kreative Kitchens, as the proposed incubator has been dubbed, would support 20 to 25 fledgling food businesses with free access to business consultants and a 2,000-square-foot commercial kitchen.

"We need a way for people with good entrepreneurial ideas to get started," said Sharon Tate, dean of academic affairs for Los Angeles Trade Tech. "An incubator could provide a lot of things that the schools don't have, like product analysis and business planning, and access to a commercial kitchen - and that's a big deal."

The incubator would be targeted at graduates of food-service education programs and entrepreneurs who have a plan for wholesale or retail food services or for a new restaurant - but without the means to launch it.

"We envision employment in the food industry as eventually replacing some of the many manufacturing and health care and other jobs lost in this area earlier this decade," said Mike Pfeiffer, executive director of the South Park Economic and Development Corp. "Some of the incubator businesses could grow and provide a lot of jobs in the area."

He said the group researched local and national economic trends to develop a project to revitalize South Park, and was attracted to the food industry because it is a fast-growing sector of manufacturing.

"We also know that businesses that start in incubators have an 80 percent success rate" while those without such support have an 80 percent failure rate, Pfeiffer said.

A feasibility study has been completed, and the South Park group is beginning its search for about $3.5 million in funding to cover the cost of leasing and outfitting a 15,000-square-foot facility and paying operating costs for four years.

The funds are being sought from government loan and grant programs for small businesses and incubators, from private foundations and from banks.

While it may take as long as two years to secure funding and build the incubator, Pfeiffer said his group intends to establish an "interim" incubator next year in the South Park area with subleased kitchen and office space.

Like many local industries, the Los Angeles County food manufacturing industry suffered job losses during the fast half of the decade, dropping from 47,000 employees in 1992 to 41,574 in 1995, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. This was due to recession-related downsizings and business closures, including a number of food companies that closed their L.A. plants and consolidated operations in other areas of the country, said Jack Kyser, chief economist with the Economic Development Corp. of L.A. County.

Kyser said he doesn't exactly consider the food industry an area of rapid growth in Los Angeles, but said it is an area of expansion.

"Food manufacturing is the 10th-largest employer in L.A. County and seems to have hit bottom and started growing again," he said.