A building that was once home to a company that made baby clothes has been turned into a incubator for businesses in their infancy.

Officials with Lanier Technical College held a ceremony Friday to mark the opening of the Manufacturing Development Center, a companion to the Governor’s Center for Innovation for Manufacturing Excellence, which opened in February at the college’s Oakwood campus.

The MDC will be an off-campus facility housed in the former Warren Featherbone Co. building on Chestnut Street. The building, which has been renamed Featherbone Center, is also the home to Interactive Neighborhood for Kids, an educational facility for children.

Initial funding for the project will come, in part, from a $246,500 grant from the Appalachian Regional Commission, a federal agency that provides funding for economic development projects in states from Alabama to New York.

A business incubator is a facility where start-up manufacturing enterprises can begin production of their product and have access to office and other support facilities at a reduced rent. The giant industrial building will be divided into small manufacturing units under one roof. The center will have a professional staff to provide advise to the business owners.

“This is going to be a center where dreams come true,” said Mike Beatty, commissioner of the Georgia Department of Community Affairs. “This center is the proper role for government, where we can create a climate of success and work together with local, state and federal governments in a public-private partnership to make things happen.”

Beatty predicted that the innovation center and the MDC has a chance to produce significant results in a short period of time.

The grant includes funds to purchase technology equipment, including a computer-driven device that can produce plastic prototypes of an item.

“The Featherbone center will serve as an economic eco-system,” said Gus Whalen, a partner in the group which owns the building. “The portion being used by Lanier Tech will grow jobs and create taxpayers.”

Philip Wilheit, a partner in the project who also serves on the State Board of Economic Development said the potential is unlimited.

“Through the incubator, we will hopefully bring in high-tech industries, including medical device manufacturers, which is one of our focused businesses. It could be phenomenal.”

The center is expected to open officially in August.