For the folks at
Philly Office Retail, renovating vacant, abandoned industrial structures is their bread and butter. When they bought the dilapidated former Kendrick Mill at 6139 Germantown Avenue back in June, they were met with the usual conundrum: historic warehouse, underutilized, in need of investment. But it was the circumstance they hadn’t dealt with before that made this renovation unique: existing tenants.
"The building was maybe 55 percent leased when we bought it back in June," explains Philly Office Retail's Noah Krey. "A lot of the tenants were operating without official leases."
Unphased, the company got to work adding state-of-the-art studio spaces for lease. They have sunk nearly $400,000 into the historic gem, improving the floors, upgrading the utilities, adding new awnings and façade treatments, installing a new HVAC system and overhauling the space's image, rebranding it as the Lofts @ Kendrick Mill.
Those efforts haven’t gone unrewarded. "Today we’re 75 percent leased," says Krey.
But what about those the existing tenants, some of whom were without official leases? "We didn't kick anyone out but unfortunately we did lose some tenants in the renovation process," says Krey, adding that under Philly Office Retail's management all tenants are required to sign leases.
Making up for those losses is an impressive list of new tenants -- a group characterized by Krey as "mostly artists" -- which includes graphic designers, clothing designers and furniture designers.
Another major tenant is Rocket Learning, an educational management company, that took over space in late 2012.
With most of the renovations complete and rebranding efforts in full swing, the only significant item on the "to-do" list is to replace all the windows while preserving the building's warehouse look and feel.
Source: Noah Krey, Philly Office Retail
Writer:
Greg Meckstroth