In Branford, a former distribution facility is turning into a tennis training facility for children.
Around the area, landlords, eager to fill empty commercial properties, are approving leases for churches and theaters and other non-traditional users.
Even the city of New Haven is getting into the act, as its Department of Cultural Affairs prepares to launch a pilot project this summer pairing artists with landlords to generate interest in vacant retail space.
"A lot of our landlords are looking outside the box to find tenants," says Kim Wagner, a leasing agent with MJB Real Estate Services who often finds seasonal tenants like Halloween, fireworks and Christmas businesses for retail plazas throughout Connecticut. "Most are happy if we can get someone in there to offset the utility bills."
Late last fall Wagner helped the North Haven-based Square Foot Theatre lease 22,800 square feet in the Hamden Plaza on a month-to-month basis for large productions
Another thespian group, the New Haven Theater Co., signed a one-month lease for May 2010, to stage plays in a 2,600-square-foot former retail space formerly housing a vintage clothing and accessory store at 118 Court Street in the Elm City. Wareck Real Estate's John Wareck brokered the transaction.
"Landlords are a little more open to creative uses," explains
Mike Richetelli of Colonial Properties, who last year assisted CCRN, a Spanish church, in leasing 10,000 square feet in a strip mall at 254 Bull Hill Lane, Orange. "Before the market went south a couple of years ago, we used to get more calls from people looking to open unusual types of businesses like paintball places. But a lot of those types of organizations don't have the resources in this economy."
One of the major categories for non-traditional use of industrial space is recreational, according to the Geenty Group's Kevin Geenty. Six months ago he brokered the $725,000 sale of a 20,000-square-foot industrial building at 18 Knollwood Drive in Clinton to an investor who leased it for baseball training.
"We're getting a lot of indoor baseball practice places in warehouses," Lynn Weed of Weed Realty says, adding such
conversions work best "if you've got high ceilings, column spacing above average and really good floors."
This January Cross Fit New Haven signed a two-year lease for 5,500 square feet at 1775 State Street, New Haven.
"The old swimwear factory building and warehouse building works perfectly well. We don't have a lot of equipment," says co-owner and trainer Eric O'Brien, who also is co-founder of Urbane New Haven, a real estate development company specializing in upscale design/build projects and restorations of old residences.
The training facility opened April 1, after obtaining a change in zoning, installing three bathrooms and making a few modifications to the sprinkler system.
At 21 Commerce Drive in North Branford, Tennis in Motion recently signed a five-year lease for 5,500 square feet in a former distribution facility for high quality curtain fabrics. The Geenty Group's Barry Stratton brokered the deal and assisted the owner, Branford High School tennis coach Stephen O'Keefe, in procuring a zone change for recreational use.
Tennis in Motion will offer a "quick start program" teaching children ages 3 to 9 the skills to play tennis, with small racquets on smaller-than-normal courts, says O'Keefe, who hopes to open in mid-June.
These days, more medical centers are moving into warehouses because they cost a lot less than other locations.
"Warehouse space is $4 to $6 [per square foot] net, net, net," Weed says. "When you go into a medical building, it's $12."
In New Haven, city Cultural Affairs Director Barbara Lamb is gearing up for Project Storefronts, which aims to enliven empty retail space with art, with the support of a $30,000 grant from the New Haven Economic Development Corp.
The goal is to "generate foot traffic to go into these storefronts" with "anything from theater groups to music groups to teaching classes, performances and artists turning space into working studios," she says. "We don't want just galleries, but things that are engaging and dynamic and will interest people."
Artists must agree to participate for at least three months. In exchange, they get free space and are eligible for a stipend of up to $500 to fix it up.
Lamb says the inspiration for Project Storefronts came from a story she read about a nearly vacant St. Louis mall that became a mecca for artists with the help of a local arts council.
So far, Lamb's department has received at least 15 proposals from artists, and interest from several downtown and Fair Haven property owners.
"Decisions will be based on finding an appropriate fit [between artists and landlords], in a location that makes sense, and where they're not competing but complementing surrounding businesses," Lamb says. "We want to do a cluster, and the goal to have five or six [stores] up and operational by this summer."
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