One of the largest and most significant multi-use complexes currently available for single or multi-tenant users in the United States.
We''''ll Do Whatever It Takes
Wednesday, February 13, 2008We''''''''ll Do Whatever It Takes
Gates, N.Y. -
More than a decade ago, when Jeff Simmons was an Eastman Kodak Co. engineer, he knew about the basketball court in Building One of Elmgrove Park, but he’d never seen it. It was for executives only.
Today Simmons doesn’t even work for Kodak, but he can check out all the places that were once off limits at Elmgrove. Simmons, a Victor resident, is part of an effort to revive a facility the film giant abandoned. He runs the power company that serves the dozen or so buildings at what is now the Rochester Tech Park.
There’s underground parking in Building One, he discovered, and an old tunnel that runs underneath the buildings. It takes about five minutes to get from one end of the tunnel to the other on a bike, he said, adding,
“You don’t see anyone. It’s the best place to make a Freddy Krueger movie.”
In 1967, Kodak relocated its Camera Works plant to the 600-acre site in Gates. By the 1980’s, the Elmgrove facility employed 24,000 people. That was three shifts per day, with 8,000 employees per shift manufacturing equipment. Then, Kodak’s fortunes changed, and in late 1990’s, it put Elmgrove park on the market.
Now run by Tryad Group, based in New York City, the Rochester Tech Park is one-third full with over 20 tenants employing a total of 1,850 people. Hammer Packaging, Citigroup, Pepsi Bottling Group, Track Speedway, ESL Federal Credit Union and ITT are among the businesses that occupy 1.3 million square feet. That’s 500,000 more square feet of occupied space since Tryad bought the park in August 2007.
“We’re looking to attract anyone and everyone,” said partner Josh Yashar.
A former clothing designer and manufacturer, Yashar “saw the writing on the wall” when garment industry jobs started going overseas, and switched careers. Tryad owns and operates close to 10 million square feet of industrial space, half of that at Rochester Tech Park. It bought the facility for $55 million, with the promise of investing at least $12 million.
Among its successes is Hammer Packaging, which expanded from 58,000 to 203,000 square feet in January of this year.
A manufacturer of labels for the food and beverage industry, Hammer Packaging has been around since 1912 and employs 210 people, said president Jim Hammer. Hammer Packaging moved from the Rochester Institute of Technology’s business and technology park so he could consolidate from five to three buildings.
“We looked at other buildings in the area, but I wanted to find a place we could expand in even further,” he said. “We’ve doubled our business in the past five years and are looking to double it again in the next five years.”
Hammer said he doesn’t think the Tryad group will have any trouble filling the former Kodak facility.
“I think it’s a matter of finding the right people who need space, and being flexible, and they’ll do a good job,” he said.
Flexibility is the name of Yashar’s game.
“We’ll do whatever it takes is the motto,” he said.
If it means knocking down walls, replacing lights and ceilings, installing new doors, or rebuilding the interior of a space completely, Yashar said, his staff works with tenants and then hires Rochester companies to do the work, such as LeFrois Construction and LeChase Construction.
“I have what I call a vanilla box to work with, a plain canvas, and we can paint it any way we want,” he said.
Citigroup Inc. has signed a 10-year lease on 15,000 square feet in Building 9. And this week, the Pepsi Bottling Group announced that it was moving its operations and 120 employees from Ormond Street in the city to the 107,000-square-foot Building 12 at Rochester Tech Park. Tryad invested $3 million into building improvements to make the space suitable for Pepsi, said Yashar. The Tryad Group also paid to relocate the U.S. Postal Service to another Tech Park building to accommodate Pepsi, he added.
Walking around the property, Yashar calls everyone he encounters by their first names, and they all know his. He flies in from New York City to Rochester to visit about once a week.
Tryad has a staff of about 30 at Rochester Tech Park, responsible for everything from the grounds, 24-7 security, and everyday operations to the running the power plant.
Yashar said he’s heard critics complain that the businesses relocating or expanding in Rochester Tech Park aren’t creating new jobs, only moving them from one location to another.
“The only way your going to build new jobs in Rochester is by keeping the old,” he said. “If people see jobs leaving the market, they won’t see it as appealing.”
Although two-thirds of the property is vacant, it still bears signs of its former life. The Tech Park is covered with mature trees and landscaping. Inside the building that houses part of Hammer’s operations, old escalators in the lobby are roped off and coated with a thick layer of dust. Inside Hammer Packaging’s new facilities, yellow lane lines are painted on the cement floors of the wide hallways. They are a throwback to the days when robots were utilized to do work at Kodak. Yashar said the human employees had to stay on the designated walking paths to avoid running into the automation.
When Yashar came to tour the facility, he said, “it was vast.”
“It was a lot to take in in one shot,” he said. “Once I saw the amount of money Kodak had spent to build this facility, yes, I recognized it would have to be refitted and retooled in order to make this a multi-tenant facility, but I had good bones to work with, and that made it easy.”
Yashar said he also liked the site’s proximity to downtown and the airport, and the fact that it has its own exit on the expressway.
And when it comes to tenants, Yashar said he’s willing to take chances on “anyone with a dream.”
“If I waited for all my tenants to be credit rated, I wouldn’t be in business,” he said.
Gates Supervisor Ralph Esposito said Yashar and his partners have brought a new perspective to Rochester Tech Park than the former owners, Cohen Asset Management, which purchased the complex for $30 million in 2000. Esposito said Cohen Asset management seemed to be looking to fill the entire park with one tenant. Tryad has taken a different approach.
“These guys are smart enough and have had enough background and expertise in the market to know they have to do things in smaller steps,” Esposito said. “They’ve been very aggressive and have lived up to every commitment they’ve made to me.”
Among the tenants are Inside Track Speedway, an indoors go-kart track, ESL Federal Credit Union and ITT, which manufactures and develops communications, sensing and surveillance, space and advanced engineering services and equipment. Yashar has even given some space to nonprofits to use, such as Ronald McDonald House, and the Tech Park has hosted events for the Special Olympics and the Diabetes Foundation. In the future, Yashar said, Tryad hopes to build a hotel on site, and as a bit of loyalty to Kodak, he’d even be interested in landing a movie and sound studio.
Yashar said prospective tenants contact him every week, and his staff has been reaching out to companies in foreign countries as well.
Looking back on all the changes it’s been through, Jeff Simmons, the Kodak engineer turned power plant operator, said Rochester Technology Park is an exciting place to work again.
“When you hear or read on a semi-regular basis about the tax base of Gates being affected, and the loss of jobs, you never want to hear that, but when you make it through that and you see a diverse range of tenants coming in here, it’s pretty exciting,” he said.