TOLEDO – For nearly a quarter century, the stone building on Jefferson Ave. has remained vacant, until now.
Bitwise Industries, a company dealing with computer programming, was working on turning what was the Jefferson Center, a vocational school for Toledo Public Schools that closed in 2000, into its Toledo campus. But that plan ended when the founders of Bitwise Industries were sentenced to federal prison for wire fraud.
“There are a lot of people that felt once this Bitwise thing collapsed that this building was doomed, and that it would just sit unoccupied and deteriorate,” said Tim Schlatler, managing director of SVN Ascension Commercial Realty, who manages and leases the property for its owner, ProMedica.
“Our role started once the building [renovation] was complete, and our role was to identify and secure tenants for the space,” he said.
After laying low since the Bitwise deal fell through, a ribbon cutting ceremony was held at the end of February with the mayor, Lucas County commissioners and representatives from the first four tenants: Wurtec, WorkSpring, Junior Achievement of Northwest Ohio and SEGULA Technologies USA.
A new name for the building was revealed at the ribbon cutting: The Innovation Post.
“There’s 110,000 square feet of space that’s finished inside the building, of which 77,000 square feet would be occupiable office space,” Schlatler said. “The difference between 110 and 77,000 [square feet] would be restrooms, pantry areas, circulation areas [and] mechanical, so we’d call that the common space.
“Of the space we have available to lease, we have now 65 percent of it leased, so we have 35 percent remaining. That’s what we continue to work on, to fill the remaining space,” he noted.
Securing those first four tenants were necessary to meet the operational cost of the building, and since the announcement more companies have signed on, excited to see what’s next for Toledo.
“We had these conversations, and said to them [the first four] as a group, ‘If all of you commit, we can get this done,’” said Schlatler.
Schlatler’s own company, SVN, will be moving into the Innovation Post, along with Presidio (an IT company), Mud Maintenance (the janitorial staffing company for the Innovation Post and other properties), ProMedica’s IT training division, ProMedica’s security training division and groundUp Creative Agency (a marketing company).
“Business cards have been traded,” said Blake Pilgrim, president of Wurtec, the company taking up the entire third floor, which is the largest amount of space in the Innovation Post. “It’s important for us to be a part of a community that drives innovation, and it’s equally important to see Toledo prosper.”
“It’s the start of a new community, really. This innovative community is coming together under one roof to cross-pollinate,” Pilgram added.
The large atrium of the Innovation Post is marked by a downstairs cafe, a large stairwell with sitting areas along its side and glass walls, fostering a sense of community across the three floors.
“There’s no doubt that some of our engineers will be talking with other engineers [from another company], and they’ll be like, ‘Oh, wow, you guys invested in this software, you know; we should look at that,’” Pilgrim said, about his hope for building community innovation.
Pilgrim thanked SVN and Brandon Sehlhorst, the commissioner of economic development for the City of Toledo, for vision casting what the area around the Innovation Post may begin to look like with the development of these companies downtown.
“We’re bringing 60 to 70 high paying, office positions into that area of our community, and their ability to spend money, whether it be on restaurants or shopping or those sort of things I think, drives other people to continue to invest in that portion of our community,” Pilgrim said.
Wurtec and WorkSpring are preparing to move into the new space May 1.
“The first install is Wurtec,” said John McNerney, owner of McNerney and Sons, who oversees the installation of the office space.
“Each business has their own look and feel of how they want it,” he said, as workers secured workstations on the third floor of the Innovation Post.
Schlatler provided the following diagrams of the Innovation Post, illustrating available areas for rent that range from $375 to $3,925 per month.
Learn more about the property here.
