Allan Appel Photo
Ivette and Roselyn Altieri.
Sisters-in-law Altieri practiced Zumba moves as they put the finishing touches on a dance fitness studio that is helping to turn a 110-year old building into a mini-city for creative and exercise-related businesses.
ViVa! Z Zumba is the 17th business, which range from boxing and martial arts to ballet and aikido, to rent space at 1175 State between Blatchley and James.
Since acquiring it three years ago, State Assets LLC, a New York-based converter of warehouse to loft space, is turning the steel and brick building, which has skylights abounding, into an indoor arcade of studio and gym spaces that run the length of a football field and a half.
The building for decades was the site of the Robby Len swimsuit factory, and before that a repair shop for the long-gone New Haven trolley system.
The new “garage-style” workout studio CrossFit New Haven was one of the first tenants to move in in May 2010. Co-owner Carla O’Brien and trainer Frank DeMatteis said the views of East Rock and the light were, well, inspiring.
Frank DeMatteis and Carla O’Brien.
DeMatteis also likes the trolley tracks that are still visible on the floor of the office.
Last week property manager Henry Katz was busy fixing a door and bringing to a basic finishing another of the spaces in the 250,000 square-foot brick and steel building.
Henry Katz manages 1175 State for State Assets.
The building has two long corridors, each 450 feet long. One side is finished with attractive tiles and visible steel beams. With enough tenants, the plan is to renovate the parallel corridor and create spaces on that spine too, and connect the two into a kind of indoor mall.
When a new tenant like ViVa! Z Zumba signs a lease, Katz can build walls or put in other structures tailored to taste. Katz said that it was never the business plan to rent to so many exercise-related businesses. It’s just worked out that way, though it’s not exclusively so.
The largest space, on the first floor, is 6,000 feet rented to Lumber Liquidators. CrossFit has a similar amount. Two visual artists rent studio space as does a commercial photographer.
At 6 p.m. one recent day, the parking lot was filled with cars and the action was at the range of exercise and dance studios. In addition to CrossFit New Haven and ViVa! Z Zumba, the Connecticut Martial Arts and Boxing Academy was busy with students going through moves in white and black karate suits.
Adjacent to the martial arts studio was the E.S.A. Academy. Elite Sounds of the Arts offers lessons in jazz, hip hop, African, and modern ballet, according to a sign out front. Their door was closed. Another establishment getting ready to open was Fire Horse Aikido. Across from it students were working out to pulsating music at the Connecticut Capoeira Center.
The only retail store in sight, G.T. Robinson Furniture, had a sign up that it is moving and offering a sale at blowout prices.
David Salinas, one of the founders along with Peter Sena, of Digital Surgeons, moved his company in not long after CrossFit, in October 2010. With a marketing and advertising agency specializing in digital media, he said, he was looking for a space that expressed a non-confining quality.
“We wanted loft space,” said Salinas, who serves on the board of the Economic Development Corporation and helped found a young professionals group within the Greater New Haven Chamber of Commerce.
He went on craigslist and saw Henry Katz advertising lofts.
His 3,000 square feet are sleek and minimal, like a set from The Matrix. They look out through huge windows onto East Rock and the light is so ample his staff of 22 engineers and designers rarely need to turn on the electrical lights before 3 p.m. Katz built partition walls for the company along with a zoned heating system, and Salinas and his staff put in their own kitchen and work stations.
As a goof, someone brought in a toy scooter to get more quickly from one end of the football field-sized corridor to the other.
“This building screams creative,” said Salinas, who expressed satisfaction that Katz rents to creative businesses. Even all the exercise studios have a creative feeling, Salinas said. “The landlord is smart who he’s renting to.”
Already there is synergy at work. Roselyn Altieri reported that the parents of some of the kids taking lessons in the Brazilian martial art, capoeira, had expressed interest in taking her classes in Zumba while they waited.
“We’ll feed off each other,” she said.
Katz said on average, 1,000 square feet of space rent for about $750 a month.
Before returning to work, he looked up at the high cathedral ceilings of the corridor. He said the landlord owns a lot of artwork. “Eventually we’ll be doing artistic stuff. [Maybe] Hanging crushed cars.”
Glad that this was covered. We checked out David's space recently and its truly beautiful. When the bridge reopens in the fall it will be great to have this spot connected to Upper State Street.